 Sit with a slightly upturned face, maintaining a focus between your eyebrows. Sit with a slightly upturned face, maintain a mild focus between your eyebrows. Sit with a slightly upturned face, maintaining a focus between your eyebrows. Sit with a slightly upturned face, maintaining a focus between your eyebrows. Sit with a slightly upturned face, maintaining a focus between your eyebrows. Please open your eyes. Well, Namaskaram to everyone. One common question that's coming up both from United States and India is, Sadhguru, can we learn music in this lockdown period? Yes, you can. But your neighbors are also at home. This happened in Tennessee. A young woman living in Nashville city, Nashville is considered the music city. Just about everybody is an aspiring musician. If you go sit in a restaurant, people who are serving you are future stars. Did they really shine or not is another question, but aspiring stars. Just about anywhere, everybody is a songwriter, everybody is a musician. So a young woman decided she will also become a musician. And because nowhere to go right now, so she started practicing hard on her piano. Then after two days, there was a loud knock on the door. When she opened the door, there was a man with a bag in his hands. He said, she asked, who are you? He said, I'm a piano tuner and I have come to fix your piano. She said, I never asked. I did not ask for a piano tuner. Well, collectively the whole neighborhood has hired me. So here I am. You can learn music, but neighbors are also at home. If you have a secluded farmhouse, because when you're learning music, you must first practice the torture upon yourself. You should not import it on others to start with. In the lockdown period, Shankaran Pillai's wife decided she will learn Karnataka music online. So she started taking Skype lessons from some musicians in Chennai. And when she felt confident at dinner time, she told Shankaran Pillai, I've been learning music for the last four days, classical music, four days. And I want to sing for you. He said, okay. And she started singing and it became so wonderful. She closed her eyes and she started singing. He put his head down and kept on eating his dinner. Then when she had finished one raga, she asked, how was it? She said, you should be on the television. She said, really? Am I that good? I need to be on the television. He said, that's not the point. At least I could have turned you off. So music, if you can learn quietly, yes. But there are many other things you could do. The most important thing is to work upon yourself. What does it mean by saying working upon yourself physically? Just set up small goals for yourself for the next few weeks that are there. Just see when you were eighteen years of age. I'm saying for the first time when you were eighteen. Suppose you were eighteen for the last thirty years. That's when the first time when you became eighteen. If you did bend down, how far would you go? Today at that time maybe it went all the way to the floor. Today maybe it's like this. Just see if you can go six inches more. When you were eighteen years of age, how quickly you went up a staircase. Today how you're plodding up the staircase. See if you can improve it by ten, twenty percent. Twenty percent improvement in the next two weeks. Just check your picture when you were eighteen or below. How you would stand, how straight you were. And now if you've become like this, straighten yourself up a little bit. Look further back. What kind of smile you had when you were six, eight, ten years of age. See if you can get fifty percent of that back on your face all the time. Not by simply grinning a plastic smile. But bring that magic back into you. If not for... If you cannot do anything fantastic, at least you must be a pleasant piece of life on this planet. This is something that you owe to yourself and to everybody who lives around you. This you must do. So set up your own kind of goals. And see, it's not difficult, I'm telling you. It just needs little attention. Right now, people think they're carrying the world on their head. No, no. I'm just in case you are in Shirasas and right now and you take a picture and turn it around, it looks like you're carrying the planet on your head. But that's not the truth. Whether you're on your feet or on your head, planet is carrying you and it's spinning by itself. Day and night is happening by itself. Seasons are changing by itself. Sun comes and goes by itself. Really there's nothing to do. These few weeks are for time for you to realize everything that is significant in the universe is happening by itself. It's for you to sit here and enjoy the bounty of life. And mangoes are also coming. You don't have to pump anything into it, it's sweet by itself. So just make use of this. Do not act like you are running the whole planet or you are running the whole universe for that matter. You are not. It is happening by itself. You are a tiny little creature who is here for a little bit of time. Don't make so much fuss about it. To handle a few years of life, do not make such a big fuss. These few weeks you must come out as a more pleasant and wonderful human being. This is not a time to… you've done enough of it, come on. This is the greatest thing you can do to yourself if you sit here. This person is a pleasant experience for you. If you are a pleasant experience for yourself, everybody else will also experience this person as a pleasant experience. What great things you will do or not do, that is subject to various realities. Nobody can fix it hundred percent. You must understand our actions are largely determined by the times in which we exist. Suppose you were here five thousand years ago. Is the time period good enough or shall I go further back? Five thousand years ago. Being in India, recent means five thousand years. Five thousand years ago if you were here and this door virus came to you, you didn't have to do any social distancing because anyway there was nobody around you. Even if you wanted to infect, you couldn't find a person. So you need to understand what we are doing, our actions and what we do and do not do is the times in which we exist. If you were here five thousand years ago, you would not be writing software. You would be doing something else. You would not be doing all the things that you're doing today. Don't think you are doing it. It is the times. In the times, the times that we are in has its own weather. Some smooth weather, some rough weather. If you learn to ride this weather gracefully, then people say you're a success. If you create a problem about every little fluctuation that happens, then you become a failure in your life. If you were a wave surfer, you know, you've seen people surfing on the waves. What is his dream? He would like to have a tsunami. The dream in a surfer's mind is a tsunami. A hundred foot tall wave, whoo, riding it, that would be the dream. If you know how to ride it, even the tsunami is a wonderful thing. So right now, virus, it is not going by itself. It is not flying by itself and getting you. It needs us to get somewhere. It's for us to decide whether it goes somewhere or it doesn't go somewhere. It's our business to see that it doesn't go anywhere. It should not come to you. In case it did happen that it come to you, you must ensure it does not go to anybody else, 100% because this is the time to show who you are as a generation of people. This is a generational issue because no more it's a national issue. This is not a issue of a caste, creed, religion, no, or race. Virus is quite, you know, very even-handed. It doesn't matter what's your race, what's your religion, what's your caste or creed. Indiscriminately, it is going to people. Initially people thought it will only get the Chinese. Well, now everybody is realizing, virus is not just interested in Chinese people. It is okay with anybody. Quite indiscriminate. So this is a generational challenge. In these challenging times, will you ride this wave successfully or will you be crushed by this? Can only be determined by how responsibly you respond to this whole thing. With how much sense or will we do something senseless and make this into a massive disaster. Right now, in India, and in most parts of the world except unfortunately in a few countries, everywhere it is still just a... like people probably, lot of people don't understand what is a threshold anymore. If you go to an Indian temple, there will be one foot high threshold. It will be little wide. If you're not physically fit, you will little struggle over that. But those who are fit very effortlessly, they will cross this threshold and go. Right now it's only a threshold to cross. But if we feed it with... if we feed it with irresponsibility, this... this threshold has the potential to become a huge mountain that we cannot cross. So it needs responsible behavior and responsible action. What does responsible mean? Normally, most human beings are in a state of compulsive reaction. Responsible action means you consciously respond. You consciously respond to what is in front of you. Not compulsively behave saying that this is the way I will do things. Conscious response. Because responsibility means it's just your ability to respond. This is the most important thing in your life that you have retained your ability to respond to whatever comes our way. Because what comes our way is not determined by us largely. To some extent, we can decide what comes our way. Largely what comes our way is not determined by us. The world decides. But whatever comes our way, what we make out of it is one hundred percent ours. This is the time to show who we are. What are we made of? Are we human beings or are we just one more compulsive instinctive creature? This is what is being tested right now for you. This is the test. This is an evolutionary test for you, I'm saying. See, it is not only for a monkey that some itch in the body may happen. Even for you it happens. But you don't do like this anymore. If it happens, you handle it. Lot of people are there, you don't do anything. When people are not there, you do little like this. This is conscious response. Itch is same. But this is just instinctive reaction. This is all that needs to happen. This is an evolutionary test for you. You have to prove that you have become a human being. Human being means one who knows how to be. This is a time for you to show you know how to be. But people are cooped up together for long hours. People who you claimed that you love immensely. Seven days, getting very difficult for a lot of people. So, you must address this also. Why has it become so difficult? Why is it so difficult to be with people? Simply because we have formed strong opinions and ideas about everybody including ourselves. This is an important thing that you have to do if you have to live here as a conscious human being. That is, you have no opinions of any sort. Strong opinions means you have concluded about everything in the world. There's nothing to live here for. When you have made conclusions about everybody and everything including yourself, this means you have destroyed all possibilities of life. Life is a possibility. But between the possibility and reality, there is a distance. In your life, will you walk the distance or not? Do you have the courage and the commitment to walk the distance or no? This is all the question is about your life. I hope you answer this question positively. Because you can address this in so many ways. This happened. After the singing disaster, I'm saying after the classical music concert happened in Shankaran Pillai's home, she gave up classical music because of the comment that he gave. Then after three days, first three days classical music, next three days nothing to do, so she spent some time in front of the mirror. She looked at herself when she got married, how she looked and today how she is looking. Because of the planetary influence, she was taking the shape of the globe. So she stood in front of the mirror in the bedroom and she said Shankaran Pillai was sitting on the bed reading something and she said, you know how I have become, how I used to be, every year my size is going up, clothing size. I'm looking ugly, look at my face, everything is sagging, my complexion is gone, I have bags under my eyes and this damn planet, it could have been slim. Shankaran Pillai just kept reading. So please say something, say something nice, say something that's good about me, I'm completely depressed looking at myself in the mirror. Say something nice, something that's good about me. Shankaran Pillai looked up and said, well your vision is perfect, something is good about you. So this is not a time to go about picking false in each other or even in yourself. You just see how every week you can be at least ten percent better, physically ten percent better, mentally ten percent better, emotionally ten percent better, behavior wise ten percent best better, relationship wise ten percent better, one week ten percent. Oh, thirty percent increase in everything, you will be quite a fantastic human being, believe me. Questions? Sir, this question is from Padma Venkatragan. Namaskaram, sir. Such a powerful life as yours took many lifetime to get enlightened after vigorous sadhana. Where is hope for all of us Isha meditators who do sadhana only few hours a day? Few days in a month or few hours a day? Few hours a day. That's good. Well, what you're asking is, Sadhguru, are you just wasting your life doing something that doesn't work? Do I look like that? Do I look like somebody who will do something that doesn't work for me? I'm saying not for you, for me. In the sense, if I have to be successful, you have to be successful. Hello? It's like a gardener is doing his gardening. If he has to be successful, all the plants have to blossom. Then only he's successful. So if the plants ask, you think all this cultivation, manure, water is going to really work, the plants are not questioning their own capability. The plants are questioning gardener's capability. No, no, I'm not someone who wants, who will spend my life doing something that does not work. I'm doing this because I know it'll work. It will work and it is working. Now, what's her name? Padma. Padma Venkatranjan. Okay. If Padma is thinking that when the Padma or the lotus flower opens, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum. There'll be no background music, that's all I'm saying. Yesterday night I I just went out in front of the Dhyanalinga temple and the pond is full of blossoms. Full. Probably earlier somebody was cutting some flowers for use in the temple. Now nobody's touching it for the last week. The entire pond is full of blossoms. It's a must-see in the night. In the moonlight, if you see, it's fantastic. The pond is full of flowers. So, did you hear the music? You did not. If you had eyes to see and the nose to smell the fragrance, it exists. If you're waiting for some drama to happen, it doesn't happen like that. So right now all I'm asking you, Padma and everybody else, since you started whatever practice you're doing, are you a little better? If you are, this is all you have to do. Every day little better, little better, little better. One day people will look at you and say, wow, what a fantastic human being. You should not realize. You should not realize I'm a fantastic human being. That happens... that happens only to those wrestlers who do fake wrestling. Yeah! That is the way of unevolved gorillas. Gorillas do. It's all right for a gorilla. A human being should never do this. People should see and say, wow. If you think wow about yourself, then you have a serious problem. So you don't bother about whether you're growing or not growing or you become fantastic or not. Just focus on being more conscious, doing the practice so that you have the necessary energy to make the transformation happen. You must understand transformation does not happen because of good intentions. Transformation happens because the necessary nourishment is there on all levels. Flowers don't blossom because you built a temple in front of the pond. Because there is a temple, flowers are not going to blossom. They are blossoming because the soil is rich. They are blossoming because there's enough water. They're blossoming because there's substantial nourishment in the soil. This is all you're trying to do with sadhana. You don't try to blossom. You just nourish this physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically. See how to get unentangled because entanglement will not allow you to grow involved but not entangled. You bring this along with the sadhana. This is what the entire in engineering program is about. To give you a huge sense of involvement with life but without entanglement. The only problem that human beings have is limited identities. My family, my community, my race, my religion, my caste, my creed, my nation, my this, my that. Why don't you? See, this is a secret I'm telling you. You can have the whole cosmos. Nobody is going to... nobody can stop you. If you try to take a piece of land next door, they will stop you. Everything is yours. Because what is yours and what is not yours only happens with identity. If you identify with something, it becomes yours. If you're not identified, it's not yours. How do you say this is your nation? Do you own it? No, you just say it's my nation and you're willing to live and die for it. If you said this is my cosmos, look at everything carefully and get involved with everything here. You won't have any civil suits on you, I'm telling you. Nobody will take you to court. How did you claim this galaxy is yours? There will be no civil suits. There will be no problems about it. If you make this yours, the whole creation, yours, including all the creatures, whatever kind they are, then you will see everything in you functions at a different level because there is something within a human being which doesn't like boundaries, I want you to understand this. When there is a threat to one's survival, you build boundaries. The moment there is no threat, you want to expand. Only problem with you is, you're addressing your expansion in incremental installments. Spiritual process means just this. You understand approaching infinity in installments is a stupid idea because the infinite cannot be approached in installments. You'll only become endless counting if you do that. This is just a question of willingness. Instead of being yes to one thing, no to another thing, yes. You look at this person, yes. This person, no. That person, yes. This person, no. This person, yes. That person, no. No, you become just a big yes to life. Now your boundaries are gone. To everything in the universe, your boundaries are gone. This is what you're longing for because no matter who you are, where you are, you want to be something more. If that something more happens, you want to be something more. If that happens, you want to be something more. Don't go at creation in installments because it's too vast. Nobody can go in installments and one day say, I'm complete. So Padma, time to blossom. With that hope, I'm sure with that hope your parents have given you this name that you're a lotus flower. No, I'm not making any political statement because we're living in times if you say lotus flower, oh, you're from this party. If I raise my hand like this, oh, you're from that party. No, no, I don't belong to any party, but I'm telling you, you also should not belong to any party, not just political. In any other way. Because you are capable of experiencing this whole universe as yours within yourself because right now, everything that's ever happened to you happened only within you. You saw the sun through your eyes in your mind. You saw the stars within you. You've not gone there. Just everything that you experience is happening within you. If you're willing, the whole universe, the cosmos is within you. That's what you need to experience. These virus times are a good time to attempt this. We could guide you on this. Inner Engineering is available and I think they're making an offer. The foundation is making an offer that during this month, in the month of April, this is not an April Fool thing, okay? In the month of April, I think they're offering Inner Engineering online at half the price for everybody. And all those people who are police officers, medical personnel, and anybody who is doing any kind of essential services right now in the country, it's free for them, hundred percent.