 I'm loving that hat and those glasses, man. When you're in America, be American, when autumn. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. In our engineering program at the start of 2020 was absolutely special for me. I see you made some music out of Hasuto Masat Kamaya ha ha ha ha. I'm so thankful that I'm able to go inward and begin to sort of untie some of these, these knots. Look at me, always tomb. Ha ha ha ha ha. But it doesn't have any side effects. It doesn't take away your intelligence. But if you become blissful throughout the day, you are a candidate for Samadhi. Hey, Namaskaram. Good afternoon. Hey, Mahi. How are you doing? I'm fantastic. I'm in Austin, Texas, just in the studio working on some music. How are you, bike rider? Ha ha ha ha ha. We're in an absolutely spectacular place, as you can see. Man, that thing looks amazing. I've never been there, but wow. Matto Tapili, whatever that's called, it's... I mean, today it's called as Devil's Tower, unfortunately, but a very spectacular and powerful space out here. Well, I gotta say, I'm loving that hat and those glasses, man. You're looking like, you know, you're all American right now. I'm digging it. When you're in America, be American. I'm an autumn. Ha ha ha. That's what it is, dude. Well, I gotta tell you, thank you for coming on. This year of 2020 has been outwardly chaotic for so many, even people that I know. And, you know, for being able to go through the inter-engineering program at the start of 2020 was absolutely special for me. Most appropriate time for you. Yeah, because, you know, Dave and I, as Tritonal, we're touring 100, 120 shows a year for the last decade. And we... there's not been a lot of breaks. And so, to be able to do that program and then to be able to continue with my disciplines all this year has been a true blessing for me. So, thank you for that, my friend. Tell me, Chad. It is a... this 2020, I know people are seeing it as a great debacle. It is on many levels. Unfortunately, so many people, nearly a million people have lost their lives. So many people have lost their loved ones. Every day, at least a dozen people that I know well are dying. You know, at least a minimum dozen people. And the worst thing is when people die, their parents die or their brothers or sisters or even spouse dies, they're not even able to go and attend to that. That is a real tragedy. And of course, loss of jobs, loss of businesses, closing down of many, many businesses, all this is there. But one thing we need to understand is, as you said, and the same is true for me, and as long as people or the populations don't move... move towards starvation, which I think in today's world we can take care of largely. Even from our yoga center, we've been feeding over sixteen to eighteen thousand people every day to ensure that those people don't go into starvation. If that one thing doesn't happen, rest of it is, this is a good time to realign ourselves to, you know, it's like a crazy machine running all the time. All of us on full throttle, nobody knows who's holding the steering wheel. So here it is, the machine has come to a kind of, at least as... if not a fault, at least a slowdown. This is the time to take charge of the steering wheel and see where is it that we want to go as human beings. Where is it that we want to drive this planet to? And our own lives too, you know? The destiny, individual destiny is in the common destiny of humanity of this generation. I think this is a time to recalibrate all that. Yeah, it certainly has been for me and it has been for my production partner and from, you know, we produce music and I think for the longest time as musicians start to garner success, you're like, we're traveling all the time, we're in and out of hotel rooms, we're in and out of festivals and venues in Las Vegas and places like India and far off countries that we've never been to before, always on airplanes. You get caught up in this whirlwind of more is better and this paradigm that, how do we reach more fans? How do we have bigger records? How do we play bigger shows? And it's all, it's all just attaining. It can be without conscious awareness of the purpose and a validation of the why. And I feel like this has been the most important time for us to ask ourselves, who am I and how can I be a light of inter-equanimity to share to other people on stage in commercial spaces, in commercial festivals and in commercial venues and concerts. And so, you know, doing the inter-engineering was amazing, but more importantly has been the daily, you know, four or five meditations a day and the chanting of Aam and the hatha yoga and the I see you made some music out of us. Yeah, we did a chat, we did a mantra and made a big dance record out of it. And look, a lot of people, that's going to be well over their heads. It's just going to be another song, another thing. But for the few that are seeking, for the people that are like, what are they up to? It allows for an opening to happen. And, you know, I just, I'm so thankful that I'm able to go inward and begin to sort of untie some of these knots, these energetic knots that are within me, man. It's going to be work, but I think it's the work that we're here to do. Oh, if we don't take care of our interiority, all our external activity, no matter what it is, becomes meaningless because ultimately the only thing that you have is life. Everything else is just an imagination. What is your bank balance? What is the size of your home? What is the model of your car and all the other nonsense is just in your head. The real thing is only your experience of life. How profound it is, how intense it is and how wonderful it is, that's all that is. The life is all that we have, rest is all made up stuff. Yeah. And the Asia program has been absolutely wonderful to be able to just remember some of those basic tenets of, you know, like you say we're in this spacesuit, but not many of us have figured out how to work our spacesuit. And so this year has just been a year for Dave and I to ask ourselves, what do we know who we are? Do we know how to work our spacesuit? Am I inwardly equanimous? Am I blissful? And, you know, the answer is honestly was a lot of times no. And there weren't necessarily tools in place in order to do anything about it. And now there have begun to be some tools. How's the trip been across North America? How has it been for you driving so many miles a day? Are you tired? Are you energized? Do you feel good? I'm good that way. It's just that, you know, weather's been great except after we came towards Dakota and now into Wyoming, the winds are blowing at 50 miles an hour. Taking the motorcycle sideways all the time. A hard job to keep it in the lane is just going away. So these modern motorcycles have so much of shield and you know all the fancy carbon stuff that is taking the wind and becoming like a sail, just pushing it away. How many miles are you guys doing on average a day? Um, till now from the day we left, my motorcycle is right now reading, I think, 3600 something. Wow. So initially we made very good, I mean, riding distances because there were no stops. So we almost did 600 to 700 miles per day. But now last few days we've been talking to this, you know, we've been going to this Indian reservations, talking to this medicine man, the chiefs, and other things. So last three days, we have not done much distance. But we are doing more generation of material we're shooting here. With this background, it's fantastic. So we decided to stay a couple of days and shoot. Wow, that's pretty incredible. You talk into natives. Do you have any experiences or any, uh, any little bits you can share about meeting with those guys or some of their history or maybe just having a moment of presence? Uh, one thing is, you know, there is a certain sense of hope now compared to how they were. They were feeling quite hopeless that, you know, they had no freedom to practice. The religious practices still about, I think, 74 or 76, 1974 or 76. After that, this religious freedom act came and even though it came in enforcement, it did not happen. They feel in the last 15, 20 years, there's more freedom for them to practice their religion. A lot of it has been lost, but certainly elders have kept it alive and trying to bring the youth back into it. They're all very, uh, kind of pained because the young people have gone into alcohol, drugs, everything. So they are striving to get them back to their ways. And, uh, you know, like, uh, I mean, uh, for most of us, an native American means you would have seen them only in the wild west movies. And he was always the epitome of physical fitness and, you know, Iran's miles and whatever, all that stuff. But now everybody has become, uh, you know, taking the shape of the earth. And, uh, that has been a concern for the elders and they are trying to bring their ways of how in, uh, in ancient times, they stayed fit and they stayed well and they were connected to the land all the time. The most significant aspect of their life is their connection with the land. They're trying to bring that back. But, you know, chemicals, alcohol, all these things have taken their, uh, space. But, uh, at least they're feeling hopeful that in the next 15 years, they will have more of their culture living than it has been in the past. Wow. That's, that's, that's heavy for you to hear. And it touches me personally because for, um, so long early in my adult life, I felt, um, I felt cut off and I felt a bit traumatized from, um, at one point early in my childhood. There was, I would say a real connection, but the teachings were, um, always so separating in that if you have the right thoughts and if you believe the right things, then you'll go to the right place. But the others who don't have the right beliefs, they go when they are eternally tormented. And this sort of like upbringing brought me to a place in my early teens where alcohol and drugs weren't the problem. They were a real solution for me early on and they allowed me to feel a sense of inner ease where there had been so much inner turmoil and a sense of inner peace, even though I was below waking consciousness, the, um, the inner pain and suffering was momentarily removed. And for a long time I became deeply, um, addicted and I've been sober now almost 15 years and I've now caught on a treatment facility and a rehab center called infinite recovery. And we have, uh, 10 sober living homes. And so, you know, alcohol and drugs in the United States and all over the world has become a big deal. And as a guy who makes electronic dance music that's, you know, focused on people having fun and experiencing opening through music, there's a lot of people who get caught up in that. And so it's important for me to not only to stay sober, but to awaken so that other people can see that you can change. People can change and I think that a lot of people get caught up in that stuff and they, they feel like it's over and this incarnation's done. People can change if they take that step in time. Otherwise the chemicals can mess up human being in such a way that they become sort of diminished life, you know, the damage is sometimes permanent. So the question is, will somebody wake up in time? He's always the question that now that you're doing this work, if possible for you, you must also take up some Indian reservation and work with them because it is rampant out there and they don't have the same facility and they don't have the same attention from the government. And you know, some of the most impoverished societies are actually reservations and they don't have really means to do that. Having said that, see about this drug and alcohol, I know it's kind of picked up like a huge massive culture among the youth and they think if you are not into it, obviously you're not living. So I must tell you this, this is picking up big time in India also in the urban centers, at least not in the rest of the country, but in the urban centers. So I was in Bangalore and you know, they always invite me to all these under-25 conferences because they think I'm 25. Do I look like that? Do I look like that? You do. You do with that hat. A subclass is definitely you do. So I was in this conference and you know, like about 15-20,000 people are there in an open-air conference and well you can… you can… the smell is all over. At least the marijuana smell is all over the place. So then one of them asked me, these are all young people below 25 but they've become very famous. These are called YouTubers. You know, they've kind of have millions of following and they're doing their own little thing. So they said, Sadhguru, you have so much influence with the government. Why don't you make marijuana legal in India? I said, why not? Marijuana will make it legal. We'll make cocaine also legal. Because… and then we'll make meth also legal. Why go in steps? We'll make everything legal straight away because anyway when something… well the reason why, for example in the United States there was prohibition. There was no alcohol all right. So why they gave into making alcohol legal is not because they suddenly decided it's good for your health or your well-being. Simply because they couldn't control it, the moonshining was all over the place and instead of somebody else making the money, the government decides, okay, let's tax it and make money. So the same thing with marijuana when they're not able to control it, it's all over the place, they will decide to tax it and make money. If cocaine becomes all over the place, probably they'll do the same thing another ten, fifteen years. If meth becomes all over the place, that's what they will do and somebody will of course write an article saying how meth is the best for the growth of your brain. You know? I'm saying these things will happen. This is how society has worked always, not just one society, all societies. This is how they have usually worked. So I said, I will make it no problem. Why is it that you're asking me, you want to go to your university, smoked up, is it? I don't know what's the words in America. In India, smoke, stone is there but that's going too far. I am stoned, you know, always. That's why I'm not showing you my eyes. I am always stoned without any substance. So in India they say tobacco means it's smoking. If they're doing marijuana, it's smoking up. They're smoked up. I said, do you want to go to the university, smoked up? They said, why not? I said, let's do one thing. Let's say we want to take you on a small plane ride, on a little plane we'll give you a joy ride. But the pilot comes smoked up. You want to fly with him? I said, oh, like this. I said, okay, you don't seem to get it. You need a major surgery right now and you see the surgeon comes smoked up. You want the surgery? They said, no. So you clearly understand in some way your faculties are impaired. And why with impaired faculties you want to go to the university? You say, I don't want to go to the university, that's fine with me. You want to go to the university with impaired faculty, what is the point of that? You clearly understand something is down in you but you say you're high. I said from now on don't use the word high. Whenever you smoke you say I'm down because that's the appropriate word. Because something is down, nothing is up, all right? You think you're high simply because it's giving you a chemical high for some time and you will go down naturally. So the simple thing is just this, this is something all youth should understand and strive for. See the greatest chemical factory in the most sophisticated and complex chemical factory in the universe that we know of is this human mechanism. If you know how to manage it, you can be always blissed out, stoned. Look at me, always stoned. But it doesn't have any side effect. It doesn't take away your intelligence, it doesn't put you down, it doesn't take away your awareness. Today there is much research in this direction, this Shah, I mean the inner engineering what you did was only the online thing. The Shambhavi Mahamudra practice which is a completion program, unfortunately we're not able to do it right now. With this practice, ninety days of practice, they are saying the, you know, some of the universities, this Rutgers University, Harvard, Florida and other Indiana universities, they all came together and did a research on this practice. And they said your BDNF that is the brain-derived neurotropic factors are up three hundred percent. And your cannabinoid receptors, your cannabinoid endocannabinoids that is within the body, there's a production of cannabinoids, that is up by seventy percent always. So all the time we are on dope, but internally. So because of this, you're always joyful, blissful, no stress in you, but it doesn't take away your awareness, it makes you extremely aware. This is what humanity needs. Only thing is, it is within you and you have to do something to access that. Instead of that, you're going and picking weeds outside, which is, you know, a poor substitute. Yep. Poor substitute and it leaves you high and dry. No, it makes you down, not high, down, down and down. The trick part is when you're a young kid and come from a broken home or an impoverished neighborhood and you don't have the teaching and even if you did, don't buy into the teaching, a lot of kids go for whatever's there and in front of them. And so your message and the message that, that this can happen for people is vital, in my opinion. So that is what is most significant about these times. That is, this is the first time in the history of humanity that we can sit here. See, I'm here in Wyoming, you are there in Texas and somebody may be there in Bangalore or somewhere else, but now sitting here we can speak to just about anybody in the world. This is the first time that we are able to communicate to the entire world. At such a time, if we do not bring transformation in humanity, that means we just don't care. That's all that means. See, never before, maybe many, many people have come, many mystics, yogis, realized beings have come in the past, great beings have come. But if they speak hardly ten people can hear. This, this was a condition. But today you can sit here and speak to the entire world. When this possibility is there, if you do not transform the world, it is a clear statement, you don't care a damn for the humanity around you. Yeah, that's right. That's a thousand percent. And I have a couple of questions that I thought that I've got to ask you because this is obviously a massive moment for me personally. And I know that I wanted to know, in your opinion, on the Korea transmission, if you felt like the Korea transmission could be done effectively through the teachings alone, like in the SRF technique or other techniques that leave the teachings as the guru, or if you felt like you need a physical guru or a physical being on the planet to have effectiveness with the Korea, with the Korea transmission. See, if you want to transmit Korea, there has to be some kind of a source, a power source. Is it a physical human being or is it a form that people have established or is it some other source that they've established? We do not know. But if you, you need a power source, without that you cannot transmit because if you transmit, you need something, a source. So one important reason why online and other things we've been hesitating, but right now we are working on a system as to how to do it probably in the month of November or December, we may do a transmission for a large number of people, the Korea transmission online. But now what we are setting up is, we are setting up over a hundred instructors who will talk to each one of them and prepare them. All we want is those three-and-a-half to four hours that I need to transmit this, they must be absolutely there. They should not be attending to their phone, they should not be talking to their family, they should not go for a bathroom break. They must be absolutely with that. If they pay that kind of attention, we can do that. But the risk of they not paying that attention is very high. So we are running a probably a week-long preparatory steps with the teacher, with the instructors, so that the necessary preparation has been done and then we will do the transmission. This is the first time we are attempting this. In terms of transmission, it is not a problem because I have initiated more people that I have not seen and met than people that I have seen and met. When the need arises in them and they are open, wherever they are, we will always try to initiate them. So that can be done. Distance is not the problem. The problem is the attention. If we can manage the attention from the other end, we can transmit Korea long distance. That's awesome. Well, congrats. That's exciting. That's going to be massive for the world and massive for a bunch of people who can't do Shambhavi right now because of COVID. So that's awesome. I have another one. This as a Westerner and as somebody who is usually touring all the time, a householder, a dad who has got twin boys and a little girl, as an entertainer who is constantly traveling like yourself and trying to meditate up to four times a day, are there any psychological and physiological indicators of somebody when they are doing disciplines eagerly and rigidly over time that would indicate that they are coming up on a Samadhi-like experience? Are there any signposts? Are there any things that we should look for? See, this question comes from various aspects. One important aspect that I would like to knock off before we go into the subject is generally people think an inner experience means something spectacular should happen, fireworks should happen. Tell me, even if we set up fireworks, how long can we make it last? Yeah, it's up and down and then you open your eyes and it's up and down. So the important thing is not that, that steadily you're going up is important. Here and there we can have a little firework show. That's okay, but that is not the goal. The important thing is we must be steadily going up. First of all, let's understand what is Samadhi. Samadhi means, sama means equanimous, the means buddhi or the intellect. When your equanimous becomes inter… I mean when your intellect becomes equanimous, you're in a state of samadhi. There are different types of samadhi. Generally it is categorized as eight different stages of samadhi. So let me not go into the detail of these categories. The important thing to understand is the very function of the intellect is to discriminate. You are able to discriminate what is the soil, what is the tree, what is the stone, what is the human being, only because your intellect is functioning. Now if you make it equanimous, that means in some way you will not see the discrimination, you will experience life as one big hole because intellect is a knife which is cutting the universe into small segments of pieces for your experience. Now when your experience becomes ureified, that is intellect is not doing this function, it is alert but it is equanimous when it becomes. Now I'm sitting here behind me this beautiful, you know, Matto Tapili is standing up. Suppose you can't make out the difference between this and that. This is samadhi. I'm putting a very stark example. But in your inner experience, every human being is experiencing some states of minor samadhis. Somewhere they put down their intellect and you know, they experience some kind of togetherness. You can call it love, you can call it affection, you can call it you know, friendship but some moments where discriminations are taken away and there is some sense of togetherness. But now the question is to maintain this every moment of your life. So simple way of seeing whether I'm moving forward or not is when you wake up in the morning, well if you're unwell, if something else, let's leave that. Let's say you're perfectly healthy, you wake up in the morning, how does it feel to wake up in the morning? Waking up in the morning is a very important ritual in the yogic culture, how you wake up in the morning. So when you wake up in the morning, does a smile naturally appear on your face or do you have to smile or are you in some kind of a blissed out state when you wake up in the morning? Or are you tense when you wake up in the morning? Are you agitated or before you wake up already you're bothered about something? These are simple indicators. If you notice there is a certain equanimity when you wake up in the morning, well it's a good sign. Just keeping that through the day is what it is. Don't look for spectacular fireworks because those fireworks will never last. But if you become blissful throughout the day, you are a candidate for samadhi, for sure because the number of troubles that are going on in everybody's lives, okay? There is nobody's lives which is all perfect. If you have to be blissful, you have to be equanimous, otherwise there's no way. There must be samadhi in you for you to be blissful through the day irrespective of the situations that are going on. If you go in reaction or in judgment of the situations that are happening in our life, nobody can be blissful on this planet. Unless somebody is wearing those, you know these days they're wearing those, what are those goggles which are giving them virtual reality and they're in lala land I'm saying. VR, maybe. VR glasses. That's great. That's great. And I think that that's a great indicator. I was wondering about you travel all the time. You're always on airplanes. You're always in different countries. As an entertainer, we were on airplanes literally every weekend going across the world. And I found that I've been home so long this year that a routine has been so key in garnering these states of inter-equanimity. And there's a part of me that's a bit fearful and worried about being out on the road up all night, you know late nights, early flights, hotel or airplane food, airport food. Do you have any advice about just preparing myself as an entertainer for inter-equanimity and love with the touring regiment that can be that taxing? Well anyway you said you're sober so I don't have to advise you on that one. You're only sober at home or are you sober on the planet? I've been sober completely sober not a drink in 15 years but just the travel and just being up all night and just it's the no sleep is so brutal. Yes, travel definitely takes it toll how to minimize that toll is the simple thing is when you're an airplane eat as little food as you can and if you eat anything generally a fruit or something just drink lots of water. I know people have to learn to live with empty stomach. Empty stomach is not a bad thing. Hunger is a different thing. See what the mechanism of hunger is certain acids are working on the stomach lining and they create a craving that you must eat. If you drink a glass of water well the acids get diluted and it goes away. If you put one fruit or something the acids get diluted and it goes away. So you can easily postpone it like that whatever you know I'm you probably going to Europe and other places I'm on fifteen hour flights you asked to India. So it is also a time to rest, to meditate and do whatever and the one important thing is people think when they are flying or when they're on a journey they must talk endlessly about something. Well that's one time that I you know though it is difficult for me the crew and everybody comes and they want to talk to me if I'm flying the Indian airline all this kind of stuff is there I keep a little time for that rest of the time I just drink lots of water maybe read something write something or meditate that's about it and above all it is the anxiety of what will happen next which will make people very tired when they're traveling either how up to halfway travel they're back home still you know trying to fix the home which they can't fix anyway and the next half of the travel they're anxious about what will happen after they will land if you give up this one thing travel is a nice time because at least you're caged in an aluminum case where you can't run away anywhere nobody come and do anything to you you just there all by yourself up in the sky so it's a good time actually to settle down and be nice actually I recover very well in travel because on the land I'm too busy in the air I'm much better off so a big part of how you stay so energetic is the fact that you're only eating about one meal a day and that that long recovery time of no eating is allowing your energy systems to stay up because your body's not digesting food that's so an important aspect that but if I have a lot of physical activity I do eat something in the morning if let's say right now I'm riding I'm eating in the morning or in case I go off I eat in the morning otherwise if normal activity which is not physical in nature then you skip the morning thing the important thing about the body is there is something called a ingestion digestion assimilation and excretion if one is conscious of all the four aspects of food people are only conscious about ingestion they are not aware about how digestion and assimilation is happening and whether excretion is happening or not excretion is not only from the alimentary canal excretion needs to happen even on the cellular level so one must be conscious whether today I've eaten something if I'm feeling little dense how much break should I give before I put food into my system it's not like you use the word routine routine is one thing you should not do you must observe today the body needs this much food you eat that much tomorrow it may not need that much every animal is aware of this you see even if you have a dog at home certain days he refuses to eat but these days they have made him so stupidly disciplined that he eats every day otherwise naturally uncertain days that he won't eat he likes to eat some grass or something and puke and you know he does his own cleansing system for himself so all creatures are aware human beings are using their intellect to decide what they should do no no you must observe see this is the fundamental thing we have given because of the education systems that people go through we have given too much significance to our thought not to our attention our attention is the greatest thing we have not our thought our thought is a kind of a you know product of little data that we have gathered that's not going to get us anywhere it's our attention the keenness and intensity of attention which can take us from one dimension of living to another that's that's good that's really good um I know you don't like to talk about things that are hard to language but just personally I think that I'd love to know ever since your enlightenment experience going forward from that time which we've all read the story and most people have who are familiar with your path when you meditate now are you often in some state of samadhi if not nervy kapa or do you still have to go through the sort of prakti ahara interiorization process and get deeper and deeper like people who have not experienced a full awakening is that is that different for you now where you just close your eyes and boom you're all the way in well I mean I don't want to sound like a brag you don't even have to close your eyes it's not essential that you must close your eyes you're closing your eyes only to cut off the world but the world is never in my way so I don't have to necessarily close my eyes yeah that's awesome that's so good I've never seen the world as being in my way I just see that also as one more possibility so so good thanks for coming on with me today it's been awesome man wonderful make good music huh maybe one day I will sing for your band you know what and we often do spiritual spoken word over sort of deep melodic really hypnotic um rhythms and we've used uh Ram Dass and Eckhart Tolle I would love to sometime be able to sample a guided meditation or a bit of spoken word and hook up with the isha team and and work with you guys on a Spotify release I think that would be super super cool okay great talking to you are wonderful thank you so much we'll see you soon okay bye bye