 Shiva, Shiva, Satsang, Shambha, Shambha, Shambha. Just sit still, that some of our volunteers and meditators and those who are attending the Satsang Room in China are a little upset because yesterday I said, who on virus? I want you to understand that in Indian languages, even for a person, commonly we say the name of the place where they've come from and then their name. For example, my own father's name, generally written as B. V. Vasudev. B stands for Bengaluru, which is a place. And people are named like this, Padmaja, Somaja, Shailaja, always referring to the place where they have come from. So I don't see what is the insult, I really didn't see. Even I… now I'm unable to see. And international media, I was listening yesterday and they were all using the term. I didn't see anything wrong. But anyway, if it hurts you, we'll call it just the virus, okay? No issues about it. I don't know what political and other kinds of issues are hidden behind it. But it is normal for us to refer to something from where it comes from. So I think it's quite normal everywhere, particularly in Indian languages, to do that. Anyway, well, the world has crossed unfortunately over thirty-thousand fatalities in the world. And the numbers are building up, many countries moving towards a thousand fatalities a day. In spite of lockdowns, emergency hospitals being set up everywhere, in spite of that it is happening. United States is also moving towards a very aggressively spreading over hundred-thousand people infected. Deaths are also beginning to happen. India is still doing okay, but I think the effectiveness of it is because of district-wise blockhead that the administration is doing. Fortunately, largely people also cooperating. But there's one problem that from major cities, the workers who had come from villages, rural India to work in cities, they have become desperate to go back to their homes. Because it's largely male population which comes like this. They usually have a small piece of land at home or in the village. When they're out for six to eight months working in a city, women tend to the land and they go and come. But now when they know there is no work and there is a risk to life and they don't know what's happening to their families, so an exodus of labor from cities to villages is happening. Government is doing everything possible to set up hostels for them, food arrangements. But they don't want anything, they just want to go back home which is unfortunately... it's understandable how they feel about it. But unfortunately they could take the virus in the city, the virus in the city to rural India. Where right now rural India doesn't have much or almost nil presence of virus in rural India, but this migrant labor could take it. In southern India except Kerala is largely in control. It's not rising, the blockade or the lockdown has been effective. But the challenges is the coming one week to ten days we must see what happens in India. It all depends what we do, every one of us. Because there is a problem in human mind as days pass by, nothing happened. They will become complacent. Nothing happened means what? You want people around you to fall dead, is that something happening? Nothing happened means everybody is well. It is not a time to become complacent. It is not a time to relax the basic mode of behavior that we have set for everybody. Please let's hold this and from all scientific predictions, calculations, it could be a reasonably long haul. But those of you who are at least believing that you are on a spiritual path, this is a good time because in today's world where there is such an onslaught of sounds and colors and visuals upon our senses, in the sense if you were here hundred years ago, well you saw greenery around you, brown earth, blue sky. If you had to see anything more dramatic, you had to wait for the sunset or get up early and wait for the sunrise. Rest of the day this is all it was. Now it's not like that if you turn on your television, colors are going on all the time or if you just open your phone, whole cosmos is happening there or just about anything that you want to see is there. So the amount of visual input and the audio input is so heavy today that turning inward looks like a very remote thing for most people. This is a good time to check yourself out and also use this opportunity. In yoga, there is a dimension among the… in the astanga yoga. Well, astanga yoga as some people think is not a brand, astanga means eight-limbed yoga, eight-limbed yoga. One of the limbs is pratyahara. Pratyahara means taking your sensory engagement from the outside world and put it inside. In today's world, people cannot even comprehend what that is. Well, many of you who've been through periods of sadhana have experienced this. Well, even before I thinks happened with me, when I went away into forest, just to enjoy the forest and just to walk. For weeks on end, when I just walked by myself in the jungles, I just realized that I just realized that just not seeing human faces for a few weeks does something to you, which is incredible. There were wild animals, but there were no human faces for weeks on end. Well, I noticed something very, very different in my system, a kind of energy and exuberance, which was kind of, you know, making me walk a few inches above the ground kind of feeling. Though mostly these weeks I was largely starved. No, I'm just laughing at the pains of hunger now because they're very painful. But still, I was energized in such a way that I would be walking almost few inches above the ground, that kind of feeling. And I realized it is when I look at trees, animals, the engagement was one kind, you know, it's just looking at it, appreciating it or simply looking at it for what it is. But when you look at human faces, knowingly, unknowingly, there is a certain amount of transaction happening, like dislike, approval, disapproval. So many things are happening, you don't even have to participate in it. If you just look at someone, it just happens. So it is from then that I started kind of closing my eyes more and more, because if I just close my eyes for hours on end in a day, consciously closing your eyes, not sleeping, you will see there is a new dimension of energy available to you. This is what Pratyahara means, that you took away the sensory engagement with the world and turned it inward. This is a good time if you're willing wherever you are to experiment with this, that if not the whole day, let's say six hours a day or twelve hours a day or whatever is possible for you, you can even start with one hour or two hours, just keeping your eyes closed, not looking at anything. Initially your mind may go all over the place, it's okay, don't try to control it, let it go wherever it wants. I want you to understand it doesn't go anywhere, it's just replaying old stuff. Oh my mind will go somewhere, no your mind doesn't go anywhere. It is... this is the illusion you have to break, that you believe your mind is going somewhere, which means you're misunderstanding psychological process for an existential reality. Psychological process is just made up by you playing your own stupid, badly directed cinema and believing it's true. This is a good time. It's a good time that you try to do this in a day, a certain amount of time, whatever that is, you close your eyes and sit. But something... something happened, somebody made some noise, somebody did something. Okay, not like that, especially when you think something important is happening, you must close your eyes. Yes, because engagement with the world has to become conscious, that's all. If engagement with the world is conscious, however much you're engaged with the world, it doesn't leave you, you know, disturbed or freaked out. When your engagement is compulsive and reactionary, then you will see smallest things are throwing people off. Most human beings, just earning a living, raising a family, dying one day. For this, how much turmoil people are going through is unbelievable. It's not even fair. Just to do simple things that every other creature is doing, right mouse, look at the sparrows. Evening family affairs, they're settling. With a bird brain, but they're managing it in their own way. For this human beings are... it's such a big brain freaking out. This is because their engagement with the world is compulsive, not conscious. This is a good time for you to experiment with this, that you bring some pratyahara into your life. Wherever you are, whoever you are, it doesn't matter. You don't need any training. Just sit with eyes closed. It's all right, mind is running away. Let it run. Don't try to stop it because there are no breaks on it. All the three petals are throttle. Whichever way you touch it, it'll only run faster. So don't do anything, it will run. It will run because it has a certain karmic momentum. If you just leave it for some time without tending to it, it will slow down and it will stop. Do not worry about stopping the mind, not stopping the mind. All I am saying is, do not engage with the outside world for whatever number of hours that you can. Start with an hour, push it to six to twelve hours a day. You will see, you will have the necessary energy to hit the peaks. Right now the biggest problem, why human beings are not able to become blissful and exuberant within themselves is lack of energy. If they're joyful for three minutes, then they will sink like that. Actually, there are sayings like this in the society. Socially people believe that if you become very exuberantly joyful today, tomorrow you will be miserable. This is generally said in the society. Don't be so happy because tomorrow you will become miserable. Because their batteries are like that, that today if they're very exuberant, tomorrow it'll become depressed. So pratyahara is a key element to create that kind of an energy system, which can take any experience of life in its stride and doesn't put you down. Good time to turn to pratyahara. The important thing is, if you engage with your thought process, that is not internal. That is also engagement with the world. No, no, I did not look at anybody's face, I was just thinking. This is also engagement with the world because your thought doesn't belong to you. The content of the thought is all from outside. You're running a private world in your head, but there is no private world. There existentially there is only one world, you either live in it or you don't. Your private world is a madhouse that you made up. Sometimes of course it gives you some pleasure, but living in an illusory made up world is not going to last for long. Especially if you… you know, people are always saying, I got disillusioned. This is my blessing, you must get disillusioned as quickly as possible. Because disillusion means all your illusions got destroyed. Should this not happen at the very beginning of life? It should happen at the earliest time that all your illusions fell apart. My blessing is, may you live, may you live in the majestic beauty of this creation, not in your own illusion. However sweet it looks right now. Please question. Sadhguru, the first question is from Jordan, I know. Namaskaram Sadhguru. Where is he from? Can we ask or no? He's not mentioned, Sadhguru. Okay. Social media question. Okay, we cannot ask him because we cannot say where they came from. If living here as a yogi is so ecstatic and blissful, why would one want to escape the cycles of rebirth? You must take away the word escape. Well, I'm asking all of you, I'm sure every one of you have been to school. Well, for some of you, school might not have been a pleasant experience, but for many, school was a good experience, especially those of you who didn't care to learn much or come first and things like that. You just enjoyed the company of your friends and play and fun and whatever. School was a good experience. So when you finished your schooling, did you escape from the school or did you pass out of the school? We don't know. Maybe Giordano escaped from his school, that means he didn't pass. Generally, most people pass and they go to the next stage of life. When you're in school, however good the school is, would you want to go to the college? Definitely. This is the nature of the human being. However good this is, you want to go to the next phase of life. Something is good, so I will do the same thing. I will do the same thing forever. That's a foolish way of looking at life. That is not coming because life is so fantastic for you, that is coming out of the fear of stepping into the unknown, totally unknown, absolutely unknown. This happened at one point, bad times came and Shankar and Pillai became a construction worker. Construction worker carrying bricks up many floors. Then his co-worker, another person who was also laborer there, noticed Shankaran Pillai is carrying more bricks than what is asked by the foreman, more. Everybody is carrying eight bricks, Shankaran Pillai is carrying twelve bricks. So eight bricks itself is quite heavy and you're going up many floors. When they go there, they just throw it down and come. The pleasure is coming down empty-handed. So at lunchtime, this other laborer asked Shankaran Pillai, why are you carrying twelve bricks? What is needed is only eight. If you carry eight, you will get your full labor. Why are you carrying twelve? Shankaran Pillai said, you don't know that full of a foreman. I am carrying the same set of bricks up and down, brilliant. So there are many people like this, they're carrying on with the same stuff up and down, up and down, punarapi jananam, punarapi maranam, going on and on. This is happening simply because life is compassionate. Creation is compassionate, it sets screens for your memory. If these screens are broken, you will be so miserable right now. If you realize you've been doing the same stupid stuff hundred times over and still you're doing the same thing with the same misunderstandings, you will want to kick yourself. So one who has broken these screens and not become miserable because of that, this is why opening up one's memory beyond the present realm of experience first needs a very strong psychological foundation, not spiritual, psychological foundation. Because if you don't have a very stable psychological foundation, if the screens of memory break, people will have a shattered mind. When people are struggling with one lifetime of experience, not even lived fully, by the time they're thirty, they're struggling with their emotions, their thoughts, their memories and they're miserable. Suppose you open up three lifetimes of memory, you believe these people can handle it, they'll go totally off. So because of this, life's compassion, creation's compassion is holding memory blocks separately. So you don't realize you're doing the same thing again and again. It doesn't matter how beautiful, exuberant, wonderful it is, if you repeat the same thing over and over again, I'll do one thing, whatever is your favorite music, I will play it, not here, I will play it in your mind, non-stop. Next twenty-one days with this fantastic music you will go crazy because it's playing non-stop. So anybody who realizes the same things are going cyclical again and again will naturally want to break the cycle. It is not, you're trying to escape. You have found a stairway to something beyond. If you go, if you leave one face of life and go to another face of life, that is not called an escape, that is called a promotion or liberation.