 We're here at the Wharton Business School, the first business school in the United States, university founded by Benjamin Franklin. As a mystic and as a guru, what do you think about business? Capitalism, business, entrepreneurialism. The success of a nation, unfortunately, a lot of people understand as success of its military or its politics. But essentially the success of a business is rooted... Success of a nation is rooted in its business. How successful the businesses are, that's how successful a nation is. This is something that's been lost in various philosophies that have taken over the world. But forever this has been the truth that whichever nation had successful businesses, those nations always succeeded. So and there is no substitute for success. So in today's world, where you see society, the world pressures pushing businesses, both in ways that are incredibly powerful and constructive, but also in ways that are perhaps destructive. I keep hearing this that in today's world there is so much pressure. I feel today's world is a lot more easier than ever before. At least nobody is threatening your life every moment as it used to be in the past. It is just that in today's world probably for a variety of reasons. Human beings are physically at their weakest. Never before human generations have been as physically weak as we are today because technology does everything for us and we are not using our bodies as we would have used it hundred, two hundred years ago. Which in turn is telling upon the fragility of our minds too and nothing is being done about the inner strength of a human being. Constantly our entire education process is focused on how to fix the outside world. Nothing much at all being done about how to prepare this one for the world. We are trying to prepare the world for this one. No, we need to prepare this one for the world. Education systems have not focused on this at all. And I know many folks might have thought of you if they hadn't seen that video as a philosophizing guru, but I know you as an action-oriented leader. Tell me about your leadership style and the approach that you've taken and some of the things that your organizations have been able to accomplish that one would have never thought were possible without leadership. When you ask about leadership style, it reminds me a few years ago I was doing a program, a two-day event for top twenty-five executives of Microsoft India. And I had a few volunteers around me. As usual, even now everything is being done with volunteers. And our volunteers are always on full bus. So they noticed how the volunteers are going about doing things without anybody managing them. So after some time they asked me, said, Guru, where do you get such people? You know, they are always looking for attrition. I said, you don't get such people, you got to make them. They asked, how do you make them? I said, you got to make them fall in love with you. How do you do that? I said, first you got to fall in love with them. They said, oh, they don't pay us for that. So that's the fundamental impediment for most people. What are they paid for, what are they not paid for? You're not paid to live anyway. Nobody paid you to live this many years. So if somebody doesn't pay you, why don't you fall dead? So essentially it's this, if people have to stand up and do something for you, you have to make them fall in love with you. If they have to fall in love with you, you have to be in a certain way, which is not something that you do only when people are looking at you. It's something that you become in every way. If you become like that, then you will see everything around you cooperates, not just the people. The entire world cooperates. The five elements around you will cooperate. Everything will happen that way. In terms of impediments or in terms of... at every step people always think this is not possible, that is not possible. People fear that this may happen, that may not happen. When we launched major projects, when I... when I said, you know, for example, they were showing the Green Hands Project, when I... when I just noticed in Tamil Nadu, which is the southernmost state in India, and you know, a lot of rivers were going dry and the forests were being cleared. A United Nations organization, one of the branches of that came and made a prediction, by 2025, sixty percent of Tamil Nadu will become a desert. I don't like predictions because predictions are based on the cold facts of today, but they're never taken into account what's beating in a human heart. But things happen because of what's beating in human hearts right now, not because of the cold facts of yesterday. So, when I saw this, I just said, we can reverse this, what's the problem? Then we made a simple barefoot calculation and I said, if we plant hundred and fourteen million trees in eight to ten years, in about fifteen to twenty years we'll have thirty-three percent green cover in the state. And I said, let's do this, people thought I was crazy. So, our people said, Sadhguru, how is this possible, hundred and fourteen million trees, do you know what it… what that is? Where are we going to plant it, how are we going to plant it, who is going to plant it? I said, see, what's your population? The population of the state at that time was sixty-two million. I said, if all of us plant one tree today, take care of it for two years and plant one more, you got the number. It is just that we never think in these terms, we always think what is possible, what is not possible. What is possible and what is not possible is not our business, that's nature's business. Our business is to see what is it that we want to do, what is the result we want. Possible, not possible times and nature will decide, not for you and me to decide. Young leaders that you've seen, where have been the susceptibilities, the vulnerabilities that over time they can work their way through, maybe giving them a little bit of guidance now, you can help. I think the biggest problem with the so-called leaders of the days, we are not really producing leaders, we are just producing managers and supervisors. They come out as leaders and they suffer every moment of their life. This is what I'm saying, because leadership doesn't come because of your ambition. Leadership happens, see, let's understand this. Ambition means you're tweaking up your desire, which is waste of time, because your desires are based on what's happening around you or what has happened till now. An exaggerated version of what's around you is your desire. You can't desire something that you've not seen. You only desire something that you have seen, mildly exaggerated or overly exaggerated, it depends who you are. But leadership is about being able to take a group of people or a nation or the entire world in a direction and to a destination that they have not imagined possible. If it's something that they could imagine, they don't need you. They need a leader because he should be capable of taking them to a place where they themselves cannot imagine possible. For this, a leader needs a profound sense of insight. When I say insight, that you're able to see something that other people cannot see. It's like when you say a leader, in some way you're sitting on a perch. If you sit on a perch and don't see any better than others, you will become an object of ridicule. When you sit up there, you must be able to see better than others. Only if you're seeing better than others, you're a natural leader. Otherwise, you're a forced leader. When you're a forced leader, everybody suffers you and you suffer them in turn. And it's an endless process of misery. So the fundamental thing that's missing is insight. When I say insight, people are interested in doing things, but they're not interested in working upon themselves. If you believe that what you're doing is important, the most important thing in your life is to work upon yourself, to enhance your perception skills, to be able to see what others cannot see. You have an insight into what you wish to do. It is not even a question of what do I wish to do. It is a question of what is most needed right now. Because if you do what's needed, only then it's leadership. If I do something that's fanciful to me, then there'll be nobody behind because this is all about me. I think this is what is missing. There is no vision of what is needed. Everybody has petty ambitions. I say petty because after all what they want, they want a piece of the planet. Some people want a big chunk, some people want a small chunk. Their size of what they can buy keeps increasing, but still it's a petty ambition because it's just an exaggeration of what you have already seen. All desires come from what you already know, a small exaggeration of that. So, the young leaders, the most important thing is that you don't tweak your desire in the name of ambition. You tweak your competence. If you keep on tweaking your competence, depending upon the times in which we live, opportunities that come up in front of us, naturally you will fall into the rhythm of what is there. If you have an enormous competence, then I don't think the world can put you down. And for so many, this hump that you're trying to get over when you're young to survive and ultimately thrive, and it feels often like some get over the hump and make it, however make it is defined, and some fall below the hump. Where is the hump? I know I saw the hump. In a world that everyone is pushing so hard, how do you strike that balance of trying to employ these practices and perspectives and you're not and still push over the hump? You're not giving up on the hump. Well, maybe that's the point is there should be no hump. As I said, the reason why people feel there is a hump ahead of them or some kind of an obstacle ahead of them is they're tweaking their desires. They're not tweaking their competence. If you tweak your competence, there'll be no hump. You tweaked up your desire and it looks like a hump that you have to cross. What is the point tweaking your desire? A desire only orients you in a direction. It never gets you there. It cannot get you there. It's only your competence that gets you there, but a desire can orient you in a particular direction. If you tweak that up, it will rise like a mountain in front of you that you can't cross over. It's completely unnecessary psychological circus that people are doing. Maybe put that perspective in India and South India. The children you work with, the people you work with, what their lives are about and how they gain contentment. Maybe put that perspective for all of us here who are lucky enough to have different situations. I'm about South India. I didn't get that time. I'm sorry. When you're working with the people of South India, the children, the families who have very little, but they can still achieve the contentment and satisfaction. Oh, see, contentment is the aspiration of a joyless human being. When you make yourself incapable of joy, then you seek contentment and satisfaction and this kind of things. When you're joyful, these things mean nothing to you, isn't it so? On a day when you're joyful, are you seeking contentment on that day? Only when you're miserable, you're looking for contentment. Because contentment is containment. Contentment means, okay, I've made it. From what basis are you coming to this? Maybe you're one step ahead of somebody else. I'm saying, why are we even bothered about being one step ahead of somebody else or one step behind? Because if you look at life this way, how to be ahead of somebody, if you have limb by your side, one step ahead of them, you think you're doing great. Life is not about being ahead of somebody. Life is about finding full expression to who we are. Everything that I am should find expression. I'm little better than somebody. What does it mean? It means nothing. So most people who seek contentment are always hoping that everybody will be one step behind them. Or in other words, you start enjoying what others don't have, or you start enjoying a lesser man's failings, which is, I call it sickness, I don't call it contentment. But unfortunately, a whole lot of people are seeking that. People are beginning to enjoy what others do not have, not what they have. They enjoy what somebody doesn't have, which is a very sick world. It is a very sick world, which has caused enormous damage to this world, both as a humanity and ecologically it's a serious cost. Everybody trying to be one step ahead of somebody else. I think India is still rapidly moving out of the place and becoming more west than west, okay? Rapidly moving out, but still a large percentage of the population is... I think it is a remnant of the cultural past that naturally methods were... There were so many methods as a woven into our lifestyle, which made people naturally peaceful and joyful by their own nature. So instead of seeking contentment or as it's written in the constitution of this country in pursuit of your happiness, happiness cannot be pursued because it's not hanging out somewhere. It is something that may happen within you if you create a conducive atmosphere for yourself. Nobody experienced happiness out there or nobody experienced misery out there. Joy or misery happens within us. Pain and pleasure happens within us. Even light and darkness is happening within us. Everything that you ever know happens only within you. Even right now you sit there and you think you're looking at me, but actually light is falling upon me, reflecting. Inverted image in the retina and da-da-da, you know the whole story, all right? So what you see is within you, what you hear is within you. Whatever has ever happened to you has happened only within you. So if you're joyful by your own nature, your life will become an expression of joy. Then everything happens in a certain way. Then you will not look for contentment or satisfaction. By the time you satisfy all these human beings, I think the entire solar system will be finished, not just the planet because the living earth statistics tells us today that if we have to provide for the entire 7.3 billion population on the planet, what an average American person has, it takes four-and-a-half planets, but there aren't any four-and-a-half, only half we have. Half a planet is what we have, there is no four-and-a-half planets. So this entire thing about more, the entire modern business has become about more and more, but there is no more. So I think the future leaders should look at how to maximize what is there, not about more because there is no more. There was a time when people thought there is more somewhere. You could go to another continent and get what you want. You could go to another place and get what you want. Now we've been everywhere and we know there is no more. Leadership, true leadership of the future is about maximizing what is there, there is no more. The things that has entered all of our society is the ability for these 7 billion people to communicate, to interact, to see other parts of the world through that little thing called the iPhone. Tell me what's... We use Samsung, huh? Samsung. I do, I do worry that we're all living our lives through our iPhones and our Samsung galaxies as opposed to more fundamentally. What's some of your observations on what technology both has brought us and what we need to guard against? So technology is a wonderful thing, but it's a mindless thing. It depends in whose hands it is right now. Either we can use technology to make our lives or to destroy our lives. So we should know this. We made the technology and we should also learn how to use it. The reason why technology is running away with people, people are not running away with technology. Technology is running away with people because as I said earlier, our education systems have nothing in it. Right from kindergarten to whatever level you study, there is nothing about the making of this being. It's all about fixing the world. So because of that, our children are getting totally outwardly focused. There is no sense of anything about this. As you said twenty-five to fifty, when they start getting older and you know, when their joints creak and they know they're mortal, that is when they're coming to little bit of sense. But I think sense would be very useful early in our life, not later. What do you think? We could do well with sense when we're young. Right now, we've come to a conclusion, youth means stupid, old age means wisdom. No, youth must become wise. Then only there is a future for this world. And what's some of the things that youth can do to look inside, to understand this one? See, when we say turn inward, in the western context, people always think in terms of contemplation. Contemplation is not inward, it is just, you know, it's an intellectual circus because you contemplate only what you already have. Whatever thought process we have is only coming from a limited data that we have gathered. And that limited data we have gathered through what we call as the five sense organs by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. This is the way all the information has gone in. And this information is not reliable because, well, there are many ways to put this. If I touch this glass, it feels cool to me. Not because I know how it is, simply because in comparison with my body temperature, it feels cool to me. If my body temperature really drops and then I touch it, this would feel warm to me. Or in other words, you know everything only by comparison. What you know by comparison is not knowing, it's a distortion of reality. Like for example, you're six feet tall, now you walk like a tall man, you think like a tall man, you feel like a tall man, you are a tall man. You went to another society where everybody's eight feet tall, suddenly you walk like a short man, think like a short man, feel like a short man and you're a short man. So what you know by comparison is not really knowing as such. You can go even more fundamental. Well, you have owls in Pennsylvania? In Philadelphia, rather? What? Owl? Owl the bird? We're owls, sure. If you and an owl sit together and start an argument, as to which is light and which is darkness, where would you go? Endless argument. I'm asking who is right, you or the owl? I said you should be wise, you must tell me. Who is right? Both. I can't say this in a university, but usually both is said by people who are serving in the diplomatic corps or those who have a successful marriage. Both, both, both, otherwise they won't survive. But the fact of the matter is, either both of us could be wrong or one of us could be wrong, both of us cannot be right. It is just that our sense organs have been opened up as it is necessary for our survival and nothing more than that. So turning inward needs more than sense perception. As I said, I repeat once again, unfortunately, because this is one thing that bothers me, unfortunately in the entire scheme of education, there is not a thing about how to turn inward. It's all about reading information from the book and thinking we know it. With this kind of knowledge, well, it's the educated people on the planet who destroyed this planet, isn't it? The uneducated doesn't cause so much damage. Ever since this education prevailed, since then we have destroyed the planet like never before. We do patchy work. We'll drive a Tesla, all right? But… And I know that you sit off in with, don't want to sound morbid here, but with folks on their deathbed and you learn a lot from that. Hey, you are accusing me of things now. What are some of the lessons that you've learned that we could all take away? Mortality is the most obvious thing in our life. We don't know whether you're going to get a university degree or not. We don't know whether you're going to be the richest man on the planet or not. But we know one thing, you're going to die, okay? That much we know. But it's amazing that more than eighty-five percent of the people have no idea that they will die till their very last few days come. It's quite ridiculous, but that's a reality. And you will be surprised that I would say over eighty-five percent of the people, the last moments, they look bewildered. They're not fearful, they're not in pain, they look bewildered because they never even started their life yet. All that's happened in their life is they're thought an emotion. Your thought an emotion is just a psychological drama that you're going through. No experience of life has really happened. Very few moments they've touched life. Rest of the time, they're just busy with their own thoughts and their own emotions. Your thoughts and emotions mean nothing, actually. But right now, it is larger than the cosmos, yes? Today, everything is going perfect in the cosmos. No accidents, no galaxies clashed, no star wars happened, all right? Everything is going great. But one nasty little thought in your head, it's a bad day. So somewhere your psychological drama has become bigger than the cosmic happening. Once you lose perspective on this scale, then living well is an accident. So more on joy, because when I see you on your motorcycle, on a speedboat, swinging a golf club, I see joy. So tell me, tell me more on joy. Let's end on joy and then I'm going to give you the stage and we can open it up to questions. There are many ways to look at this. One simple way to look at this is, all human experience has a chemical basis to it. What you call a species is a certain kind of chemistry. What you call is joy is another kind of chemistry. What is bliss is another kind of chemistry. Ecstasy is one kind of chemistry. Agony is another misery is another anxiety is another stress is another whatever. Every human experience has a chemical basis. Or in other words, what you call as myself on one level experientially is a chemical soup. The question is only, is it a great soup or a lovesy soup? Suppose I give soup making ingredients to every one of you, do you believe that all of you will make the same kind of soup? Each one will turn out your own kind of soup, though the ingredients are same. That's all that's happened. All of us have fundamentally same ingredients. See how different each one has become because the soup making skill, it's a delicate skill. If you create a chemistry of blissfulness, you will be blissful because right now people are thinking situations are either happy or unhappy. Situations are not happy or unhappy. Situations are neither problematic nor beautiful, they're just there. It's for us what we make out of it. If you may label it as a problem, it becomes a problem. If you simply look at it, it's always a possibility. This is not about being optimistic, this is just realistic. There is no pro… no situation on the planet which is marked a problem, isn't it? It's only in your mind you mark it as a problem. Whatever you don't know how to handle, it'll become a problem. What is the problem for you? Maybe a breeze for somebody else. So this process of constantly labeling as okay, not okay, I like this, I don't like this, this is where the problem is. There is no equanimity in the mind. It is… it is sloshing crazy. Every situation is sloshing the mind in so many different ways. The fundamental problem you can say is evolutionary in nature. You know, Charles Darwin, you guys studied some science, right? Not all business. Charles Darwin said you were all monkeys, you know, he said not me. You were all monkeys and then you became human. He also went about saying what was supposedly a deer supposed to have become a giraffe over a few million years, what was a pig became an elephant, things like this, took millions of years. But for the monkey to become human, it happened rather quickly. So quickly that anthropologists think there is a missing link somewhere. So this rapid transition from a monkey to man has caused some problems. According to science today, they're saying the DNA difference between a chimpanzee and a human being is only 1.23 percent. 1.23 percent is not much of a difference, isn't it? Physiologically, that's how close you are to a chimpanzee. But in terms of intellect, in terms of awareness, a human being is worlds apart from a chimpanzee. Or in other words, you have an intelligence for which you don't have a stable enough platform. Now, when was the last time somebody poked you with a dagger? They never did it. They ignored you. I'm saying how much suffering in a human being is coming from outside. Miniscule, rest is all on self-help, isn't it? That is, your own intelligence turning against you. You can call it stress, you can call it anxiety, you can call it fear, you can call it misery, you can call it whatever exotic names you want. Essentially, it's your intelligence turning against you. That's all that's happened because you have an intelligence for which you don't have a stable enough platform. So the entire yogic system, the fundamental nature of yoga is to create a stable platform. I know if I use the word yoga in America, it means twisting yourself like a pretzel. That's not what yoga is about. Unfortunately, only the physical aspect, which is out of two hundred and odd sutras that Patanjali gave, only one sutra is about physical aspect of yoga. And fortunately in America, that one is being blown out of proportion. We have about 20 minutes. I'm going to leave you with the future. It's a chat to answer questions and use up the rest of the 20 minutes. The stage is yours. Yeah? So does getting informal education like we get here have any value to the internal well-being? I think the formal education is oriented towards a particular subject. Maybe here, business as it is. You could use everything for your inner well-being, but the fundamental orientation has not been done, I would say, right from primary education. The society itself is not oriented that way. Entire society here and now slowly in the rest of the world is becoming such. Well-being means what are the ten things I must have in my life. People have those ten things and you still see them miserable. You see people driving their dream machines. You just stop the traffic for five minutes. People will be fretting in their dream machines. They're not happy that they can spend extra five minutes in their dream machine. They're just fretting. They're on the edge of bursting at each other. This is not because of situations. Situations are better than ever before. I want you to understand as young people, as a generation of people, never before in the history of humanity have we known these kind of comforts and conveniences as you people are enjoying right now, never before. Yes? But never before humanity has complained as it's complaining today. We are becoming such a whining generation of people. Though everything has become easy, we don't have to physically work for anything for that matter. Yes? Everything comes. If you turn on a switch, everything comes. I want you to look back two hundred years ago. If you wanted water, you had to carry something and come. If you wanted food, you had to go out and get it. Now everything comes. You just have to order it on your phone. In spite of that, we're complaining. No. The future generations, the young people here, you should see that we are having physically the best possible life that human beings ever had. Now, making it good for ourselves and everybody around us should be our commitment, experientially good. That will not happen unless we turn inward and we know how to manage this one. Above all, those of you wanting to become leaders, you must understand being a leader means in some way, you have to manage a thousand or ten thousand minds. If you cannot manage your own mind, how will you manage ten thousand minds? It'll be a disaster. Do you think some professions are more meaningful than others and if we are like in finance or art, should we eventually evolve into helping others or going? Can I tell you something that happened a couple of years ago? A young boy, a twelve-year-old boy who was studying in one of our school wrote a letter to me. He's just twelve years of age. He wrote a two-page letter to me. I was amazed at the clarity with which he wrote. I had never seen a twelve-year-old boy writing that kind of a letter. It was too mature and clear and beautifully articulated. So I thought, who is this fellow? I want to see him. So it's... In India, it's very rare for people to get an appointment with me because my schedule is twenty hours a day. It's fixed up seven days a week. So I gave an appointment to this boy. So he came and said, I don't want to end up like my parents, just doing this and that, working for a living. I said, hold it. It's fine. You want to do something different is fine. But the moment you look down upon something, you will not do anything significant in your life. So I told him a simple thing. We have a center where nearly four thousand people are living and every day we have at least five to ten thousand people coming as guests and going. So I told him, see tomorrow morning, if I close the meditation hall, everybody comes. Morning Sardana starts at five thirty in the morning there. I said, when they come for the meditation hall, if I lock it and keep it without any explanation, and if people just say, Sathguru has locked it, everybody will think, oh, there must be a higher purpose. Let's wait. All right. They will wait. One day, two days, ten days, they will wait, thinking something bigger is coming. But if I lock the dining hall, ten o'clock is our meal in the morning. Suppose I close the dining hall and the word is spread, Sathguru locked the door of the dining hall. People will think maybe today evening a feast is coming and they will wait at least till evening. But if I lock up the toilets in the morning, people will freak within five minutes. So I asked him, which is more important? Meditation, food or shit? So don't ever look up at something or look down on something. This is a simple thing you have to learn. There is nothing to look up to. There is nothing to look down upon. If there's one thing you learn, never look up at anybody, never look down on anybody. If you simply learn to see everything for what it is, in every sphere of life we can do something significant. Like how do you react to certain situations? What's the first thought that goes to your mind when like something, something you really wanted to happen didn't? Or what do you think when you meet a new person? Oh, I think when I was introduced, Jonathan was saying I was raised. I always felt only cattle are raised. Human beings should not be raised by anybody. The thing about being human is it's a very common word that people are using. I was raised, you know, people say I was raised Catholic, I was raised Muslim, I was raised this or that. Nobody should raise you. That's what human means. A human means you can consciously shape yourself. If you're consciously shaping yourself, where is the question of reacting to anything? You can respond as according to your intelligence and your inclinations of the day. But the moment you react, you're enslaved to the situations in which you live. So when something doesn't go your way, see, you must understand I'm in charge of a foundation, which is nearly 4,000 full-time volunteers and over three million part-time volunteers doing variety of work. Volunteers means none of them are qualified for the job. There is enthusiasm, but there is no qualification and you can't fire them because they're volunteers. And at any moment without a warning, without notice, they may drop the job that they're doing and walk away. In spite of that, I must tell you, as we sit here today, there are a few hundred programs. Inner engineering programs going on in the world. In the last 34 years, not a single program has been abandoned, left unfinished. That's a lot of management, isn't it? Because the entire process is about keeping people in an inspired state that they will hold what they're doing more important in their life and make it happen. Does it mean to say everything is happening the way I want it? No. If at all, if anybody has to go crazy on this planet, it's me because there are too many things. People keep telling me, Sathguru, you're starting this one more project. If it doesn't happen, what to do? If something does not happen or if nothing happens, if everything that I'm doing fails tomorrow morning, I will still live blissfully and die blissfully. So this is one thing that you must ascertain within yourself. Your way of being is not determined by what is happening around you. What happens within you must be determined by you. What happens around you, there are too many forces involved, isn't it? When we want to do something in the world, there are too many forces which have to cooperate. Not all of them may cooperate. Never all of them will cooperate hundred percent. Nobody around you will happen hundred percent your way. You're still a young girl. I'm telling you, if you have large expectations of people, no one, not one single person in your life will happen one hundred percent your way. Fifty-one percent if they happen your way, you have controlling stake on the whole situation. But this one person must happen your way, isn't it? One hundred percent. If this person is happening your way, how would you keep that person, blissful or miserable? That's all. You keep this blissful. Then in every situation you'll do your best and that's all you can do. Just because you freak and fret, nothing happens better. So what... what is the first thought? The thing about me is most of the time I don't have a single thought on my mind. I'm just empty-headed. Just to make it look substantial, I wear a turban. I don't have a single thought on my mind most of the time. When I want to think, I sit down and think. But otherwise, I don't have thoughts flying in my mind. This is a simple thing you have to do. The moment you're not identified with anything that you're not, when I say anything that you're not, right now the water in this glass, is this you? If you drink it, will it become you? No? If you drink this, will it become you or not? How did you get this body, yeah? Were you born like this? Your normal birth or no? No, a few people fell from heaven, that's why I'm asking you. If you were normal birth, you were only this much. Now you became this much. How? Just the food that you've eaten and the water that you consume, doesn't it? So if you drink this, it becomes you? Yes, but no. Yes, because it definitely helps. How is it yes but no? Yes, because it definitely helps in like keeping me alive and making me well. No, not that. What is the content of your body? Do you know two-thirds of your body is just water? Where did it come from then? Yes, yes. And also you go to the restroom every day. So like the water, that water isn't going to be part of it. Some part of the water is retained and that's what is you, right, right now? So I'm asking, okay, a third of this water becomes you, all right? I didn't know you were trying to be that specific. The food that you eat and the water that you drink has become you, isn't it? So what has happened right now is, what you accumulate has become you. You tell me, what you accumulate can be yours, but can never ever be you, isn't it? Right now, as I speak, if I pick up this and say, this is my glass, you will think Sadhguru has got some problem. But everybody says he is wise, let's listen some more. After some time I say, this is me, then you'll say, let's go. Yes or no? Because this is a clear case of insanity. The moment you believe something that is not you as yourself, even medically you qualify. Yes, but that's what has happened. The food appears on your plate, you say, this is my food, then you eat it and then you say, this is me. This is the heap of food that we have gathered has become you. The heap of information that you gathered has become you. The moment you identify with something that's not you, then your mind is ceaseless activity. Ceaseless activity does not mean intelligence. Ceaseless activity or uncontrolled activity means madness. Only, only satisfaction or only little bit of relief that you may have is everybody around you is in the same state. This mind is truly useful, this hand is useful only because it takes instructions from me. If I wanted to go, it goes. If I wanted to stop, it stops. The same is true with the mind, isn't it? I'm asking you, does it take instructions from you? If it took instructions from you, I'm sure you would choose to keep yourself blissful every moment of your life. Whatever your intentions may be for the neighbor, but for yourself it's very clear you want highest level of pleasantness, yes? If you had a choice between blissfulness and stressfulness, what would you choose for yourself? You must make a choice, I'll bless you. What would you choose for yourself? Pleasantness, isn't it? When we say pleasantness, it's just this. If the body becomes pleasant, we call this health. Becomes very pleasant, we call it pleasure. If the mind becomes pleasant, we call it peace. Becomes very pleasant, we call it joy. If our emotions become pleasant, we call it love. If it becomes very pleasant, we call it compassion. If our very life energies become pleasant, we call it blissfulness. Becomes It's very pleasant, we call it ecstasy. If your surroundings become pleasant, we call it success. Only for success, you need the cooperation of various forces around you. For the remaining four, the first four levels of pleasantness of body, mind, emotion and energy is just you. If you take charge of this, this will be pleasant. Outside, well, it's a question of skill. But everybody can create external pleasantness because you will have to harness many forces. Yes, please. So as we're pursuing our careers and you know, we're trying to use what we're learning here and having this business mindset, but trying to integrate this like hard of a yogi, I guess that you're advocating for, what are some things that we can do on a daily basis whether it's thoughts or practices, while we're working to further achieve this mindset. I don't like the word mindset. A mind that is set is not good. You shouldn't have any mindset. See, success is everybody's aspiration. Success does not mean that only something big I'm aspiring for, I want it to happen. No. With every single action, you want success, isn't it? Yes or no? Hmm? It's not just one big thing that is success. Every little thing that you do because the very purpose of action is success. When you do something, you want it to be successful, isn't it? Yes or no? If you want to throw your cap on your head, if it doesn't fall, you don't like it, isn't it? You want it to stick to your head. It's that important success I'm saying. Even the simplest thing, you want even the simplest act to be successful. So if you have a mindset, then you will deny yourself of that because success will not come because of any mindset. Success comes because you're able to see things just the way they are. For this, instead of having a mindset, if you work upon your mind to see that it is like a plane mirror, right now, depending upon your identifications, whatever you identified with, accordingly it has bumps on it, a bumpy mirror, you know how it shows things to you, that's all it's… that's happening right now. You have mindsets. If this becomes a clear plane mirror, it should show you just the way it is. Only then you can find your way successfully through the world. How far you go depends on you, your competence, your inclination, how far you're willing to go. Everybody is willing to go all the way in any field of life. There are some people who want to go all the way. Some people are happy going that far. It's individual choices. There is no necessity everybody should go full throttle all the time. It is something each individual decides for himself or herself. So please… Mindset may be different from a set line, but you can have something more of, you mentioned there is more… There is no… In the sphere of quantity, you mentioned we have only one planet, we don't have four planets. There are no more planets that is in the quantitative world. In the qualitative world of courage, adventurousness, persistence, optimism, discipline, generosity, prayer, patience, knowledge, and energy, there is a lot more in the debate that you folks are planning, getting closer in a busy, safe way to the quantity of time that you have already achieved. I said no more for the material stuff that everybody is aspiring for because we are a lot of people on this planet. Our present way of structuring our economies, the way we are driving the economic… economic engine on the planet, this is a style and a mode which people formulated or structured when… when there was an imperialist way of looking at things. At that time the world was planned that way, ten percent of the planet wanted to live well, ten percent of the humanity wanted to live well and they always believed the remaining ninety percent will be enslaved and that's how it will be. But that world has changed. Today across the world planet, every human being is aspiring to live better than the way they are and nobody can contain them anymore. You can put impediments in their way, wars and situations can be created but you can never contain them anymore, that world is gone. So the way we are looking at success, if our idea of success doesn't go through a dimensional change, then there will be… we will understand that we will cause many disasters on the way. But the mind, when we say the word mind in English language, it is not specific, it is generally for the entire scape of things. In yogic terminology we have sixteen parts to the mind. To make it simple I will make it four, four segments. These four are referred to as buddhi, manas, ahankara and chitta. What this means is intellect. The next one is mind, next one is identity and the next one is chitta for which I don't think there's an appropriate English word. Let me explain what these are. Intellect is the knife in the front. Whatever you give to your intellect, it will cut it open and see. The way of the intellect is to dissect everything. Well, you know, so being in a business school, if you were in a science school, you would be dissecting frogs, you would be dissecting so many things and open it up and see the frog's heart beating and you are very excited how it is beating. Believe me, the frog was never excited about this, never been. But you will see science students very excited how the frog's heart is beating and what all they learn from that. A frog doesn't think much about such studies. If I want to really know you well, you think I should dissect you? I'm saying dissection may give you a material understanding of a few things, but it will not allow you to know life in any sense, isn't it? You can't know somebody by dissection. Well today, people know human body through dissection or at least opening the dead bodies. That's different, but you still don't know nothing about life. That is why we call it medicine, not health, because today you must know the food industry on the planet is something like 7.6 trillion dollars. The pharmaceutical industry is 7.2 trillion dollars right now. They say by the end of 2017 it will overtake the food industry. That means people are taking more medicine than the food that they eat on this planet. That says everything about our health situations. This says everything about our mindset about the world that we live in and our mindset about our own lives, which has led to this kind of situation that we are eating more medicine than food. So intellect is a dissecting tool, whatever you give it, it will dissect and look. It is useful to handle material aspects of life. Manus means it's a silo of memory. When I say silo of memory, memory means people think what they remember consciously. You definitely don't remember how your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather or grandmother looked like, but his or her nose is sitting on your face right now. Your body remembers, I'm saying. Your body remembers how your forefathers looked a million years ago. No confusion about that, isn't it? You can't remember all this in your mind. The volume of memory that a single molecule of DNA carries is many, many, many fold more than your entire brain carries right now. So there is a huge silo of memory, evolutionary memory, genetic memory, and there is karmic memory and there is conscious memory put together, it is huge volume of memory. Your intellect, knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously is guided by this memory. What type of memory that is there is what is playing out in the form of your intellect. Why one person thinks one way, another person thinks another way, one person acts this way, another person acts the other way is simply because of the nature of memory that is there in the form of evolutionary memory, genetic memory, karmic memory and the conscious memory that we've gathered. And most of the memory that you have is unconscious in nature. As you sit here, all the five senses are gathering memory right now. In wakefulness and sleep, it is gathering memory. It is just that not even a minuscule of that you're conscious, most of it is unconscious. If you walk from here to here, there may be twenty-five different types of smells. But only if something is acutely pleasant or acutely unpleasant, you will consciously notice it. But all of these things are recorded in one's memory. There are many experiments to prove today as to how this recording is there. And in deep states of hypnosis, these memories can be brought out. This is something that has been studied in recent times. But the memory, the enormous silo of memory is determining how your knife of intellect is directed either towards somebody or yourself. All suffering is just that knife is directed towards ourselves. The third dimension of the mind is called a hankara, which means identity. What you're identified with, that is what your intellect tries to protect. If you say, I'm an American, it protects that. If you say, I'm an Indian, it protects that. If you say, I'm a man, it protects that. If you say, I'm a woman, it protects that. Like this, we have taken multiple identities. It tries to protect that all the time and it functions within the limitations of that identity. The fourth layer of intelligence is the most important aspect. This is an intelligence which is unsullied by memory. There is no iota of memory in this intelligence. This is the intelligence which is the basis of our existence. That is, if you as much as eat a fruit, this fruit becomes a human being. In a matter of few hours, this is that intelligence which transforms everything into this based on the silo of memory we carry, but the intelligence itself is untouched by memory. If you find access to this intelligence, every human being may touch this intelligence at certain moments of their life accidentally or because of situational support. But if you consciously learn to access this dimension of intelligence, in yogic parlance, in a very mischievous way, they say, if you touch your chitta, if you can access your chitta, they say, God becomes your slave, he is no more a god. Because anything that you wish to manifest simply happens out of you, there is no fear or favor about life anymore. So there are four dimensions, mind does not mean just thought process. Thought process is coming from the surface of our minds which is called intellect or the logical dimension of our mind. It is useful to do only certain things. If you try to conduct your whole life with your logic, you will see, you will freak. This is what is happening today. To eat the food, simple thing, people have been eating forever, but today, today's generation of people, if they have to eat something, they have to read that micro print behind the package which says, 0.01% of magnesium, so much of iron, this, this, this, another forty-eight ingredients, by the time you read this, you lost your appetite anyway. If you put some food in front of your dog, one sniff and he knows whether to eat it or not. I'm saying, human neurological system is far more evolved than any other creature on this planet. Yes? Do you agree with me? But right now, simply because there is an endless amount of thought going on in people's minds, their ability to know things just like that is largely gone. Today, human beings are struggling with fundamental things. What your grandmothers naturally knew, today there is a billion dollar research about that. So, you mentioned, don't tweak your desire instead tweak your confidence. Can you elaborate on that and what is your definition of confidence? Tweaking the desire unfortunately gets labeled as ambition and that seems to rule a whole lot of people at a very early age. Desire is like this. For example, you let's say live in America, your neighbor has a big car. What will be your desire to have two cars like that or something bigger than that, something like this? Suppose you're living in a remote place somewhere else in the world where they don't know any such cars, your neighbor had a buffalo. What would be your desire? Two buffalo. I'm saying the content of your desire is a consequence of the societies in which you live. It's never about yourself. That's why it never fulfills you. It never makes your life complete, but it keeps you going and going all the time because it is in reaction to the society in which you exist that you're desiring. Because you're in a certain society, you're desiring in a certain way. If you were in a different society, you would be desiring in a different way. Competence comes in two different scales. One is competence of action in the area or the field that we have chosen. That is what you're doing right now, being in a business school because you want to get into business, you're studying business. That's fine. But the other competence is about life. It doesn't matter whether you do business or law or medicine or whatever, still you need to have competence of life because that is the fundamental thing you're doing here. You're not going... Your business is not going to be the fundamental aspect of your life. Life is the fundamental. Business is one component of that. But life competencies are not taught. By the time one learns, like Jonathan was showing, by the time one begins to figure things, they're fifty. Nothing wrong being fifty, but twenty-five years went waste figuring fundamental things. After human beings having existed for millions of years on this planet, by now we should have known how to live, isn't it? I'm saying... I'm talking about the huge amount of experience that human societies must have had, we should have known how to live. But do you see we seem to be struggling more than ever as a generation of people? This is simply because there is no life competency. When I say life competency, essentially it's about two fundamental things. Your body and your mind should take instructions from you, only then you're competent to live in this world. Yes? No? Even if you want to walk through the street, your body and your mind should take instructions from you. Hmm? What about me? So you're saying that we shouldn't take... should we take this advice? You should not. I don't think I ever said anything about advice anyway. And does it feel like I'm giving you some advice? I'm not. So should we change the way we are because we're on top of us expressing ourselves and being ourselves? Is there a need to change ourselves? Like a child... See, when you say myself, when you say myself or ourselves, you are referring to a certain persona that you have picked up. Your persona is just a complex amalgamation of all the impressions that you have taken in the process of these many years, isn't it? So your persona is not myself, persona is something that you created, maybe unconsciously. But there are parts of your persona which are conscious, isn't it? Yes or no? There are parts of your personality which are conscious, but largely unconscious. When you say myself or ourselves, you're talking about your personality. I'm saying your personality should not be a rigid, concrete block. Each must be a flexible amoeba that fits into any situation that you get into. Because for different situations, you need a different kind of persona, otherwise you start saying, I'm this kind of person. No, your personality is something that you make. You can make it any way you want. But right now, what you make rules you. That's not right. What you make should be managed by you. What you make should not rule you, isn't it? So when you say myself, if you're limiting yourself to your persona, it should be flexible. If you're talking about the nature of your mind, it should be absolutely flexible. Now there may be, see, everything that we're talking about is accumulated stuff. Body is accumulated. The content of the mind is accumulated, content of the body is accumulated. If you have to accumulate so much, there must be something more fundamental. If you don't touch that dimension ever, then this will just go on. Battle between me and you all the time, between this and that. This is where the fundamental idea of competition comes from, because you made yourself to be something other than who you are. If you become a piece of life, are you alive? I'm asking you. You're thinking about it. Are you alive? Yes. If you throb here as life, everything that you need to know about life, you naturally know. You don't have to have a PhD on life. This is life. This is life, but right now you're not a life. You become a bundle of thoughts, emotions, ideas, opinions and prejudices. If you pierce beyond that, there is something more fundamental than all these things, which is life itself. If everybody was in touch with this, they would be utterly, absolutely flexible, because life is flexible. Do you see it this way? When you were… you know, at some point you were just three feet tall, right? Yes? At that time, did you fit properly into this body or tight fitting, I'm asking? You did fit properly, right? Now are you loose fitting? No. I'm saying that which is life fits perfectly well into any situation, but that which is your mind, that which is your persona, because it's become like a concrete block, it doesn't fit. So your mind and your personality should serve the life within you. But right now it's the other way round. The life within you is being forced to serve your mind and your persona. What you created should serve you, isn't it? But you're serving what you created, your thoughts and emotions are ruling you. After all, it's your thought. You can have it whichever way you want, it's your emotion. You can make it whichever way you want. If you were consciously doing this, I'm sure you would make it highest level of pleasantness for you. And if you were in a highest level of pleasantness, you would be wonderful to everybody around you. Isn't that true with you? If I meet you when you're very joyful, are you not a wonderful person? You are. If I meet you when you're angry, unhappy, frustrated, you could be nasty. Joy is the ultimate insurance for creating a wonderful humanity. We have focused too much on creating good people, which is a serious mistake. We need joyful and sensible human beings.