 Good morning, Sadhguru. Thank you for taking time to talk to me and you were just telling me just now your travel schedule which is kind of hectic. So I'm glad to have a moment to sit down with you today. The people listening are people all over the world who are interested in the fashion industry. The people watching might also not know everything about you but I just I never intended but you know people are thinking I just designed my own clothes and now people are saying it's a big fashion statement. It could be. I mean it is beautiful. It's just my natural choice. But I wanted to start the conversation by for those people who aren't familiar with you and your work and your story if you could just introduce us a little bit to you know who you are and how you've ended up becoming the person you are and you know what is it that drives you? Oh I'm not driven by anything. Okay. I'm self-driven not driven by anything. Not used to talking about myself because I never thought there's nothing much to say. But people who want to understand what what you do like how do you explain it to someone? Well there are many areas of work. So people are always trying to define themselves by what they do. Right. This is what I'm trying to change in the world. What you do should not define who you are. Who you are should define what you do. Right. So who I am is really nothing. So I do whatever is needed. So that got me involved in variety of things. One thing is fundamental human well-being. So systems for human well-being which we developed come under the brand of you know in engineering. Then ecological needs are there. So we started what is called as Project Green Hands. We planted over 33 million trees. So people started calling me a triple enter. Then I said I am not a triple enter. My basic work is to make human beings blossom. Then the rivers in India was bad. So we started Rally for Rivers which became the largest ecological movement on the planet. 162 million people participated in a month-long prop event. And this has become a recommended policy in India for all the states. The central government recommended the Rally for Rivers policy recommendation document we gave. The United Nations also took it up and we launched what is called as a decade of action in UN. Well we are involved in education. It's not that I'm interested in all these things. I'm just interested in life. Whatever, wherever I see things are not functioning well. Inevitably I get involved. So education, health, nourishment, ecology and now fashion because the way we dress is destroying the world. Textile has become the third largest polluter on the planet. So one important thing that needs to happen is to shift back to natural fiber as much as possible in the coming few decades. If we don't do that because everybody is shooting the plastic bag which is visible, the lowly plastic bag is yes it needs to be handled but it is not the main thing. It's just visible and flying all over the place. But textile or polyfiber is one of the biggest polluters when it comes to plastic pollution is the largest one actually. But it goes unaddressed because it is all microfiber. It's in your body, it's in the food that we eat, it's in the water that we drink, it's everywhere. So shifting back to natural fiber as much as possible is an important thing and this is also this will also handle variety of other aspects for nations which grow natural fiber and have the capacity and the talent to produce yarn and then to weave it in many different ways which is a skill that human beings developed for over thousands of years. You know it took millennia to develop these skills but we're just killing it just in one or two generations simply because we got machine-made cloth and we got synthetic fiber. So overall well-being of the human being involves clothing also, so here I am. Right and it's New York Fashion Week. It might not be evident from where we are right now but what is your goal with the event that you're holding this week in New York with all of these designers? We have brought in about hundred and twenty distinct weaves from India. So we want to expose this material to the designers here and to the those who consume fashion products. The important thing is to move them towards natural fiber that is a basic element both for health and ecological purposes. These substantial studies which show that wearing synthetic fiber causes immense damage to the system and could be the source of various diseases that we are suffering, unexplained levels of cancer, many things. Some people say it is still not very well established but definitely it has impact. They're saying almost there is not a single American citizen who doesn't have a certain amount of plastic in their bodies. This may be so everywhere probably only Americans have been studied, they've been put under the microscope. They say on an average twenty-eight grams of plastic could be in American citizens body both from food consumption and textiles that they use, especially for children. The level of skin allergies and other things you're finding is mainly because of the type of clothing they're using and once you use synthetic clothing it is very flammable. So to make it not so flammable they're using other kinds of chemicals which are carcinogenic there's no question about that. So these things need to be reversed now because as it is it is estimated we are on an average every human being on the planet has five times more clothing than what our grandparents had. That number even sounds low to me. That's among your clients. I mean when I see people's closets. On an average I'm saying. But by 2025 they said that's going to double that means we'll have 10 times more. So when this kind of phenomenal increase in textile consumption is on the threshold I think it's very important we bring back natural fiber. So these four designers that you're working with this week you know they all come from different disciplines in fashion there's you know Sabya Sachi from India and then there's Norma Kamali and Mara Hoffman and others from here. How what is your expectation with how these textiles from India will be used here in a different context? So big names in America have to take up natural fiber as a cause and it is both ecologically and health-wise it's going to be a big step for American people especially those who can afford no matter what is the cost they're buying. So for those who can afford my intent is to push it in such a way that the designers themselves push it in such a way that right now the wills you know the wills lifestyle clothing in India went hundred percent natural. Yesterday or day before there was a full page ad in Times of India and I congratulated them and they responded so major companies are going Ramon's in India is going almost mostly natural these days so in America it needs to happen because what happens in America naturally cascades into the rest of the world for whatever reasons America has become or attained to a certain kind of leadership though fashion is supposed to be centered in Paris what happens in America everybody does everybody is tearing their pants these days because you know it happened in America so I feel American designers are very important in this process that we recommend at least 50 percent of the well-to-do should turn to natural fiber this will also create a market as I said there are 136 distinct weaves in India these must survive means there must be a market also this is not about whether it's Indian or not Indian that's not the point these are skills which evolved over millennia we just killing them just like that not understanding what is involved in making these things yeah I mean speaking of the Indian textile industry there's been a lot of threats to the survival of textile crafts and the tradition of creating these textiles which you know many of them have been passed down from generation to generation can you can you educate us a little bit on what's you know the history of textiles in India why they're so important why they're integral to the culture of of India and expression of the creative creative side of see if you look back a few thousand years ago nobody on the planet dressed like Indians with the finest possible cloth when clothing in rest of the world was very gross and coarse kind of clothing in India we produce the finest kind of clothing well I'm talking about looking at the because in India we don't record history by factual facts and accounts and numbers and things like that but if you look at the stories if you go back to a story like Mahabharat almost six thousand years ago they're talking about Pete Humber a silk cloth which is very fine and which has certain you know in terms of its color and its vibrance it's of a certain kind six thousand years ago they were wearing those kind of clothes so if you go back into the Indian folk history you will see enormous talk about what kind of clothing well we know 300 years ago we were the largest textile exporting country in the world 85 percent of the world's exports in textiles was India between 1800 and 1860 systematically her majesty's I'm sorry works systematically destroyed textile industry well this is not to create bitterness but this is a fact of its history that somebody took advantage of it and they developed their industry and they destroyed another nation's industry and because of this people went into farming to survive because it is believed that there's no records of how many Indians die usually between 1800 and 1860 it is believed about 1.5 to 1.7 million textile weavers died out of starvation and lack of because textile export dropped by 98 percent in 60 years wow and its value dropped by 6300 percent in 60 years time so people lost their livelihoods and that's when everybody moved into agriculture when the British left in 1947 over 90 percent of Indians were in agriculture not all of them are farmers most of them were weavers and related industry who all went into farming just to survive to scratch the earth and have something to eat subsistence farming became a big part of Indian survival it is only now there again moving out into other various other activities and even today in the last 10 years or 300,000 farmers have committed suicide because they're all growing only food from their old practice of growing food for their own survival our intent is at least 30 percent of the farmers or farmland should go into natural fiber back into textiles yes because they're only growing perishable items and there is no market system where perishable item perishable items will be preserved and he will get the right kind of price if he has a bad crop he has a bad crop and he dies out of that if he has a good crop the prices will crash in the market and he'll die out of that this is the way the economy is going all the time sure so shifting a percentage of land into natural fiber will be a big step in that direction even today over four million families are involved in textiles out of these 136 weaves that I'm talking about nearly 67 of them are almost extinct yes just one family one old man keeping it alive his children have already become software engineers they are somewhere else in the world and just this one more person died in the next 10 15 years time that form of weaving will just die how distinct it is means there is a place this is because you're a fashion person you must visit these places they're unique there's a place called gullet good that means in meaning it's a canada word it means that a hill that ran away a hill that ran away because way back we don't know when what dates a whole village lived on the hill for some reason maybe they ran out of water I don't know what happened they all moved to the plains so in that one village they have a distinct way of making only blouse pieces you know the Indian sari blouse of course they make only that particular thing it is made only in that particular village in the entire country wow it is that blouse piece only they make they can't make it any longer they are trained only to do that and that has a market in a certain sort of people but all these things are disappearing because no designer to tell them okay you can make some other kind of the same weave you can make it into a dress material or you can make it to something else because a number of people wearing saris has dropped dramatically in the last ten years it's almost disappearing except in southern India in the north you hardly see anybody in saris so the market is disappearing and naturally the talent will disappear these are things that we must be proud of because how many ways human beings learn to do things with their hands is incredible right so what will it take sub guru to get you know this 30 percent target that you've set to shift people back into the natural creation a live market a demanding live market okay tell me more about that so that's why we're in america because on an average an american person dumps about 28 kilograms of clothing every year in india the average is about 1 1.5 kilograms of clothing is dumped in america it's 28 kilograms per person is dumped into the dump so the highest consumption of clothing is happening here this is where the real market is and above all this is kind of a a showroom market what happens here will naturally happen in the rest of the world in that context creating a market in america is very important for natural fiber that message is one important thing that we could do yeah from people like you is we must promote this at least in school uniforms children must wear only natural fiber we can produce a whole lot of medical documents research to show what kind of impact it will have on the child's life mind development neurological system learning disabilities how just natural fiber will have impact on the child's growth so this we are looking at how to you know collate all the medical information that is there and present to the private schools to start with or go to the state schools and see if one one state can go right now kerala in india has gone for all government school uniforms are caught in now i am pitching with the central government to push for this now it's election time this time it may not happen but by next academic year we are looking at least three to four states in india must go that government schools where millions of children study their uniforms should become natural fiber whatever it is in that region i mean it's it's a very powerful point the challenge here in america is that not all of the you know kids in school wear uniforms and people have been talking about messages of sustainability and you know natural fibers for many years and there still seems to be some blockers getting in the way of getting that to register in the minds of the people when they make a purchasing decision schools can make this decision because every human being may not make the decision if a school makes a decision children must all come with natural fiber whatever they choose cotton silk linen whatever they want jute or whatever right so if they make the decision whether they're wearing a fixed uniform or whatever they're where where the most important thing is we must move away from this sense of clothing must be all starched like a knife and you know must be pointing this way we are not in some army or something it's all right to wear something little crumbly you know actually the most affluent people are wearing very crumbly and torn clothes again this is true um the other interesting connection to indian textiles happens to be a timely one because this this is the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of that is why we call this fashion for peace okay so i'm part of the twenty twenty member committee chaired by the prime minister for this so as a part of this we are doing three major focus of activity one thing is we are doing big movements with the farmers so we are setting up large scale uh farmer producers organizations bringing scale to indias farming indias farming the biggest problem is lack of scale because average land ownership is one hectare which is 2.5 2.25 acres with that scale the investment that goes into it is no way he's going to make it so the important thing is integration not of land but of input in terms of irrigation and marketing these two things we want to integrate through what is called as a farmer producer organizations for which work is going on we're setting up a few model villages and this work is going on because that was very dear to matma gandhi the village life that should be sustainable and economically dignified for the rural population the next thing is textile because when you think of matma gandhi you're always thinking of a spinning wheel charaka it's called so we are into textiles this called save the weave project and right now it is being in america it is named as fashion for peace but in india it goes by the same umbrella brand save the weave many things are being done we are identifying all those type of weaves which are dying which are sure to die in the next 10 to 20 years time because there's only one family usually keeping it up we are seeing how to put young people who are interested in learning and propagating that and taking taking it up as a business for all this market is important that's why one focus is here and in india we're doing various other things for the same the third thing is there is no culture of peace in the world in the sense whenever there is a war or conflict we have conflict resolutions but we have not focused on developing a culture of peace there are communities in the world who have developed a culture of peace among themselves that they have found ways see in every transaction there could be conflict this is the nature of trans human transactions but if you evolve a culture of peace within yourself in your community in your nation among nations then there is a way of resolving these problems and these potential conflicts in a peaceful manner so we are looking at conversations with you know like celebrities who will turn everybody's heads in the world those kind of celebrities one we will do either in nyork or uh washington another in london one in berlin and one in mosco and then we are closing with poor bandar we are establishing our that's where ghandi was born poor bandar we wanted to put this in poor bandar but now they asked us to move to amadabad so amadabad where sabramati ashram is where matma ghandi's ashram is if you overlooking that if you look from there down down below is the riverfront of sabramati river so at that place where from the ashram you can see it every day there are thousands of visitors to matma ghandi's ashram they can see a 12 foot tall bust put on a four four foot high platform designed in a certain way as you know we built this adiyogi statue in a unique way so this is being already made in our center so we will do that on 2nd of october which is matma ghandi's birth anniversary i wanted to conclude the conversation i would be remiss if i didn't ask you a bit of advice because you know there's millions of people around the world who seek your council on navigating life and um the vicissitudes of life as some people call them you know earlier we were i was talking to you about um you know what's one person called or told me or described to me as an epidemic of stress in the world you know and you know in our industry in the fashion industry but as you pointed out in every industry everywhere you know people are stressed you know where where do you think this epidemic of stress comes from and how can how can people eradicate stress the stress is uh not because of a situation in which we exist stress is because of a situation that we do not know how to manage our body our mind our emotions and our energies because uh essentially because you have a very complex machine here if you want to look at human mechanism it is the most sophisticated machine on the planet though everybody is too enamored with their iPads and iPhones and whatever other phones they're using they're calling them smartphones you call somebody smart only when you find them smarter than you isn't it hello isn't that the normal you you say oh this is a very smart guy why because you found in smarter than you okay so the phone has become smarter than you in some way because at least it seems to know what it is doing most human beings don't know what the hell to do with themselves because they're going at a very sophisticated machine without even reading the user's manual to put it simply they haven't paid attention to how this one works simply they want to conquer the world they are a mess but they want to conquer the world see when you yourself are an issue how will you handle any issue tell me if fashion is stressful well politics must be horrible running an automobile industry must be worse spirituality must be terrible because all the time you're meeting these people right the problem is only you don't know how to manage yourself isn't it so this inability to manage yourself has come because we want to manage everything except ourselves before you touch something you must be in a good condition isn't it if you're really interested before I touch you I must be clean isn't it yeah people if they're handling their little infants or something they wash their hands clean and everything and handle why because they understand what I love before I touch it this must be clean hehe so before you touch the world this must be clean now when you are in a stressful condition you're saying because of a certain industry or a job or whatever somebody comes to me he's heading a multinational company a global leader he's in a terrible condition he comes and says sattguru I can't take this anymore the kind of pressure they're putting on me you're just killing me I look at him and say may you be fired this is sattguru sattguru what are you doing I said hey you're suffering your job so much if you get fired at least you can walk the beach yeah and I'm sure somebody else is ready to take this damn job I'm sure a hundred people are waiting to take your job a lot of people would kill to have his job I know but you're suffering it so much why for you either you fix yourself or you get out of that place isn't it tell me what is it that is not stressful for human beings if they're poor they suffer their their stressed about their poverty if they become rich they're stressed about the taxes they're not educated they're stressed ask the children to go to school how much stress not married they're stressed get them married also stressed so if you're out of your business if you're out of your family if you're out of all activity will you live joyfully and fantastic no if you're alone you'll be stressed to the core isn't it so the problem is not with your activity the problem is the fundamental mechanism has not even been something so complex no attention has been paid so entire process of inner engineering is just this that you understand how this mechanism works once you know how it works you know how to deal with it your body your mind if you see people are fifty sixty years of age they've still not figured how to handle their thought and emotion when are they going to do it do they have a millennial lifespan i don't know by the time you're fifteen sixteen at least you should have figured it out but at sixty you still don't know how to handle your thought and emotion when will you figure it right you know you once you once said life around you will never happen the way you want it and it should not what did you mean by that because if everything everything happens your way where do i go i'm glad it's not happening your way little bit your way little bit my way little bit somebody else's way this is how the world should happen if it happens all your way or even if you want it all your way you're a tyrant it'll never happen though fortunately even for the worst tyrants it did not happen isn't it right fortunately fortunately well thank you very much for taking time to chat with me that was very illuminating there was a lot to learn about you know the textile industry and sustainability and also a bit of advice to help manage ourselves you must develop the market for natural fibers this is not just about fashion this is going to make millions of people's lives