 I met Sadguru really through happenstance a few years ago. I was walking my dog down the street and I ran into Craig Johnson, who is my neighbor. He was walking his dog and he stopped me and said, oh, I just came back from this amazing retreat and you have to do this retreat. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let me continue to walk my dog. He said, no, you have to go to this retreat. And he described to me the retreat and he described to me Sadguru. And I said, well, you know, I'm kind of open for anything, so let's talk about it another time. And then a few weeks later, it just so happened that Sadguru was in town and he invited me over to their house for dinner. He and Nikki, where's Nikki? There's Nikki right there. Many of you guys may know Nikki as the founder of the Spirit House in Woodside. She puts on some amazing programs. Please look into them. So Nikki and CJ had my wife and I over for dinner. We got to know Sadguru a little bit. And I found his perspectives very provocative, very different and kind of worthwhile to step back and think about him a little bit. I then accepted an invitation to go to a three-day retreat that he held. And again, I found it to be really interesting and made me think about a lot of new things. So we've been striking up a friendship over the last few years and he's now out with a new book. The book is here and it's called Inner Engineering, A Yogi's Guide to Joy. And there's actually a bunch of copies that the publisher Random House has donated outside. If you want to grab one, please feel free to do that where he talks about some of his perspectives on Inner Engineering, a way to have better control over your mind, your body, your energy, your emotions. So the objective tonight is really just to have a conversation about the challenges and the things that our kids, our teenagers are facing. I have three teenagers. Most of you guys have many teenagers. And let's talk about that. I've got a handful of questions that I can pose to Sadhguru and he'll have interesting perspectives on those. But then I really want to get you guys involved to have you guys ask questions and start a dialogue. One of the things that someone that we actually met a couple of weeks ago, the Dean of Heart of Business School said to me, we were talking about leadership and he was sharing his philosophy about leadership as the Dean of a major business school. And he sort of said, for me it's about knowing, acting, being, having some real knowledge and expertise to lead, taking action upon it and then living every day that way. And one of the things that I think has been the most amazing about Sadhguru's journey is the actions that he has taken. You saw some of the programs up there, but maybe you can describe some of the things that you have going on in the world because it's not just about coming and talking and meeting and philosophizing, it's actually about taking action. So maybe you can tell some of the things that you have going on around the world and how you get them resourced. Good evening, everyone. This knowing, acting and then being, when we say being, we're talking about the fundamental nature of our existence, the quality of our existence will determine the quality of our perception and the quality of our perception will determine the quality of what we know and what we do not know. Action is a consequence of this. If you put it upside down, then it's like saying fruit, tree, root, soil. That's not how it works. Soil, root, tree and then fruit. If you put it upside down, you may pull out something forcefully. But the damage is there. Today, I'm working with a whole lot of business leaders in the world, both in India and outside. I wouldn't like to generalize this, but I would say at least sixty to seventy percent of them, by the time they're forty-five, they're seriously damaged in many ways. Either they have become emotionally stifled because of their a certain type of activity or many of them are suffering from various types of physical ailments, which is essentially they believe is a natural consequence of the kind of job they're doing because you're doing things forcefully. If you do not understand the natural order of things as to how life blossoms, if you want the fruit first before the tree, obviously it involves forceful ways of doing things. When you do forceful ways of doing things, one thing may be achieved, but the rest is damaged. Most affluent societies in the world, everywhere, not just here, are going through this. They have become affluent, but the idea, the fundamental idea of seeking affluence, either in individual life or in a society or in a nation, is because it will give us a choice fundamentally of nourishment and lifestyles. This is the reason why human beings seek affluence, so that it will give us a whole choice of nourishment and lifestyles. Now, if you look at people's lives, these choices are not something that they're enjoying. These choices are just freaking them out. People don't know what to eat, people don't know what to do, because we have not handled the most fundamental. We want to be on the racetrack, but we don't want to build a machine for it. We just want to win. Nobody wins a race because they desire it. Who doesn't desire victory? Everybody does. But only competence wins in the end. So whether it's in a school or in a college or in a professional atmosphere, instead of tweaking our competence, we are tweaking our desire, which we call as ambition or goal-orientedness or whatever. You're tweaking your desire without tweaking your competence or you may be tweaking your competence, but it's coming behind the desire. No, you must just tweak your competence. What you can do may be beyond your desire or it may be a little less than that. We don't know. But without tweaking your competence, you're trying to tweak your desire, which causes an unnecessary sense of stress when you do well. Look at the pain of that. You're suffering your well-being. This cannot be excused because our well-being is coming at a great loss and pain to every other creature on the planet. And we are suffering it, simply because we are putting the cart before the horse. So you cannot do being in the end, knowing, doing, knowing and being. No, no. Being first. How to be. If you don't know how to be, wherever we put you, you will suffer. If you know how to be, whether you work here in San Francisco or you have to work in the marsh, it doesn't matter. Wherever you are, you will know how to do. What will you do? You will function to the best of your intelligence and capability. That's all you can do. In our lives, if we do not do what we cannot do, it's not a issue. But if we do not do what we can do, we're a disastrous life. That's all we try to avoid, that we don't end up not being able to do what we can do. But once you create this unnecessary, completely avoidable stress that your desire is bigger than your competence, without tweaking the competence instead of focusing everything and tweaking the competence, we are tweaking the desire. Now, you're creating a situation where there is stress. Stress means you're moving towards incompetence, not towards competence. Any machine on the planet will function at its best, only when there is no sense of friction. The least amount of friction means that machine is the most efficient machine. Why is that not true for human mechanism? If this functions with least amount of friction, this will function at its best. Will I be as good as you? Maybe not. But I will be at my peak and that's all. And every human being has come with a certain genius. But I would say because of the type of schooling that we have taken to across the world, not in any one place and the way we are approaching life, I would say 95% of the people live and die without ever realizing what is their unique genius. Only two to five percent of the people realize the genius of what they are capable of. Rest will all do something that somebody else is doing, they want to do that. They want to do that better than them. That is their idea of well-being. Because of this, a tremendous amount of human genius is simply lost. And that is the biggest crime on the planet that human genius is stifled because everybody is trying to be in one basket and be on top of everybody else. This is a very rudimentary way of functioning in the world. Unfortunately, that's become the way everywhere. We're trying to do something, but that's in small scale. The large-scale schooling and education and professional seeking are all in this way. We all wanted to get into one basket and be on top of the best pile. It's a cruel way to live. If you get there also, you will suffer. If you don't get there also, you will suffer. We're going right into the issues for children, for teenagers, and we're here with two headmasters of two great schools. Describe to us some of the different philosophies that you use and that your teachers use in the school that you have for children in South India and what we can learn from those approaches relative to the western approaches. See, people are... different segments of people put their children to school for different reasons. So I set up three different systems of schooling. One, I think, was a little bit, was there on this video, which is rural schooling. Here the issue is these are improvised societies. Children are trapped in a situation where unless they get education, which is English-based and they have some technological capabilities, they can't get out of that pit. They will be in the same place for always, their entire life. So this is essentially job-oriented kind of education. This is in rural areas, in remote places. We run the schools and we also adopt government schools in the rural areas and see how to improve them. We have another school called Isha Home School. This is for the affluent children. This runs in a 120-acre property where he spread out with 10,000 square miles of forests behind us because I think it's a crime to have children in rooms and rooms and rooms and within that they're doing. One of the most important thing for the growth of a child is that there must be exposure to nature, to elements because without a healthful body, there is no healthy mind. It cannot happen. Your brain is body, yes? Brain is body, isn't it? We are always referring to it as if it's something different. What happens here will definitely happen here. How will it not happen? So this is a unique sort of school where twenty children will live in a household along with two dedicated people and they grow up with them. Almost all the teaching happens in the house except for libraries, laboratories and playgrounds. Everything else is within the house. That's why it's called a homeschool till they come to seventh standard. After that they go to the high school within the premises. This school is run with a very close interaction with... we don't call them teachers, they're just volunteers who are there. Highly educated people but none of them are trained to be teachers because we don't want them to bring systems of education. This is just to stimulate the child in such a way that he is longing to know. The incredible thing is we set them up into that level of curiosity and wanting to learn. Many times the six-seven-year-olds come and knock on teachers' doors at ten-thirty-eleven in the night because they're doing some project and they can't sleep. They want to know this now. They want to open one particular book and see what is there in that book. We've made the teachers in such a way that even if it's ten-thirty-eleven they'll open the library and sit with them and what he wants to know, this is like a home like atmosphere where for every four-and-a-half children on an average, every four-and-a-half children we have one adult. Here there are no rigid rules but everything is managed without saying anything. For example, there is no holidays in the school but we've decided in a month there are four to five days which is off academics but children will never know which day it is. It just happens one day. Today they started singing. Today becomes all music. Tomorrow we were talking about something so that day they go into the forest but they don't know which day is a break because we don't want this culture of thank God it's Friday. If you don't enjoy learning then what's the point? See for any human being knowing something new stimulation of one's mind and intellect is one of the greatest joys. If that doesn't come into the child's life he's waiting when is the break. When I actually started this school when I spoke to a group of volunteers see this is what we need to do I spoke to them about six, seven hours and said this is what we need to do then they all looked at me and said how do we know that we are fulfilling your vision? I said see the school is in four month segments so after the four months are over when children have to go home if they're tearing up to go home that means you're doing well and when they come to school joyfully for sure you're doing well this is unbelievable I don't think it happens in any other school at least fifteen to twenty percent of the children come back to school when the vacation is on come back to school at least a week ten days sometimes two to three weeks early because they want to be a part of setting up the school because they believe it's their school and they're part of it and they want to be involved and many of these students you've made them into student teachers that weekly one class or two class two one or two hours in a week they take the subjects what is thought to you you may easily forget but what you teach you never forget you know and above all there is a new sense of responsibility once you stand up there as a teacher and do it there are rewards for it they get more emailing you know internet time otherwise one important thing which is very important for the children is at eleven o'clock in the morning there is a juice break children will all drink juice outside teachers will sit in the staff room and have juice and they have some discussions going at that time for about half an hour these children who take the responsibility of teaching they get into the staff room sit with the teachers and drink juice which is a very big thing for them they are like staff they get treated like adults totally so things like these incentives where there is an excitement about learning and normally what is twelve years I made it thirteen years in India it's ten plus two that's a schooling system I made it ten plus three for the same this thing initially people said why should we spend one year extra I said it's up to you because we've invested so much in art sport theatre many other extracurricular activities the moment they come to eleventh to twelfth generally in India they get marks mad they want to get marks because passing marks in India is ninety-eight there are universities where children who got hundred out of hundred they don't get admission it's just crazy so I said those who are marks mad can go elsewhere but we want to consolidate all the talents that they've picked up plus we are exposing them to leadership management various types of industry and many other aspects of life which would not happen in school normally so this school is run for their children this kind of schooling costs quite a lot the other type of school that we have is here there is no academics of any kind here the focus is just on building human body and human brain to its fullest we have methodologies traditional methodologies through which we do here they learn yoga khalari khalari is the mother of all martial arts which is an elaborate system of developing the body a classical martial arts classical Indian music South Indian music classical dance Sanskrit language where it has the widest range of sounds to be used we use the sound in a very effective way to develop the neurological system in the child a wide range of sounds this is something that doesn't happen to English speaking children they must do other kinds of sounds because expressing or uttering the sounds does wonderful things to neurological system you will see these children are so balanced means they are super balanced if they sit like this cross-legged they can simply sit like this for five, six hours unmoving you will rarely see children like that so these children go through twelve years once they enter twelve years is compulsory because they are not going through other forms of education we have workshops where they learn banking, accountancy a little bit of mathematics and a little bit of engineering and science but that's only for practical purposes but essentially this is focused towards building human body and human brain to its fullest capability and we are putting them through certain kinds of evaluations to see whether this is happening to them or not these are incredible children till you see them you won't believe this how these kids are they are very extraordinary children they are not qualified for anything people ask me how will they go to the university they are not made for the university they are made for the universe because that's why you have to live so here in Silicon Valley I think some of the things that we see with our children and some of the things that we hopefully want to help them work on and improve on their own issues like fear of failure even though they are incredibly bright capable young children fear of letting their parents down defining success in very narrow ways peer pressure conforming to the group always being on how can we impart some perspectives both on the parents and the children to manage these issues and create more balance in their lives one of the things you were remarking on is I think you noticed that particularly in Palo Alto which is an incredibly sophisticated city the suicide rate is very very high of all the terrible things that can happen to us our children want to commit suicide this is unacceptable it's the worst thing that can happen in any society but this is not just an American phenomena it's happening everywhere in India 9600 children committed suicide last year below 18 years of age out of this about 800 children are below 12 years of age our children want to commit suicide there can't be anything worse happening in society isn't it obviously we're doing something fundamentally wrong because a child is a fresh life a child is a manifestation of exuberance of life but today you're seeing children are becoming like this because the fundamental reason for this is this is one thing you will see in our schools children are exuberant and joyful this is most important for me this is important for every human being not just for children we have become like this because we're exercising only one dimension of our intelligence which is called the intellect intellect means your intellect is useful only if it is sharp you agree with me you are becoming so serious I'm talking about exuberance your intellect is useful to you only if it's sharp the nature of the intellect is such anything you give it give your intellect I mean whatever you give to your intellect the only way it can know something is by dissecting it if you give this flower to a scientist first thing he will do is he will pull it apart to see what is inside if I want to know you Janathan should I pull you apart is there a way to know life I'm asking because this is what the intellect can do we're just banking on human intellect too much we're too enamored by our own intellect intellect means it has to function logically once you're intellectually on you cannot accept anything which is not logical yes logic means there has to be two two were created by your intellect what is one big life we make it into two everything we go on dividing and we fragment the universe into millions of pieces in our mind and we store all these pieces and hope they will all fall together they will never fall together because whatever falls falls in the sharpness of your intellect and further slices you're talking about being really smart if you're really smart you must know how to keep yourself well isn't it hello I'm really smart but I'm screwed up what is the point I'm saying what is the point of this if I'm really smart I must know how to keep myself in my best possible way this has not happened because our education systems in their fundamental concept do not allow other dimensions of intelligence to function we recognize in the yogic sciences when we say human mind in yoga we say there are sixteen parts to your mind these sixteen parts can be categorized as fundamentally four parts first is the intellect which is called as the bhutti in the local languages the next is called ahankara the identity your intellect always functions around your identity whatever you identified with your intellect functions around that it may be your individuality it may be your family it may be your community it may be your race, religion, nationality but it functions around that you will live for it and you will die for it whatever you identify with that is what it will try to protect because intellect is essentially a survival tool without intellect you cannot survive right now we are using intellect as a way of acquiring knowledge we are using intellect to enhance our life it will not work like that intellect is a fantastic survival tool if you intellect a shop you will survive well but survival will never satisfy a human being and for these children who are in this kind of school survival is not even an issue they don't know what the hell they are doing with themselves raising the bar of survival that's all that's happening we are going on raising the bar of survival though you are doing very well your stomach is full you are eating and sleeping well you feel like you are being oppressed because you have raised the bar of survival to an unrealistic place survival is taken care of isn't it? hello so you should never feel threatened about that it's only about doing something more but that will not come through intellect because intellect will only think of survival because it is a survival tool now we are trying to put the world together with our intellect this is like intellect is like a knife you are using a knife to stitch you know you will tear more and more you will see the more intellectual people get they look smarter in a society but if you just look at them as a life they are just stupid they don't know simplest things of their life they are smart compared to somebody else because they are able to do something that somebody cannot do but how they are within themselves they can't sit in one place peacefully this means you obviously don't know how to handle your intelligence the only problem with most human beings is people do not know how to handle their own intelligence well they have exotic names for this they call it stress they call it anxiety they call it depression and many varieties of depression and madness and whatever but fundamentally you don't know how to handle your own intelligence if you do not know how to handle the most vital aspect of who you are which is your intelligence which sets you apart from every other creature on this planet it's a disastrous life how can this be a smart life I'm asking if you are smart you know how to handle your vital assets one of the greatest assets that we have as human beings is we have a cerebral capability that no other creature has but we have not taken charge of it it works against us this is because you have a car with four wheels but you want to drive it on one wheel it's very stressful it's bound to be stressful the other dimensions are not used the second is called the Ankara which is the identity this is very important how an identity is set up I see in these cultures very strong identities about religion about race about nationality and maybe a football club or a basket ball club they are so strongly identified this will not allow things to happen one thing traditionally in India we set up is which is unfortunately vanishing today because we have taken to English education traditionally when a child has to start education first alphabet he has to learn means first he is told your identification is with the entire cosmos aham brahmashmi he's thought he is made to utter a mantra which means I am everything because education is seen as an empowerment you should not empower a human being who has limited identifications if you empower somebody with limited identity he will cause damage to everybody else which who are not in the ambit of that identity this is what as nations we are doing this is what as race and religion we are doing to each other isn't it every day this is happening when somebody else does it it looks ugly when we do it we are justified because everybody has their own logic I want I mean I let me take an extreme example because I have a way of walking into trouble right now one thing that bothers everybody is what is happening in the Middle East this ISIS whatever okay I mean it's a it is most horrendous things are happening but people who are perpetrating this believe they are doing the best thing they are doing God's work and they believe it 100% they are not crooked people believe me they believe it 100% because a man who is willing to die for it at least you must trust this isn't it someone is willing to die for something means he must be genuine in what he carries within himself isn't it yes or no life is precious for every human being he is willing to die for it means he absolutely believes it all the only problem is limited identity you have an identity of yours others are not in that so they must go so like this from a very early age we are setting up identities which are narrow based on various things this is a very important requirement if intelligence has to simply expand without limits it is very very important children start with a limitless identity that you are identified with everything in the universe this is very important now this identity if you want to use an analogy your intellect is like a knife the identity is the hand that holds it the hand that holds decides whether a knife will make life or take life isn't it knife does not decide in the hands of a surgeon it may save a life in an irresponsible hand it takes a life knife is not doing this it is the hand that holds what kind of identity have you taken on accordingly your intellect becomes a fruitful thing for everybody around you or it becomes a destructive process intellect is a useless instrument unless it's fed with some data if there is no data if you wipe out all your memory suddenly you look like a dumb person though you have a sharp intellect because intellect cannot function without data so the third dimension of the mind is called as manas which is a huge silo of memory we identify eight different forms of memory the first form of memory is called as elemental memory atomic memory evolutionary memory karmic memory in that there are two varieties one is a silo of memory another is an active memory which is called as sanjita and prarabdha and sensory memory inarticulate memory and articulate memory what you're experiencing as conscious memory is the articulate memory it is not even one percent of the memory that you carry when I say not even one percent of the memory that you carry you definitely do not remember how ten generations ago your great great great great great grandfather looked like but his nose is sitting on your face because your body remembers every bit of it yes or no? there is a genetic memory here which remembers similarly there's an evolutionary memory atomic memory everything everything from the beginning of creation to now in some way is there that is why this body is able to take this form and retain this form essentially every form and every particular specific activity that has what we're calling as genetics what is passing on from one generation to another generation is just a certain module of memory isn't it? memory is a possibility and it is also a boundary memory means accumulated information today in the technology world memory does not mean here it's in the computer in so many places memory means accumulated information accumulated information means a limited possibility so the fourth dimension of intelligence is referred to as chitta this is this is a dimension of intelligence unsullied by memory there is not an iota of memory in this this is the intelligence which is the basis of your making that is today if you if you eat an apple there is an intelligence here which turns you turns an apple into a human being if you eat a fish into this it will turn into a human being because there is an intelligence here which can do this miraculous job if a drop of this intelligence if you touch your chitta suddenly your experience of life will become an ever expanding process suddenly your genius will flower in such a way every human being might have touched this dimension of intelligence at some point or other unconsciously but the important thing is you are consciously able to bring forth this must come into our children if we are interested that the next generation should be way better than who we are it's important that they touch a dimension of intelligence that we did not excess otherwise in many ways we have not done what we are supposed to do because one of the fundamental purposes why we are here is next generation should be able to do what we could not do they must be able to do what we did not even dare to imagine not in terms of doing freaky things but in terms of doing something well beyond our capacity to do things, isn't it? that can only happen if we touch this dimension of intelligence otherwise intellect is a trap intellect is good for survival because it only goes from the accumulated memory beyond that it cannot expand here and there every human being might have touched this dimension of intelligence but are we creating a system through which we can constantly access this? that's a big question only then human genius will flower only then you will see education becomes an empowerment not an enslavement to some kind of desire not an enslavement there's a beautiful thing there was a gypsy man he's calling his son you fool if you don't learn some magic and jugglery and do what I tell you I'm going to put you into school make you into an educated man you will suffer with endless want so as parents how can we help? how can we help our teenage kids? I don't think you should try to help your children you must help yourself because children don't listen to what you say really? they don't Jake, where are you? if they're listening they become old when they're young they should not listen but they pay attention to who you are if you do not transform your life don't expect them to transform they may get transformed by looking at somebody else but not by looking at you unless you transform it's very very important people think they can give sermons and change a child's life that will not happen because they're paying attention to who you are they're not listening to what you say so if once a child comes into our lives it's very important that we start straightening ourselves out very important because somebody is looking up to you once you have this privilege that somebody is looking up to you you must conduct yourself in a certain way this is something we must understand no no I'm like this only but I want to fix my child it doesn't work like that I must tell you something about this I brought up my girl from the age of four four and a half months as an infant she travelled with me alone in the car okay I'm a nomad I'm driving all over the place in India and she travelled with me I just trapped her to the seat I kept one hand here and simply drove across India every day I'm in a different home people are wonderful to me but you know the child is always in different places one problem with all the adults sees they're very interested in teaching everybody around wants to teach a child something that's not worked in their life when I say it's not worked in their life when they were five six years of age how exuberant and joyful they were unfortunately whatever they learned has made them like this that means it's not worked see with age physical agility may go your aliveness need not go isn't it yes whether you're thirty or forty or fifty or eighty or hundred your aliveness should not become less if your aliveness is becoming less it means you're committing suicide in installments maybe the next generation will want to go little faster than you yes because they're seeing see I want you to understand the child's eyes he doesn't have the information that you have let us say not even your teenage boys and girls they may not even be looking at you they have other interests I'm saying one two year old children just out of infancy they're looking at you they grasp things that you don't imagine possible believe me they grasping things about you that you have not imagined possible only thing is they may not be having storing this in their articulate memory that they can actually know that this is what it is but they know it by experience they are seeing adults are committing suicide in installments slowly they're becoming less and less alive as if they're practicing to go to their grave grave faces they're carrying everywhere this must change the best thing that you can do to your child is to create an exuberant joyful loving atmosphere this is the soil that's needed for the child to grow not your advice not your everything when I was my child was growing up I told everybody around nobody teaches her anything as a rule nobody should teach her ABC one two three nothing nothing just leave her alone by the time she was eighteen months old she could speak three languages fluently okay and she grew up like this then she went to school I thought of not sending her to school but I was too much of a nomad to carry her around as she grew up I sent her to school she was thirteen years of age she was disturbed about something that happened in the school she came to me and then she said you're teaching everybody so many things you're not telling me anything I said well I am not given to teaching anything unsolicited okay now you have come let's see I said this is all you have to know no other teaching needed for you this is all you need to know never look up to anybody never look down on anybody that's all there is no authority to look up to there is nothing to look down upon this is not simple as simple as it sounds because the moment you think this is great you look up to it the moment you think ah this is nothing you look down on it no you don't make the judgment you simply look at everything just the way it is if you see everything just the way it is believe me your children will navigate their life extremely well because they are seeing everything just the way it is but now everything is exaggerated something is high something is low something is God something is devil something is that something is this no just look at everything just the way it is effortlessly they will navigate everybody has the intelligence to do this let's open it up to questions let's create a dialogue here questions time has come in the world more human beings on this planet are beginning to think for themselves than ever before we just have to push that further that everybody thinks for himself not your scripture not your guru not your priest not your pandit you think for yourself once you think for yourself questions will arise believe me if you ask three intelligent questions ninety percent of the scriptures on the planet will collapse it is so you may not dare to ask maybe many of you but your children will ask questions you cannot stop them they are going to ask questions which will bring heavens down heavens will collapse the increase that you are seeing in consumption of alcohol other kinds of hallucinogenic drugs and many other things across the world is simply because in their minds heavens are collapsing do you understand this idea of going to heaven and all wonderful things are waiting there for you are collapsing in their mind here right here they want to do things so they are going for chemicals so why are we not looking what is it that causes human experience does human experience happen from within us or from outside of us sir from within us or outside of us joy and misery happens within us isn't it everything whether pleasant experience unpleasant experience can only be generated from within us why is it what is coming from within us is not happening the way you want it what is coming from within you must happen the way you want it this is because we have been given a more sophisticated machinery on the planet which is the human mechanism but we have not even bothered to read the user's manual simply we want to conquer the world the most important thing is one should know how to handle this isn't it your thought your emotion your body must be happening the way you want it isn't it it amazes me to see thirty forty sixty years have gone by still people don't know how to handle their thought and emotion nothing of that has been inculcated in the education we are always trying to fix the action we are not seeing how to be without bringing the essence of how to be if we do actions it is only by accident we succeed when we succeed by accident anxiety is natural now fighting ISIS is not the thing the problem is this right now in so many ways human beings are miserable within themselves somebody is telling someone that there is a fantastic place out there where everything is great people are eager to go there the way to go there is to take you with me okay so you can't stop me because I am eager to go you can stop me if I want to rob you and live here you can stop me but I want to die you can't stop me isn't it this idea that everyone has their own unique genius is very powerful but I'd love to hear you say a little bit more about discovering, appreciating that unique genius see we must understand this in many ways maybe in United States of America you remodeled it a little bit your education systems but essentially this this form and this mode of education comes from a time of industrialization of this world when industry is developed suddenly we needed a lot of people who could handle those things so we saw human beings are only cogs in the larger machine we did not see human beings as human beings at least this education system doesn't see we want to produce people who will fit into that big economic engine that's going on then you will only produce nuts and bolts if human genius flowers your design may not work because human genius may function in so many ways not necessarily the way you want to fit them into some machine if we want to make it happen to the entire world is still a dream, okay but to at least your children it's possible because your children need not fight for survival by the time they're twenty yes? that is the point of you striving to bring yourself to a certain level of economic well-being is to see that your children have a passage through this life in such a way they can do what really matters not just doing some rubbish for survival, isn't it? when survival is in question we will have to do whatever comes our way when survival is not in question we can do what we really want to do that's what must happen so what can we do? one important thing that we can do is there is substantial scientific and medical evidence to show you that if you can remain in a pleasant state of experience let's say for twenty-four hours without a moment of irritation, agitation, anxiety, anger, nothing simply blissful, for twenty-four hours they say your intelligence or your ability to exercise your intelligence can go up hundred percent in a day how many people on this planet can say at least one day happens to them without a moment of irritation unfortunately very few if one day is not happening the way you want it this means we are off the rails, isn't it? we are just off the track in so many ways so this is something that we have to bring what we are referring to as in engineering is just this we have engineered the world we have engineered the world, we have engineered the world so much engineering if we engineer it further there may not be any world left all this engineering we did in pursuit of human well-being, isn't it? definitely it's brought us comforts and conveniences that nobody had ever imagined no question about it but it's not brought well-being because well-being will not happen unless we know how to turn inward unless we bring this into our children's lives that there is a way to turn inward and take charge of the seat of experience within us the source of experience within us to take charge of that and you create the experience of your life if you created the experience of your life would you make it pleasant or unpleasant? 100% pleasant for yourself, isn't it? so if you are in a pleasant state of experience this will blossom it is the right ambience and atmosphere for this human being to blossom tell me, for yourself as a person when your surroundings are pleasant are you not at your best? yes? if your interiority is in a pleasant state you will be at really best this must happen from an early age for this to happen the adults must set an example this is the way to be ah, there are many concerns in our lives there are many things which are not happening the way we want it the only thing that's not happening in anybody's life the only problem that anybody has in their life is life is not happening the way you think it should happen I'm asking you is your thought 100% in your control? when you don't even have control over your thoughts aren't you glad life is not happening the way you think it should happen? it's very very important we take charge of the basis of our experience this must come into the society as a whole if it doesn't come into the society right now at least it must come into your family it's very important once you take this responsibility this tremendous responsibility of generating another life, fresh life you must fix yourself yes? it's a great privilege and a responsibility that we have produced a new life then we must know how to be because this is the soil in which they are growing I'd like to my son attends the school and the very first time he came back from the school he was at the tennis shop and the tennis guy was pitching his racket and asked him what school he was attending he told him he attended the school and he said, well how do you like your school? and he said, I love them and I never heard him say that he loved the school before and this was in the early going of his tenure here as a sixth grader and I just would like to feedback on your goal or a zubrant educational experience and I would hope that as a primary goal we would take away from this session that children can love school they can love school and if we work together to provide an environment that tipples them in all the different ways including academic talent they can love school and I would like to ask you in our traditional western educational system maybe worn from the industrial age what practical changes have you seen instituted in your typical western school or American school because my experience is limited what practical changes have you seen instituted to try and create a different environment environment is not in the dark ages it is forward looking I wouldn't say industrial age was a dark age they were also thinking they are being very forward looking producing a kind of an assembly line so right now the schooling systems we have across the world are actually assembly lines first standard means these many nuts and bolts are fixed second standard means these many are fixed third standard means these many are fixed we to some extent we have done this that age groups are mixed up to three years of bandwidth they are together which makes a lot of difference this used to happen at homes when they were five six siblings there was an entire learning process happening which is not you know can't be quantified like this but just being with your brothers and sisters of different age groups it did a wonderful thing for the child coming up but that's missing now you already grouped up in your own way it is a every class is a nation by itself you must see the level of barriers that come up in this this is one aspect another aspect of this is to break this sense of being like an assembly line it's important that one thing is parents are cultured continuously cultured because they initially agree slowly they get anxious their neighbor's child knows some, knows some math that my child doesn't know these things keep coming back to us oh that child knows this my child and my friend's child are in the same class in your school but that child knows this my child doesn't know this how did this happen your child was in theatre your child was in art class that child was in a math class okay but it doesn't matter that child knows something that my child doesn't know he got some nuts on that my child didn't get on this unnecessary anxiety is there in parents as if they don't know one lesson life is gone there is no such thing so one thing is to cultivate the parents to a different level of maturity that the child is not some kind of a machine that can be fixed up and all of them will go at the same speed they're they're living beings everybody does their own things in different ways creating an atmosphere like that in a school is difficult because there are certain prescriptions that maybe the law has fixed maybe whatever the systems that you're following has fixed you have to fulfill those things also there is no perfect way of bringing up a child let me tell you that there is no perfect way it is just that if we have the necessary love and commitment in our hearts there are many things we can wait out look for appropriate moments and make those impacts on the child there may be one child who gets really on at the age of nine but another may wait to be fifteen before their own it's perfectly fine a rose bush flowers at six months an oak tree flowers at twelve years you want the oak tree also to flower in six months then there's going to be destruction you'll have only one kind of plant in the garden you won't have many varieties the world is beautiful because all of us are differently capable in so many different ways and to nurture that in a school is not easy teacher's work becomes supremely difficult so they have to create a very organic situation where there is a certain level of involvement and transaction between teachers and students there is a trust between them that you know it is the way the atmosphere which allows this flexibility if we don't create the atmosphere and ambience for that there will be no flexibility if we are doing raising children if it's a job it'll not work it must be a life's commitment then only it'll work that's why we don't take professional teachers we take only full-time volunteers who come well-educated people but this is possible in a certain atmosphere this is not possible as a large scale you know across the world or across the country as a possibility so one thing we can do is bring some simple practices where a child learns to turn inward the parents must go through it too otherwise it'll not work if the parents are not doing it there is no way a child will do it in a fun way if you bring dimensions through which they can access other aspects of their life other than intellectually looking and slicing the world into pieces things would change it is not the perfect way to do it but there is really no perfect way to do it there is no perfect parent anywhere on the planet What about my mom? That happens after you have grown up you say that when you were growing up you had a thousand things about her You had a question ma'am? Yes, thank you I appreciate being here I have a couple things you just spoke of little fun things to teach your children fun ways that they can go inside A couple years ago I took yoga teacher training and I loved the meditation part of it so for two years I've been getting up early meditating and doing breath work and it's been amazing my mind is still very noisy when I'm meditating which is sometimes very frustrating because I think I've been doing it for a couple years but I've also well anyway I don't know about that direction but I've been trying to bring this practice the breathing practice, the meditation practice to my children at times it's been quite disastrous well not disastrous but it turns into gables or it turns into oh mom You hear me also laughing I've found on what you just met a minute ago by things that you did As I said earlier children don't listen to you they're watching you they're paying attention and as you admitted it's not worked for you what's not worked for you why should she inherit? if it works for you you don't have to say a word about it you don't have to say a word if you truly become meditative first of all let's understand this this for you, not for the girl meditation is not an act that you get up in the morning and do meditation is a certain quality you can become meditation but you can't do meditation if you cultivate your body if you cultivate your mind your emotion, your energy to a certain level of maturity the fragrance of meditation is around you if the fragrance of meditation is around you wherever you go your girl will follow she'll have no choice but now you're doing meditation which is bad enough but now you're talking meditation which will put up resistance and the more you insist the further away from meditation she will go and many parents who in we insisted on certain things very strongly those children will avoid those things their entire life let it not happen that way because every human being should know the fragrance of being meditative this does not mean everybody has to sit with their eyes closed not necessary because it's a quality this quality if it is there with you then life is beautiful everybody must know this but does it mean to say everybody has to sit down like this or twist themselves or turn themselves in the form of yoga not necessary so cultivating the body it's just like growing flowers in your garden you want flowers in your garden you don't have to think flowers or talk flowers you just have to think soil, manure, water, sunlight which will look like nothing like flowers but if you take care of those things flowers will happen as a consequence so meditativeness is a consequence this is the whole problem with a goal oriented society you want the fruit not interested in the tree now our children are growing up thinking fruits come from a supermarket many have forgotten the fruits come from trees they think it comes from the marketplace because we have become goal oriented in yoga we say like this if you become goal oriented this means your one eye is on the goal if your one eye is on the goal if you have only one eye to find your way it's very inefficient if you use both your eyes to find your way depending upon how much strength you have that far you will go this has to shift this why I'm saying we're tweaking the desire what should be at the end of my life we are already desiring but all our desires are an exaggeration of what we already know there is nothing new in our desires isn't it so only things that we already know here are exaggerated there isn't it because the very nature of desire is such it is only an exaggeration of what you already know that means nothing new is possible by desiring but if you enhance your competence we don't know what they will do tomorrow neither they should know nor we should know what they will do tomorrow but if you enhance your competence something will happen which we have not imagined possible yes sir there are two kinds of ailments or diseases that happen to human beings one are infectious another are chronic infectious diseases are an invasion by another organism upon us so if invasion happens what to do you got to fight it normally we are taking to chemical warfare we call this pharmaceuticals but it's actually chemical warfare on the invaders who have entered our body isn't it that's fine in many ways we have contained infectious diseases in a phenomenal way in the last fifty, sixty or hundred years time all those terrible epidemics that used to happen are gone where millions of people used to die at once you know a plague or a malaria or a cholera that came would take millions at once we have contained them largely which is one basic ingredient for the rise in population is we have contained epidemics big time so that is infectious diseases that is something a doctor must handle that's the way it is the rest are all self-help that is you generate the disease within yourself the word dis-ease means dis-ease something is not at ease within you if you create a mind which is not at ease if you create emotions which are not at ease above all if you create fundamental energies within you which are not at ease dis-ease is a natural consequence there is some friction somewhere in the system it is not simply happening effortlessly when I saying effortlessly because the best way is to put it upon myself see I'm on an average for almost twenty-five to thirty years on an average I've slept two-and-a-half to three hours per day these days I'm getting a little lazy and sleeping a little more maybe four, four-and-a-half hours and I'm active twenty hours a day, seven days of the week I don't know the meaning of a vacation because I'm just on all the time but will I die of stress? No maybe sometimes I may die of exhaustion but not of stress for sure if right now I've had my meal and come and I'm speaking my pulse rate is going somewhere around fifty-eight-sixty but if I sit quietly with an empty stomach it will drop below fourteen this means this is going at total ease in this there will be no disease disease is happening because in some way we are causing friction to this so there are many ways to approach it there is a way of taking charge of the fundamental elements in the body there is a way of geometrically aligning the system in such a way that there is no friction in the system or you can set a chemistry of pleasantness within you today that you're saying you're involved in medical research you know modern medicine handles everything as chemistry isn't it? health and illness both are a certain chemical basis to it joy and misery have a chemical basis to it peace and turmoil have certain chemical basis to it every human experience has a certain chemical basis to it now as there is a science and technology to fix the outside the way we want it there is an entire science and technology as to how to fix your interiority these subjective sciences have been completely neglected it was... there are many things coming to me like this but recently this... we know the various medical research that is happening what we've always known for thousands of years a billion dollar research is done and now somebody comes to it this is because we are not paying attention to life if you want to pay attention to life there is only one life you can truly know that is this life you have no way of what's happening there only way to know is what's happening here if there are ways and means in our lives to pay attention to this one not superficial mirror like attention but an internal... internal attention that you are able to turn inward and pay attention to yourself then you will see what's wrong and you will simply fix it because after all the disease is caused by you today we know recent research is saying that the cancer that you're talking about which is taking so many lives today is essentially your immune system not functioning the way it should we must look at it why are we destroying our immune system in the most affluent nation on the planet you ask... you ask her, Jonathan's mother when she was growing up did any of... whether she or any of her friends had allergy to anything even then? they had allergies like today? not like today today they have allergy to just about everything people have allergy to sunlight how do you live on this planet I'm saying sunlight is the basic source of energy for us people have allergy to sunlight this is happening because we are not creating the kind of atmosphere that we need to nurture this life one important thing that you need to do with your children is till they become 21 years of age instead of taking them to Vegas which seems to be fun you must take them out into nature as much as possible into the mountains into the ocean on the rivers whatever this country has enough to offer you must expose them to nature as much as possible being in touch with the elements of nature very very important if you... we have a yogic hospital in southern India one of the major treatments is I make them work in the garden barefoot you will see half their ailments will go just working in the garden work gets done and they get healthy one last question yes ma'am and maybe this will be maybe a good wrap up question I want to take that question and blend it which is I think let's assume all of us are at some point between the time of today and the time we're 60, 70, 80, 90 we will make our journey in the way that you described for the children I think the thing that is most difficult for them is how to reconcile and how to balance all the things that you mentioned with their day to day need to their desire and their feeling that they still need to compete to move to the next place and in your response perhaps bring in how they can create the right balance between continuing to move forward in their lives and get the grades that they need to get whether they be A's or C's or B's or anything in the middle and still accomplish the balance of joy and a path that they can feel good about see to learn the alphabet you spend a certain number of years to learn to write and read sentences you spend a certain number of years to learn a certain amount of math you invest a certain number of years why is it that we don't understand this to learn the ways of how I function from within there is no time for that why there is no time for that somewhere we have set these priorities in the society that that's not important we're talking about life today somebody sends me a gift just today morning I get it and it's some I think it must be very expensive a spray which is supposed to be good bacteria spray I'm supposed to spray it on my face and my head and everything so why do I need bacteria I come from India I didn't grow up in a laboratory I grew up on this planet where it's full of bacteria but they say no, no, no if you spray the bacteria your skin will be healthy you spray it on your head your hair will be healthy I was just reading the literature it's amazing that you want bacteria so what I'm telling you is this life does not happen in exclusivity this life happens in inclusivity this is the what has caused this ecological disaster on the planet because we thought we could eliminate everything and we will live well it doesn't work like that it needs an ecosystem so the same goes for your child it needs an ecosystem what kind of things are they exposed to what are they doing with their lives where are we trying to drive them first of all now definitely what is it that an individual person at a certain age group do we must understand a child particularly a youth means humanity in the making humanity in the making 2017 model of Tesla should not look like the 2016 isn't it we expect a higher level of performance look different, feel different everything different or no if the car company goes on manufacturing the same model will you buy it every year no similarly the next generation should not think, feel act like how you are that should not be the expectation at the same time are they working towards their well-being or not is definitely a concern for the parent no question about that so this will not depend on just fixing one child we need an ecosystem because a child is not independent of the atmosphere that the child grows up in child is a part of the atmosphere is a product of the atmosphere in which he or she grows up so we have to cultivate the atmosphere we want flowers we have to maintain the atmosphere we can't pull flowers out of the plant it doesn't work like that then we will end up with plastic flowers yes so what should the youth do like already she shared once her child to meditate which is the best of intentions but it won't work it will be great if she does but she won't do because she doesn't see any sense to it I wouldn't do when I am a youth if my father tells me this, that, I won't do it it has to make sense to me otherwise I am not going to do it I never did anything that anybody said and I keep telling people I am a... I am sorry I am a very wrong advice but the only thing in my life that paid off for me was I never got influenced by anybody either the family or the society or the religious atmosphere or the political, I did not allow anything to influence me I just kept myself just the way creative made me no influence of culture religion, parentage, nothing I kept myself little aloof from everything and I saw slowly there is a certain intelligence just to be alive there is a certain intelligence if this blossoms I must... I must this will be very encouraging for you because my father who is a physician in India has come at that time the madness is why you see so many Indian doctors in America is at that time you also at that time education means you must become a doctor if you don't get an entry into medical college, you must become an engineer so either you see Indian engineers or doctors because a whole damn country is full of doctors and engineers so my father being a physician he wants to me to be a doctor but of course I am of a different kind so about six, seven years ago a bunch of doctors from America about fifty of them traveling in India without telling me if they told me I would have told them not to go without telling me they went to see my dad he is ninety-four years of age they went and asked say something about Sadguru's childhood because he means everything to us we want to know something about his childhood my father thinks about it he was such a dull boy but now he has become a genius I don't know how it happened obviously most parents don't realize how to cultivate the genius of their children they are trying to drive them in a direction don't drive see you can't get rose flowers out of this plant just because you like rose flowers you can't pull rose flowers out of this one this one will come out only with these little flowers I don't know the name of this plant but it's beautiful so you should not be expecting rose flowers out of everything because you like rose flowers the thing is you have a new and fresh life in your home to cultivate it we don't know what will come out of it it sounds like know thyself think for thyself and follow your own path see I know you're trying to encapsulate that but you should not that's exactly what I'm saying you should not do that this is why I tell people to bear a child and raise a child you must have either enormous courage or enormous wisdom yes otherwise you must be just blind that it just happened because a new life is not an easy thing it's not a small thing fresh life is not a small thing if you see it as a phenomena a phenomena which blossomed in your body come out and it's growing if you see it with wonder that it's a great phenomena out of two cells life is happening in front of you like this taking shape if you watch it with utter wonder and create an atmosphere your child will grow into something beautiful but may not be a rose flower that you expected they need not become what you expect because your expectations are coming from the graveyard of the past they belong to the future and children I'm sorry children are here for me to say this children don't belong to you they don't come from you they only come through you it's a privilege that we must appreciate and enjoy rather than thinking it's a right or you determine where they should go and what they should do no as long as they are working towards their well-being that they are not doing something negative against their own life as long as that is not there you must wait you must you must be for the entire till the child becomes twenty one twenty one you must feel like you're still pregnant just wait when the child was inside you did nothing right just nourished yourself well and waited just like that provide the atmosphere and wait so our hope tonight was just to expose you to some of the things that we talked about as I said for me there's been some provocative things that Sadhguru has introduced into my thinking and hopefully we can take some of the things here and build them into our educational system I know that both that sacred heart and at Menlo there's a lot of really I would like to say one thing for the school within the school something should be brought in which is about the inner nature of the child please do this I'm telling you it'll pay off in a big way it cannot be done compulsorily but they must be cultivated towards that that every child spends a certain amount of time turning inward because this will pay off in a huge way in development of the child in the development of their intelligence and even their academics I'm telling I must tell you this when we first started this Isha Home School after three months after the school began I went there for the morning assembly all six, seven year old kids they're all sitting like this I said why are they like broken tops what's happened to them and I just started a simple thing right there twelve minutes just uttering certain sounds seven notes of the musical system just uttering them with a certain balance believe me within a month's time they're all sitting like this straight and proper just uttering sounds for twelve minutes like this we can we can if you want we can work with you and create a system that invest about twenty to thirty minutes a day for the inner well-being of the child this will pay off in a big way in all levels of the child's development Thanks everyone for your time tonight