 all those books behind you scaring me that you're such a scholar and I'm like this. Because I've heard about you from many friends of mine and I saw the transformation in their lives. Even when little children, teenagers see me they say, hi Sadhguru, which is a good thing that people are relaxing into the spiritual process rather than approaching it being too constipated about everything. Thank you very much. Sadhguruji, it's a great pleasure to be here with you. Namaskaram, William, wonderful to talk to you. As I said, all those books behind you scaring me that you're such a scholar and I'm like this. Well, you're a powerful presence in a powerful landscape right now. I can see that both, you know, the landscape you're in is so beautiful and you're seated in that landscape and I think, you know, drawing something from that landscape. It's been really good to meet you because I've heard about you from many friends of mine and before I even heard about you in the work of Isha Foundation, I saw the transformation in their lives as they became involved with the foundation and its work. And then when I asked them how, what was happening in their lives, they said, you know, they had encountered a wonderful force and that force was, that force was you and the work of the foundation and it really transformed their lives. And I know there are millions of people around the world who benefited so much. They're just passing the buck for their well-being to me. They… that's very original of you, Sadhguruji, because they always say it's because of you, that they began a dialogue with themselves. And, you know, a very good friend of mine many, many years ago said that Sadhguru taught me to begin a dialogue with myself and that's been something in the work, the meditation that I've done at the foundation has really helped me, you know, make a path to myself, make a path to my inner self. And I thought that was a really profound and very beautiful thing they said about the path that you've chosen and the path that you've helped many people embark on. And so, you know, I thank you for that. There are only two things with our life. Either one thing is the profoundness of our experience, another is the impactfulness of our activity. This is all there is in our lives, profoundness of experience, impactfulness of our activity. What else is there? There's nothing else. And, you know, as I was really intrigued, Sadhguruji, that you decided to get on a motorbike, I know you love motorcycles and travel across America at a time like this. You know, it's a time of great change in America and great… there seems to be a real outpouring of so many things. What are you seeing as you travel across America? America seems largely normal wherever you go except maybe theaters and restaurants are not much but traffic on the highways are normal. Truck traffic is full on. People are moving about normally whole lot of people are wearing masks. Some very brave people are going around without masks, okay, in some parts of the country. But essentially almost everything seems to be normal outwardly and especially all these… right now I'm at the Grand Canyon. Everything is jam-packed with tourists. When I inquired about, you know, we were in Harvey Park and it's all crowded, I asked what's happening so many people. So they were telling me it is three times then what it is during a normal season. Everybody's traveling because children are going… are not going to school. Everybody's traveling and traveling is safest way to be because you're away from everybody else, you've secluded. And especially for me, motorcycle is definitely social distancing, you know. Yes, that's one advantage of a motorcycle. Unless you have someone riding on the back, of course. Your journey reminded me of a book that I'd read earlier on in my life when I was a student and that book was about another motorcycle journey. It was both a physical journey and a spiritual journey and the author was one of America's best known authors of the 20th century, Robert Persigan. You know, he wrote, you know, he said something very profound in his book. He said the only Zen you can find on the tops of the mountains is the Zen you take there. And he said that in… his motorcycle journey became like a story of a spiritual awakening. Have you found… how have you found people when they meet you in America, what is their reaction been? Well, generally the reaction is initially of surprise because they think an Indian guru must be a little disabled, you know. He can't walk, he can't stand, he can't sit. He must be like that and except for chanting a mantra, he should not be able to do anything. So, they're a little surprised in the beginning, but I think I've cooled their surprise in the last few years if they've known me even a little bit. It's fine and I find because of the identity, just as a safety, you know, like there's a little Satguru on my helmet with my blood group and stuff like that. Because of that, even though I'm fully helmeted and they can't see my face, people are recognizing on this… on the roads and shouting at me, waving at me, all this. Because this is one thing I have changed that from… guru means always demanding respect and reverence to kind of aspiration that we could be like this. It is not like I am somebody that they cannot access. Like even when little children, teenagers see me, they say, hi Sadhguru, they won't say Namaskaram and bow down to me or something, they will shout at me and this and that, which is a good thing that people are relaxing into the spiritual process rather than approaching it being too constipated about everything. Because this is not a… spiritual process is not a restriction, it's an empowerment. This is the message I've been trying to convey all my life and I think it's gotten across pretty good these days. One… what are the interesting things I find, Sadhguruji, is that a lot of the people who have been influenced by the work of the Isha Foundation are business leaders and thought leaders in business and… and I was interested when business insider came and said, you know, we are… we want to do something about sustainability in business and about, you know, conversation between you and Sadhguruji on this idea of sustainability in business. What do you think about sustainability in business? Definitely businesses or any human activity if it has to sustain, it has to be managed in a way that, you know, it has a long-term projection. But right now, because of our, you know, like a free enterprise which is a good thing that everybody is involved, we have moved from what was used to be called as capitalism, which means capital was available only for a small group of people to a market economy where everybody can participate. If anybody has a good idea and shows some ability to execute that idea, capital will come to them today, at least with a little bit of struggle maybe, but it'll come to them, which was never possible a hundred years ago or two hundred years ago. At that time, let's say in India, probably twenty-five families held the capital. Nobody else had any possibility of ever getting any capital. In United States, maybe one hundred families held the capital, nobody else was capable of raising capital. So one thing you see is a whole culture of crime in this country because they were trying to raise capital, you know, because only a few people held the capital or few people holding the financial strings of an entire society itself is a crime. So that is changing with market economy. All kinds of entrepreneurs from variety of backgrounds are coming and participating in the economic process, which is good. At the same time, because of the population growth from twentieth century, from the beginning of twentieth century in 1910, we were just 1.6 billion people. Today we are 7.6 or 7.8 billion people, whatever the number. And because of the number of people getting into economic activity and the consumption going high, it looks like business is the culprit. Business is not the culprit, population is the culprit. But nobody wants to address that. Because now even business people are saying big population is good for them because they are thinking numbers. They are not thinking of innovation. They are not thinking of sustainability. They are only thinking of numbers. Quarterly balance sheet to balance sheet they are going. Definitely all business leaders have to think little more long term. This quarterly balance sheet kind of push could cause serious damage to their own businesses and to the planet of course. It is very easy to rattle off numbers about what is the damage this business right now, textile business. People will say it is causing this kind of damage, that kind of damage, which is true. I am not saying no. That is because one thing is the number of people that we have. Another thing is our consumption has gone up because this more, more is better is not only in the minds of a business person, it is in the aspiration of every human being. So sustainability will not happen just because businesses think about it, because these are all related relationships. How much you produce, how much they consume, how much they throw in the street, all these are related to a whole cultural experience of living in a given society. So changing that is going to, is a whole mass movement. Right now we are in the process of looking at how to create a conscious planet and it will not happen without a policy nudge. I know none of the business people will like it but at some point some policy nudges have to come in terms of incentives and some kind of you know penalty for not being a sustainable business. This is coming but in a very slow manner. See the problem is this, the degradation of the ecological condition on the planet, particularly in a country like India. Because the population and the land proportions are so unrealistic that the number of people who are trying to sustain themselves from the little bit of land that you have is probably we'll pay the biggest price. We will pay the biggest price before any other nation or a few other Asian nations like Bangladesh and others will pay the price. So whatever the western societies are talking, whatever the large nations in the world are talking, they are sitting in a very pretty proportion of land and people. For example, United States is sitting in a very comfortable land people proportion and you know they are trying to manage their population. The walls are coming up, things are happening, policies are changing because they are conscious if the population increases the pressure on the land will be heavy and many things will happen. It is today a political debate and I know I don't want to get into the politics of it. I am not an approver of the wall or not approver of the wall. It is… I am just saying that populations have increased. Everybody is talking how more population is better for business. Unfortunately I hear this from so many business leaders. They don't understand that with… See right now here the buffalo population, I went for a buffalo round up in South Dakota. I asked them what is this about? They rounded up about 1500 buffaloes and on that day they deciding how many buffaloes should be culled. So I am saying you understand for a given piece of land how much population of a particular species can exist. With other animals you are taking the liberty of culling them. But with us when we have postponed our death and increase our life expectancy, we must also postpone the birth. You cannot cull a human being, all right? But unfortunately you will end up doing it because if you don't do it consciously, nature will do it to us in an extremely cruel manner. Just to give you if I have the time, is it okay? Yes, absolutely, Sadhguru. This is very interesting. See for example, right now in the… you can check it out, probably you are already aware of this because cotton growing country in southern India, in the peak summers, let's say in the month of mid-May, if you come to Tamil Nadu, where the borewells are going a thousand to twelve hundred feet, most pumps will run only for five to seven minutes and they go dry. They will wait for another two, three hours, again pump five to seven minutes. If two consecutive monsoons fail, believe me, millions of people will die without water. Once there is a water strife, the civil strife that will happen, all the things that we are trying to do with the nation, building this nation into a powerful commercial force and economic possibility, all this will go waste. In a matter of few weeks, if real civil unrest breaks out in a large-scale fashion, nobody can control it. When people don't have water to drink, it'll go off. So I am telling you the worst case scenario. But the worst case scenario is not too far away because there is a record that once in every thirty-five to thirty-seven years, two consecutive monsoons have failed in the past. So when is that situation going to come? Are we really capable of providing drinking water to every village if it goes dry? Every pond, every lake, every well, if it goes dry in summer, are we capable of piping water to all of them? Well, right now there is a huge project to lay pipelines, but that is all from the local water. If the local water dries up, pipeline also will be dry. You'll only have pipes but no water. See, the aspirations of the nation, the plans of the leadership and the business plans that business leaders have, everything is fine. I am very much with it. But if we do not take care of a few fundamentals of environmental sustainability, well, in a country like India where the population and land ratio is so heavy, not favorable to the human beings, the price that we pay will be very, very unfortunate. I feel either in this generation or the next generation such things should not happen. So working on this is not just the responsibility of the business. Yes, business has a big responsibility. The government, the business, the social leaders and environmental forces, we need to sit down and see what are the immediate steps we need to take. We've been trying to bring this and a few policy changes we have made in the last few years which are good. But center makes policies but the states hold a geography. All right? Center doesn't hold any geography. So a few states immediately incorporate but now it's become like this in the country. It's all everything is seen political. All right? Nobody is looking at the well-being of the people, well-being of the nation. If the central government says something, states ruled by a position will say no, no matter what. I'm saying this must go both in the people, in the voters, in the political establishments. What is good for the country and what is a political slugfest? There must be a differentiation. Unfortunately, there isn't any, it doesn't matter what you say. Everything they identify you with this party, that party. This party is about the nation. We need to remember that. We just seem to have forgotten. Thank you for those inspiring words, Sadhguruji, because it seems like you're giving a call, a very powerful call to businesses. And I'm reminded of something that Gandhiji that we all read in school, that famous quote of Gandhiji that was painted on the walls that said, God forbid that India should ever take to industrialization after the manner of the west, keeping the world in chains. If our nation took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts. And Gandhiji said this and said, the world has enough for everybody's need, but not for everybody's greed. And it seems, you were echoing with this call, Sadhguruji of yours, this call to business leaders, you're echoing that look, we need to reinvent some of the rules of business, because if we continue with from what I've heard you say today and before, that if we continue along this path, this path of mindless consumerism, we might end up stripping the world of all its resources and water being the most precious of those resources, but air is another one. And the environmental maybe crisis of our age is something, would you like to talk about that a little, because it's something I think that business leaders need to hear from you about. This is something if I speak too strongly, please pardon me because however strongly I speak, if I shout, it is still not enough, but I'm not going to shout. I was at the United Nations and they asked me, Sadhguru, if there are three things that you can suggest for India, what are the solutions, three things that we should take care of. I said the three things are soil, soil and soil. That's our real problem. Everybody's thinking industry is the main problem. Industry throws effluence into the rivers. You can control it. If you tighten up your system, government system, you can control it into your time, everything, all effluents. The only thing you have to do is don't ask the polluting industry to fix it. Set up treatment industry as an industry by itself, no polluting industry should treat their own waters. Treatment industry should treat it. When your pollution is my business, will I let you make it go into the river? I will not. About air, see air is an issue because there are automobiles and automobiles on the road because public transport is not efficient, it is not dignified to travel through public transport. Now some daily metro, something else come where people say it is good, I have not been there. But largely, especially for women, it is not a dignified process to travel through public transport yet, unfortunately. We have not created that level of public transport. And for everything we will talk socialistic steps. Why don't we make public transport a priority in the cities and make it... I know this will say, people will say I am working for economic segregation, I am a capitalist, I am corporate guru, this that nonsense. But I am saying the reason why particularly women don't want to travel through public transport and many others don't want to is by the time you reach office, you will be dripping sweat, all right? You don't want to go to your office like that and jostling and pushing and this and that. So why don't you make it that those who can afford, they pay at least fifty percent of what it costs for their car to be driven without the hassle of a car, you driving through the traffic. I am saying much more expensive, properly air conditioned, no jostling, no standing, everybody sits in their seats and goes to their office. Still there will be vehicles on the road but that will be short term. All these woobers and other things have come from where you drop off in a train to your office, something can be done. Various possibilities are there. I am not saying there's one magic wand solution but we should reduce the number of vehicles on the road. Everybody wants to own a vehicle, let them own a vehicle but every day they need not use it. They can use it on the weekend when they want to take their family out or do something. Going to work, especially now most people are working on their computers and stuff. In the train itself you can work, in the bus itself you can work. All buses which are fitted with air conditioning and Wi-Fi, people are traveling for forty-five minutes, one hour, they can work and go. The employer also will be happy, you're working on the way, even if you come ten minutes late, who cares because you've been working one hour early. So apart from this corporations, I would request you also but you are not that kind of industry, proper... especially the software industry and industries which have large offices where, let us say, minimum 5,000, 10,000 people are working in one setup. See, I was driving in San Francisco. I am seeing in the evening around 4.30. The traffic is jam-packed on the road that I am driving and opposite side also it's packed up. So I went for a talk in that San Francisco club and all the business people who are there, see, I see what is it, all of you are intelligent people, all right? You guys have built big businesses, obviously you've got brains to do things. Why is it that people who live here work there and people who live there work here, what is the point of this? Why are we not... Okay, at one time it happened, we didn't... our cities were not planned and it happened. Now I came up with a concept and said, like, for example, in India and Bangalore, I am trying to push this with some builders, 50 acres of land, let it be even 50 or 75 or 100 kilometers away from the city, 50 acres of land, only one acre you build a tall building of 50 floors, okay? Actually you have two FSI, you can go 100 floors but let's say 50 floors, remaining 49 acres, turn it into forest, lay, spawns, whatever you want, no waste going out of this place, no electricity lines coming into this place, everything can be done right there. So people live there, work there, up to seven standards, school can be there, small amount of shopping can be there, five days in a week you don't step out of your building, you don't start your automobile. Weekend you want to drive to the city or you want to go somewhere else, it's up to you. So if you own vehicles, you use it only on the weekends, every day you don't have to drive because it's no more a pleasure to drive in the Indian city and the number of people are dying, I'm saying in a small city like Coimbatore city, every day about 12 to 14 people die, natural and other things. In this three to four people are road accident cases, can you beat it? A small city of 1.5 million, about three to four people die within the city limits. What dies on the highway, you know those big numbers, but I am saying in every city this is happening, how many people are losing their lives, how many are losing their limbs, they say every 12 minutes somebody is losing a limb. Every some one and a half minutes are something there is a fracture. So WHO is saying India is aspiring to become a world leader. In another 25 years the number of cripples you will have in your country, there is no way you're going to be a world leader because everybody is getting enjoyed, everybody is getting losing their limbs, the number of people, if you look at this it'll run into millions in a couple of decades. So all this can be avoided, people can live well especially our children can grow up well. Right now if our children step out of their threshold of their house, they're bang into the traffic. Most homes are like this, if they step out they are on a dusty, terrible street where they cannot play, where they cannot do anything safely. Every dwelling can be made like this, there is substantial space and above all for the kind of population pressure we have, if you don't go tall and if you do not create an ecosystem around it, this really, I mean most of the cities are unlivable. Those who can afford a putting a big walls and trying to create a little illusion of their own world, all right? But that's not going to work for a long time either. So having said this, the most important thing is soil because what we need to understand is 84% of India's land is largely farmed, it is under plow. Nobody wants to say this, I am saying this most unpopular thing because everybody likes to hit industry because industry will pay up if you hit them, all right? Unfortunately this is how our environmental activism is running, you hit the industry hard and they will pay up and quiet in you. But the real thing is agriculture because our real problem is degradation of soil. The biodiversity loss that's happening in India is immeasurable. It is said in another 30 years nearly 60% of Indian soil will be uncultivable. How are you going to produce food for this 1.3, 1.4 billion people? How are we going to do it destroying the soil? A soil which has nourished us with over 12,000 years of agriculture practices. Today in 50 years time we are destroying it because the only way to keep the soil rich is there must be a tree litter and animal waste. Without that there is no organic content and the top soil that we are destroying is life. These 39 inches of top soil on an average that we have literally sustains 85% of the life on this planet including us. But that is going away at a rapid scale and 52% of India's soil right now declared as degraded, 40% declared as fallow. So where are we planning to go? The only thing that every one of us should focus right now is how to upgrade the soil. You cannot upgrade the soil without creating substantial organic content. The source is always the trees and the animals. So, Sadhguruji, it's clear that you have very strong ideas and you have what you just shared with us today is a powerful call to business leaders and government leaders. And you're in a position where you can influence both business leaders and government leaders today. Do you think policy, for example the policies that the government puts on businesses and farmers and tax policy also should be gauged by the impact a business has or an enterprise has on the environment? So for example, one of the companies that we run is called Organic India and it works with farmers. And one of the things that we try to do is soil conservation. Now this is part of our mission to create a sustainable business. Do you think that government should support those measures and say if I ran a business that produced something that was harmful for the environment, harmful for human health, as opposed to producing something that employed people in a way that didn't do any damage to the environment, that maybe helped regenerate the environment? Do you think that they should be a clear like today, any business person, if you make a profit, you're taxed whatever percentage on the profit that you make. Tomorrow, governments say that right, if you have a business that will that will generate these social goods, let us see you running a business that creates compost out of waste. Those businesses will not be taxed and we will tax other businesses more heavily. Are you an advocate of something like that, Sadhguruji? See, what you're saying is globally relevant in the sense, I would say next seven to eight years, if in the next whatever summit 2020 there is to be a summit, the ecological summit, if all the governments agree, next seven to eight years there must be heavy incentives for all those who restructure their businesses to be sustainable, whatever those standards are. And after eight years, there must be heavy penalty for those who do not restructure. Eight years is a good amount of time for everybody to strive to turn their businesses around, but it'll not be fair if you treat the textile industry and let's say steel industry the same way, an automobile industry the same way. Elaborate policies need to be arrived at depending on the sector of industry because some sectors naturally are polluting, naturally are that kind, okay? But we all of us are using those products. So if a elaborate policy can be brought out and then you say eight years of time for you to turn around, you have incentives and incentives for being sustainable, but beyond eight years of time if you don't turn around, there is a heavy penalty to pay. Penalty is not in terms of imprisonment or something else, not like that, but as you said taxes, tax is a good way to, you know, business is trying to make profit. If you increase tax by even two percent, they will make necessary changes, all right? But incentives are the better way to go because incentives will bring innovation. Without innovation, just penalties are not good. Innovation must happen and businesses must be given at least eight years time to innovate with incentives. If you're making serious innovations in your business, then tax reliefs must be there for you. So this evaluation, this may be very complex, it's easier said than done, but it's time we start that process for sure. So Sadhguruji, if you were to advise governments on policy and there was an opportunity to put a waste tax so that if let's say you're buying a bag of potato chips, which is made in a plastic film container, now one concept could be that you say that, okay, you're paying 30 rupees for the potato chips, but 10 rupees has to be for the guy who brings that empty container back to a recycling depot. Are you in favor of taxes on products that cannot be recycled easily, that have to be brought to recycling centers, like say a pair of running shoes? Now there's a lot of synthetic material in that running shoe that if, you know, once I flooring somewhere and I found a trail and years ago some must have thrown away a running shoe because many years later it was still there. Why did it run away without the shoes? I don't know. Why did the guy run away with the shoe? But it's interesting that these are products that are sitting in the bottom of the ocean, sitting in the bottom of our rivers, they're polluting, you know, divers go down and they bring up this stuff. So do you think there should be some kind of incentive system so that anytime you buy a product which has a high degree of synthetic components in it that do not biodegrade easily, you have to pay, there is a sum of money to return that product to a recycling center. Do you think, because that could spawn a whole new set of industries in recycling, like employing hundreds of thousands of people in a, in a recycling industry? So yeah, many innovations like this have been made. In Russia and some of the, in Moscow I think, in the local trains, if you do twenty-five sit-ups your ticket comes free. Like this there are many things but they're too small scale to make a big difference. But in India I hear more than ninety percent of the pet bottles are recycled, not because of anything else, because of poverty, people are going on the street and picking out every piece of plastic that is there. You can unfortunately call this a kind of employment but children are involved, women are involved in most unhealthy conditions. We are, first of all we are not cultivating a responsible way of using the product. People keep on saying, plastic must be banned, plastic must be banned. When I said, see plastic is one of the best products we have come up with, something that can be recycled a thousand times over is a great product. Irresponsible usage is what we need to correct. Right now you want to throw the baby with the bathwater because there is a problem. Plastic is not the problem. Irresponsible human beings who don't know how to use plastic is the problem, isn't it? So bringing responsibility to the citizenry, giving incentives to the business all these are needed. But I feel what you said just now, a potato chips, a packet taking it back. I'm telling you in United States, even if you say you will give five dollars for let's say you're paying four to five dollars for a potato chip, even if you say I'll give back fifty percent of the money, most people will throw it in the trash can and go, they may not take the trouble of going back. So it all depends on the economic scale of a given society, where the society is. In India they're picking up every pet bottle because for them whatever 100, 200 rupees they gathered in a day is livelihood for them. So I don't think there is any one solution. Everything must be looked at. Incentives for the citizens, incentives for the business, the retail business, incentives for the manufacturers and incentives for the government also. The world body should create incentives for the government if they make policies where it'll hurt them a little bit but long term it's going to make a difference. So everybody should have incentives for a certain period of time when that period is over then penalty should come. Right now we try to mix carrot and stick, carrot and stick. People will find ways to escape that. See incentives and a campaign to create awareness, if it happens together then penalties will come. Then people will see right now in United States if you… if somebody lights up a cigarette, people will look at him like a criminal, all right? There was a time the Marlboro man was blowing it in your face and he was the real man, those who did not smoke were not men, all right? But that is not happened in the rest of the country because incentives and campaign together, now no penalty is needed. You don't have to find the man, the way people are looking at him, he will stub it out, you know. He'll snuff out his cigarette because the daggers that are flying from everybody's eyes. So campaign and incentives together will do the job, a few black sheep who will not turn around then penalty should come. Right now if you bring penalty straight away then you will be treating everybody like a criminal which is not going to work, which will only enhance crime. Interesting approach that you have, Sadhguruji, because you feel that part of this move towards sustainability, sustainable planet, sustainable businesses, you feel that part of it has to do with the change in human consciousness because you've said that just having, you know, carrot and stick approach might not work, just giving people incentives might not work. Do you think there's something deeper at work that we need to do? Like a change, you know, just begin to shift some, you know, our basic consciousness towards things like consumption, towards things like the planet, towards things like, you know, each other, human relationships with each other and… See, right now we are on this mission called Conscious Planet. Well, they're supporting on-the-ground projects like Rally for Rivers and Kaveri Calling. In spite of the pandemic, everything is going as per the plan with Kaveri Calling. The plantations are all over this year already. Having said that, we started what is called as Conscious Planet. It's been little postponed because of this pandemic, otherwise we are planning major events in the world. The thing about this is, 5.26 billion people have franchise. That means they can vote and elect a government. But among these 5.26 billion people, not even two percent of the people are aware of any genuine ecological concern. Their idea, for example, if you walk into Chennai or Mumbai or whatever, their idea of ecological concern is there's no water in the tap. That is not an ecological concern. That's a civic concern. That is a local issue. Ecological concern is biodiversity is vanishing. Nearly seventy percent of the vertebrate population has disappeared in fifty years. And by the end of this century, they're saying eighty percent of the insect population will be gone. And the soil degradation is the main source for all this. If the insect population disappears, our ability to go crops and our ability to live here will be gone. It is literally decimating ourselves to a certain, you know, size of population. As I said earlier, if we don't do this consciously, nature will do it to us in a very cruel manner. So having said these terrible statistics, now conscious planet, what we are looking at is today nearly ninety-two, ninety-three percent of the nations are democratic in whatever way kind of democracy they have. So people's will and people's expression of what they want will make a difference. So we are looking at, right now we are working with some of the UN agencies to reduce these complex ecological signs, which is always put out like PhD stuff. Nobody understands what it is. It runs into hundreds of pages or thousands of pages. Nobody will ever read that stuff. So we are trying to reduce this. First of all, cut the planet into latitudinal sections like equatorial region, tropical region, subtropical, temperate like this. In each of these regions, whatever nations which come in this belt, what are the five things that must happen in these countries? What are the two or three things we should never happen in this country? We want to make sure at least sixty percent of the population is conscious about this. A simple, it's a dumb-down version of environment. Five things that must happen. Every man who walks, man and woman who walk on the street must be conscious if something is happening, they must know this is a good thing happening. If something else is happening, they must know this is a bad thing happening to us. If this much awareness comes, then we are working, we are listed out three top political parties in every country and trying to push it towards making ecology at least the number two item. Economy is their first item, we can't change that. The number two item in their election manifesto must be ecological concerns. If this happens, policy will change, budget will come, government machinery will fall behind it because without administrative machinery and budgets coming, you and me can talk as much as we want. The real thing is not going to happen. Policy changes, budgetary and the government machinery must fall behind this and people must cooperate. For this, a conscious planet is needed, we are working on this. We invite you also, William, to be part of this. It's very, very important people like you participate in this because you have concern in your heart. Right now, this is what I'm saying about the Native American culture here. See ecology is in textbook for most people, it's an abstract science, but here the Native American people lived with ecological concerns were just in their hearts. This needs to happen. We must feel it. Wherever we see it, we must feel it. If we don't feel it, we are not going to act in time, that's the only thing. We will act, but after too much suffering has happened. But, South Guruji, do you feel that connecting people with the conscious planet ideal that you have and that you've so eloquently stated just now? Like today, all the scientists are saying that the coronavirus is as a result of environmental degradation of one kind. The frequent typhoons, the frequent freak weather events that we are seeing around the world, in India, in the US, in Africa, we are seeing these. These affect people's livelihoods. They affect what you say is the number one concern which is economy. So actually, the environment has now come into our lives. The droughts, the floods, the damage to farmers' livelihoods. So we see all this happening on a daily basis, South Guruji. So is it possible to connect this with the conscious planet movement that you're working with governments on setting up? See, William, what happens with this is because the meteorological sciences have many ways of describing these typhoons and whatever, whatever. And a whole lot of media reporting that it is only because of reportage that you think it's happening now. It was always happening. Typhoon happened in some place, hundred people died. You wouldn't know a hundred years ago, today you know about it. Like this many, many arguments come, I'm saying if you try to fix all the things at a time, you will get lost because there are too many things, too many pieces. The fundamental concern is this. In policy, whatever is ecologically damaging in major nations in the world need to be fixed by policy. It may not immediately go on the ground, it's okay. But once it happens in policy, it may be a slow process, but it'll start moving that way. Those who don't have that patience is simply because they don't have the necessary long-term commitment. They're thinking by shouting a slogan on the street, taking a march in the city, ecology gets fixed. No, it gets worse, I'm telling you with your marches. So you need a long-term commitment for you to see the picture properly. So is this a concern? Are these things happening more because of ecological things? Definitely there is an influence, but there is no science to directly link them. Okay, this typhoon happened because of this, you cannot say that. But at least in India, these floods, this flood and drought cycle, we can easily link it. See, I can clearly tell you, you watch this, you just look back in the last three years and see, wherever there is a flood, within three months there is a drought. What is the simple this thing? See, the only source of water we have in India is monsoon. Our rivers are not sources of water, lakes, ponds, wells not sources of water, they're only destinations for the rainwater. Only 4% of India's river water is glacial water. Rest is all monsoon water. So monsoons used to come down about 40, 45 years ago. You lived in Mumbai 40 years ago? Also? No, I'm a deliwala, strictly a deliwala. Born and brought up here, sadly. So wherever you were, but Mumbai and the coast you would have noticed it much more, but wherever you were, 40, 50 years ago, monsoons were happening between 70 to 135 days to 40 days. Okay, 70 to 140 days was the spread of the monsoon. But today monsoon, same volume of water is coming. In last hundred years, the volume of water that is coming down in the form of monsoon has not changed. It's about the same, but now it is happening between 40 to 75 days. That means the downpours are bigger, heavier. Now, when the water falls on the ground, it should have percolated down and gone into the aquifers. But because we have removed all the trees, everything has been plowed. It just flows on the surface, eroding the soil, creating a flood. You saw Hyderabad what happened three, four days ago. Overnight, just that. We can't handle rain simply because it's all open ground. There are no trees. There is not enough organic activity in the soil to absorb the water. So water instead of percolating down, it's all running horizontally on the surface. Now, if this happens, is does it take a genius to say in the next three, four months you'll have a water crisis? You first have a drought. It's bound to happen. It is bound to happen. The water ran away, so you will have drought. If the water had percolated, your wells, your ponds, your rivers would have water. But interestingly, Sadhguruji, the issue today, if you see young people like what happened in Australia, these mass fires ravaged the country. California, I think you're visiting California on your trip. I mean, they've had catastrophic fires in California. I mean, people are being awakened to this, the topsoil disappearing. I mean, farmers, every farmer that I've spoken to is first an environmentalist and then a farmer. And that's true with farmers anywhere in the world. So do you think the conscious planet, the time has come now for the people to take forward the idea of the conscious planet? The time has come quite some time ago, but we are waking up a little slowly. Definitely in terms of people's understanding and participation, it's much better than ever before. You couldn't even talk to them 10 years ago. I have been blabbering this for last 30 years, but nobody even paid attention. Now at least the world is sitting up and paying attention to this and maybe still not enough action is happening on the ground. About fires and everything is mainly because the soil is dry. See, right now, 51 million square kilometers of land is being formed in the world. Out of this, 40 million square kilometers are used for raising animals and their feed, 77%. I'm just saying the simple thing is this, every doctor in the world is telling you the same thing. If you bring down your meat consumption by 50%, 20 million square kilometers of land will become available for regenerating the soil. We can make this happen within eight, 10 years time. You're saying 50%. I'm not saying you can save the planet because if you save your health and save the planet. So as a vegetarian, as a vegetarian, I can see what you mean, Sadhguruji, because I the tremendous amount of food that goes to feeding one animal. Now you're scaring people, William. Don't say vegetarian. I'm saying eat 50% of the meat that you're eating. I'm a practical man, okay? Yes, I don't know. I have to be a vegetarian now because my whole family is embraced vegetarianism. So that is wonderful. That is the best thing to do, but don't scare away the people. Say vegetarian, they will run away from you. I'm saying reduced meat by 50%, your visits to the doctor will come down and land will be available for growing, something which is more sustainable. And at least 30% of our diet should come from the trees. This campaign, we want to start, we want all of you to be a part of this because at least 30% of the fruit becomes your diet. You know, when Megastani's and Huan's saying the Chinese traveler came to India many hundreds of years ago, one thing they noted was that Indian diet is particularly rich with fruits and variety of fruits. Today in the marketplace, you find all Australian and New Zealand fruits, but the local tropical fruits have disappeared except for mango, banana and a few things left. But there are so many fruits, dozens and dozens of fruits. And they're saying they consume so much fruit and they're kind of, you know, guessing and saying, maybe this is the reason they are intellectually so sharp. It's time we get smarter. It's time we get smart once again, I'm saying. I think one of the great fruits tradition of tradition has been amla because now you're seeing it in, it's become such an important fruit. It's coming back in a big way, huh? That's one fruit that's bounced back. But it's fascinating having this conversation with you, Sadhguru, because not only do you explore the spiritual dimensions, you also explore, you know, the whole idea of what it means to be, you know, responsible living on a planet, which is a living entity. And, you know, your ideas of environmentalism are so practical, because most people's ideas of environmentalism that I've heard of are all about shutting things down and banning things. And I think you've given everybody a very practical look at how one can be an environmentalist and still live in the world. And I think that's… See, the reason why environment… See, the moment you say environment… environmentalism or whatever, like they're thinking it's a religion, shutting down this, close down this, close down that, because these people have never created anything. They do not know the pain involved in closing down something, the losses that are involved, the number of people it'll affect. They don't know all this. They just say, close it down. They don't understand a thing, what it takes to close down. So, because of this kind of activism, even among the farmers I'm saying, nobody wanted to plant a tree till now, because if a farmer plants a tree, grows it over ten years' time, when he needs it, he cuts it. Activists will come and protest and give police complaints and the guy gets arrested. Only now, after seven years of battle with state governments and the central government, we have changed the policy. A farmer can grow what he wants and cut what he wants on his land, it's his business. Nobody's business. Well, it's been fascinating, Sadhguruji, this having this conversation because I really feel very inspired for, you know, the work that you've done and as millions of other people around the world have seen and I just wanted to thank you very much for taking this time. It's been, you know, great. We got you off the motorcycle into a beautiful setting. You gave us some really interesting words of wisdom. So, thank you very much for that. I must say that you're one guy, single-handedly, you brought back Indian way of wearing clothes, organic cotton and stuff back into the lives of Indian youth. Thank you for that. Thank you very much for that. I see it's made a huge difference. Good. And I wish you all the best in this journey across America and if you get a chance, Sadhguruji, have a look at Robert Persig's book because his journey in your journey are traveling with very few tracks in a way. I read this book when I was 17. That was the time to read the book actually. It was a... Yeah. And there is another one if you missed it called Illusions by Richard Buck, which you missed. Yes, of course. We all read that. They came together kind of. They came together. I might have been a little older than you when I read it, but thank you very much, Sadhguruji. It's been just a joy spending this time with you. Thank you.