 And when we say Kashi, it was built as a Yantra with seventy-two thousand shrines and one-hundred and eight main temples. The idea is to connect the micro and the macro or the individual and the universal. We must not only be proud of it, we must preserve it. I bow down to the man for bowing down to those ladies and those hard-working men. The Prime Minister dedicated the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor to the people of the country to believers and devotees and in fact helped realize a dream that had been dreamt by none other than the father of our nation Mahatma Gandhi over a century ago who had wondered when visiting the holy city of Kashi, of Banaras, of Varanasi, why is it that those that we worship cannot be kept in a state that befits them? Why can't we accord our deities the glory that we deserve? Today, Varanasi and Mahadev was restored in the glory that they deserve. The politics aside, what is the significance? Why is this important for us as a country and a culture? Joining us now on the news or agenda, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. Thank you very much, Sadhguru for having spoken to us to begin with, to begin with. As a Shivbhakt yourself, what are your thoughts today? Well, I'm not a devotee of Shiva because he forcefully invaded my life and took me over. So I would say I am a slave but I project it like he's my partner but actually a slave because every step and turn in my life has been guided that way. And I say he's my sleeping partner because he does nothing, I do all the work but everything is his. This is my life. What is my thoughts about Kashi? It's very important that time has come in the world where the world has to move away from divisive dogmas and philosophies and ideologies. This is what Kashi Vishwanath means. Vishwanath, as you know, it means the lot of the world, that means it is for all life on this planet. And when we say Kashi, it's a tower of light. What is the significance of a tower of light? And how does a place become a tower of light? We must understand Kashi as a mechanism. I'm using the word mechanism very consciously because it was built as a yantra with seventy-two thousand shrines and 108 main temples, fifty-four of them for Shiva and fifty-four for Shakti giving equal significance to masculine and feminine and forming a body. It's like a living body, why seventy-two thousand shrines is there are seventy-two thousand prananattis in the body, so it's a mega human being sitting there. And the idea is to connect the micro and the macro or the individual and the universal. So this is an instrument to transform and transcend the human being to areas and spaces that individual human beings by themselves may not be able to do. Not everybody is steeped in spiritual practices. How do they find expression to their longing? Because there is no human being in the world who doesn't have a longing to touch aspects and dimensions of life which are not yet in their life. Everybody wants to. Some people may invest their time and energies to do that consciously, others here and there aspire for it, maybe instead of genuinely seeking within themselves they will have a drink or they will drug or they'll do something. But you must understand all these are aspirations to touch something of the beyond. So here we in this culture, in this Sanatana Dharma we created instruments through which you could touch. Even ordinary people who don't have, who are not steeped in spiritual sadhana, they can also have an opportunity to transcend and transform their way of being. If not in their early life, at least towards the end of their life they must go to Kashi to do this. There have been many attempts like this in the country, there are many places like this. But Kashi is a very, very daring project. A few thousand years ago the size and the complexity and the sophistication of what it is is truly incredible and unfortunately today a lot of it is lost. But this is phenomenal that once again some revival has happened. The first time I went there some journalist came to me and asked, Guru, what is your impression of Kashi? I said, it's fabulous and filthy. They didn't like it. I said, see this is the reality, you better address the filth. Fabulous is there, nobody is missing it. But if you do not address the filth, fabulous could get buried in the filth. Here we are, at last Kashi has a revamp, Kashi has a some amount of if not the whole system being revived, at least a part of it is being revived. I think this will go a long way for many, many people who aspire for this, who want to be there but cannot be there simply because of the way it was being conducted. So this is a huge step in that direction. One must understand this is about Vishwanath. This is about an inclusive process. This is not an exclusive process, this is about everybody. I hope everybody gets this message and also the temple also is conducted in such a way it does not discriminate between one and the other. During times of invasions, during times of occupation, during times of British rule, they evolved rules to stop other people, other nationalities and other religions, they are used to stop at one time. I think that is largely gone, it must completely go. Anybody who wants to come, it should be open to them because this is about Vishwanath ji. Absolutely and when you say it's filthy and fabulous, yes it may offend certain sensibilities but you are an August company because it was the father of our nation who over a century ago said that when people come visit us from across the world and they look at Kashi, what will they think if this is how we keep our deities but why did it take so long? Was it the Orientalism or that you sort of glamourized squalor, why did it take so long to rejuvenate something that was apparent to everyone? See, it's not that we gramalag romanticize our squalor, not at all. I think it's because since pre-independence, there has been a thing but particularly post-independence, we are being shy of our culture because we want to project ourselves like we are westernized and everything because if you have to be modern, you have to be westernized. It's only now in the last five, ten years that there is a resurgence that you can be proud of your culture, you can be proud of who you are. This has come back fortunately in common people. It's a very positive thing because no nation will move forward in a big way if they're ashamed of being who they are. So I think that was a significant part and apart from that, without political will that could have never happened, fortunately it's come together now and it's great. It doesn't matter what is the history, there's a painful history behind Kashi, we can forget that and look forward to how Kashi can be a glorious thing because Kashi, well Mark Twain went on to say it's more ancient than the legends. And when people had not thought of Rome, there was Kashi. When Athens had not really manifested in human mind, there was Kashi. When the phenomenon of Egypt had not happened, there was Kashi. So Kashi is the most ancient living city on the planet and India as a nation, we must not only be proud of it, we must preserve it and nurture it in such a way that it will draw people. Kashi by… by a single… as a single force can handle nearly fifty percent of India's, you know, tourism as such. I must tell you this, when I happened to be in one of the large hotels there near Kashi, in the hotel everybody… I mean everywhere, they were only projecting that place as a destination for Saranath, that is… that is the Gautam Buddha's first place where he thought. But what they forgot was Gautama also came all the way to teach near Kashi because he thought that is the best location for him to teach. But today it was being projected that way, I spoke to the management and told them, what is happening here? There is no mention of Kashi. In Varanasi there is a hotel and no mention of Kashi, it's all about Saranath. They said, no, all our clients are from Japan and other Buddhist countries, nobody else comes. So essentially it had become… this I'm talking about twelve, fifteen years ago, essentially it had become that only very common people, village people, rural people will come to Kashi, the elite will never come to Kashi because of the conditions that were there and only the Buddhist tourists were coming to go to Saranath. We must understand that Gautama himself chose to do his first teaching near Kashi because if at all if you had to teach anything of significance, if at all if you had to get an audience who will understand what you're talking, you had to go to Kashi at that time, that's how it was. And this was a center of knowledge, this was a center of spiritual process, above all a center of transcendence and it's fantastic, it's being at least reasonably revived. Hmm. Would it be an overstatement to say that India could just be on the brink, Sadhguru, of a cultural renaissance, where we finally get to acknowledge ourselves as a culture and a civilization and be proud of it? I would say India is under... in a cusp where if we do a few right things in the next few years we could be a cultural renaissance for the entire world because for the first time we have an anger generation who are... who want everything to be logically correct. They are not willing to take dogmatic teachings, philosophy, philosophies which had no... of no relevance. They want to live here well, they don't want to go to heaven. This has become a strong movement everywhere in the world. I'm traveling across the world, I see everywhere in every university that I go, they are fascinated by what we have to offer because this is one culture which taught through every aspect of life. This is one culture which explored human mechanism like no culture ever explored. I'm not saying this with the pride of being Indian, which I am, but I'm not saying it with that I've looked very closely at various cultures around the world. Nowhere else has anybody looked at human mechanism and the possibilities of being human with as much profoundness and detail as this culture has, I think if we present it properly it is the future of the world. Many people also look at it as a secular state aligning itself with a religion. First Ayodhya, Ramjanmubhoomi and now this. How does one draw the line between acknowledging and accepting your culture and ensuring that the state doesn't side with the religion? See this comes from imported ideas that we have, that we think my religion and your religion. That is… that has never been the toss of this culture. We have always referred to this as sanatana dharma, that means it's an eternal culture. If something has to be eternal, the only way it can be eternal is by being all inclusive. That is… that is the fundamental because this is about human consciousness. This is not about God, this is not about going to heaven, this is about transforming and transcending human consciousness to a different level of experience and understanding and above all an expression of life. So we must understand this. This whole divisions of my religion versus your religion comes from belief systems. This is not a culture of belief systems. This is a land of seekers. Here I do not know is the basis of our existence because we identify with what we do not know because what we know, how much ever we know is just a speck in the universe, but what we do not know is boundless. So we always identified with what we do not know and we were always seekers, we were not believers. This is the fundamental difference between dogmatic, religious processes and spiritual process that one believes something that they do not know, another understands that he does not know and seeks to know. So Sadhguru, would you say because you know there is constantly this dilemma, a lot of people say that if you are head of state, can you at the same time say, yes, I am a Hindu, Hinduism is my culture and at the same time say, yes, we are a secular state, we are a secular government. Can we embrace both? See secularism is a way we administer the country. That means every sort of human being can exist here. This does not mean everybody has to throw away whatever their subjectivity is. You know just now two or three days ago I was talking to a very eminent group of scientists, neurologists, physicists and others from atop university in the East Coast and I was just telling them, see the large power, I mean the last part of nineteenth century and a large part of twentieth century has been spent by science just looking at the physical aspects of the existence with which we have got many comforts and conveniences like never before. We have more comforts and conveniences than any generation could ever imagine. But are we well? We are not well simply because we have never addressed the subjectivity of life. It is time in twenty-first century modern science addresses the subjectivity of life, not only human beings. We have not even seen other creatures are alive. Every day two hundred million animals are slaughtered on the planet. Every day trees are cut, every day things are happening and we are completely ripping the soil apart because soil itself is a living entity. In this culture the farmers never entered the land without bowing down to the land. Without bowing down to the soil he never stepped on it because we address the subjectivity. It is only by addressing the subjectivity, by exploring the subjectivity life will be really good that human beings will experience life in, in its fullness and in its richness. Otherwise we have everything and we have nothing. We have become the most destructive species on the planet because we have addressed only the physical part of life. We have not taken charge of the subjectivity. This is very, very important how we treat each other is essentially lack of subjectivity. We do not even understand the other human being is as alive as me. Forget about trees, animals, soil are completely forgotten those things. But we, most human beings do not understand if you have a different skin color, you are you are… I don't think you are a human being. If you are a different gender, I don't think you are a human being because we have not addressed subjectivity. It is time the scientific focus also moved to, moved towards subjective explorations and this is what Kashi represents. I think this is the future of the world, but we need to present it properly and that's exactly what's being done in Kashi right now. The presentation has improved, nobody can improve Kashi, it is only the present dispensation is improving the presentation of Kashi and that is wonderful. It is so interesting you mention how we treat each other, Sadhguru, because today among one of the many gestures, I don't know if you saw it because you're in a different time zone altogether. The fact that those people who have worked for the last two years, they've used their hands, they've helped construct the entire Kashi Vishwanath Dham, the corridor. The Prime Minister made it a point to go out of his way to honor them as Karmayogis and dine with them. Just that gesture ties in with what you were saying about this representing not just a religion but a culture and a way of being. Would you think? Yes. See this has been the way if you go to… especially in southern India because northern India has lost most of its temples like that. In southern India we have magnificent temples which are engineering marvels by themselves. You'll feel proud of being human. How did they build these temples a few thousand years ago? The kind of engineering that it takes, the precision that it takes. So at any time nobody put their name on it. No architect has signed his name on the temple, this is designed by me. In culture we know who designed it but he never put his name. So as a part of respect, the kings instituted him and a few people around him, you know, like faceless people as deities, actually a small temple for him and all the workers who worked for the temple. This has been our culture, unfortunately monuments have been built like this that once the monument was built, their hands were cut off, their fingers were cut off so that they don't go and build anywhere else. That has been the culture that came from elsewhere but this is very important and I'm, you know, I'm really… I bow down to the man for bowing down to those ladies and those hardworking men who are out there because it is they who build a nation really. And you know the cultures which have come from abroad, that's the final question I want to ask you because that's always been the elephant in the room and always something that we tiptoe around. The fact today that when the corridor was being dedicated to the deities, the prime minister stood there and said that there were terrorists who came and they tried to destroy us but every time there is an orang zeb, this country made sure that there was a Shivaji. Will we ever make peace with a history that we have tried to either deny or whitewash? See, by denial we will not transform. It is very important, we do not identify the present generations of other communities with what the… historically what people did here. It's very important because this is… we need to understand our investment should be for the next generation. How to transform the unborn child, how will they live in this country and in this world? That should be our focus. Well, terrible things have happened to our forefathers. We can't fix that. Nobody can fix the past but we don't have to forget the past because if you forget the past, you may go into the same pit once again. So we must understand we should not connect present generations of people with previous generations of invest, you know, what do you call them, aggressors of the past. It's very important that invaders and today's generations should not be connected. All Indians should look at how we can focus on future generations. The unborn child is our responsibility. We may not see their faces right now, how we keep the land, how we keep this nation, how we keep the world for future generations will… is a clear statement of what kind of human beings we are. And hopefully the unborn child will also grow up confident in the knowledge of what his or her culture is. Pleasure is always, Sadhguru, speaking to you. Thank you very much for joining me and I hope to see you soon in Kashi. Yes, we will. Thank you very much. Namaskar.