 I hope it's been nourishing for all of you in terms of imbibing something new, which will make a difference for the children that you represent from the schools that you come, wherever that is. The fundamental idea behind an attempt like this is, you know, when anybody, if you perceive something new, if you learn something new, it's such a joy. But why schooling such a pain? Somewhere, the way we're delivering it, we have not looked at it carefully enough. We have not put ourselves sufficiently into it. When I was supposed to go to school, I did everything possible not to go there. So when I thought of creating schools, I thought we must create schools in such a way that children want to go there. What is the point creating a school that a child doesn't want to go with? So if we have to create schools that a child wants to go, I think the adults need to go to school first. So, in a way these conferences are just that effort to put the adults to school so that we, all of you can create schools where the child wants to go. Of all the different manifestations of human beings, the categories are getting more and more. A child is the simplest and the easiest to make them happy and joyful. With such a segment of population, which is naturally joyful, I don't see why it is so difficult to create a joyful way of delivering education. There is substantial scientific and medical evidence today that if you remain in a pleasant state of experience, that is when your body and your brain works at its best. Some studies are trying to establish that if you remain just one day, 24-hour segment in your entire life, one 24-hour segment, if you remain without a moment of unpleasantness within you, not a moment of agitation, anxiety, irritation, anger, nothing, just joyful. They say your ability to use your intelligence can go up one hundred percent in a single day. When we've always known this by experience, but today there is data because without data, nothing is true anymore. If there is no data about you, that means you're not here. Yes, if you did not register your data into the computer, all of us will think you're not here. So without data, nothing exists. So today there is data that a joyful way of existence will enable a human being to empower a human… it will enable and empower a human being to a very high level of perception and performance. So this is a must. How is the question? There may be many methods, many of you are expert educators, I'm sure you've discussed many, many things today, I will leave that to you. But one fundamental is, if you are not joyful, you're not going to inspire anybody to be joyful. That's for sure. Why I should be telling you this, because is there anybody here that you have not known a single moment of joy in your entire life, is there any such person here? You cannot be, because if you did not have a single moment of joy, you would be dead. You would have no reason to live. So you know how to be joyful. I'm sure right now if I ask you, would you like to be joyful or miserable in your life, every one of you will say, I want to be joyful. So you know how to be joyful, you want to be joyful. So why do you need a guru to tell you, ah yes, Sadhguru, I want to be joyful, but to kick that butt, you need a guru. Yes, I want to be joyful, but you know what he did. Yes, I want to be joyful, you know what she did. Yes, I want to be joyful, you know, the weather is not good. So there is butt, butt, butt. If we just kick this one butt out of our life, creating a joyful education will be a natural consequence. If we are joyful, whatever we do, whatever we create, we will make it that way, isn't it? Without we being that, now if I say let's create a joyful education, it looks like a very complicated problem. If you are joyful, is it not natural that you will cook joyfully, you will serve joyfully, you will talk to people joyfully, you will do everything joyfully? Is it not natural consequence? So right now one of the biggest mistakes, I would say a crime that we are committing is, we have taken to this western mode of doing things, that is goal-orientedness. That is we want mangoes, but we are not interested in the tree. Soil is not even our concern. We've gotten into this mindset. Goal is the thing, we want this big mango. You have this one, we want this big mango, but we are not so much interested in the tree. Soil is not even in our perspective. In yoga we say, if one eye is on the goal, you have only one eye to find your way. It's very inefficient. If you have both the eyes to find your way, you will find your way. This too much goal-orientedness has made human beings not only in schooling, in life, in the way we create our businesses, the way we run the nations, the way we conduct the affairs of the world, everything has become so skewed and not about life. It is about some product in the end. At the end of our life, there is only one product which is grave. Either we are investing too much in the graveyards of the past or futuristic. If it's futuristic, it's grave-oriented because that's our only future that's going to happen to you and me. So the thing is whether it is schooling or business or anything that we are doing is about how we conduct it now, what will come out of it, whatever comes out of it. Are we doing it in the most beautiful way possible? If this one thing is embedded in us, methods, various tools, all these things will come from experts. There are many, many experts. There are a whole lot of people who invested their life thinking through these things. We can use that, but to use these methods in a way that it works, we need people who are first of all joyful, who know how to make their life beautiful. If you do not know how to make your life beautiful, this aspiration of making everybody's life beautiful is not going to work. So, all those many of you who are as teachers, as educators, as experts in the field, variety of expertise that is here. And in the morning, briefly I mentioned this, the evolution of the teacher is the most important thing. Everything else is secondary. Who delivers this is the most important thing. It's not… we have not invested enough in that. Evolution of the teacher does not mean just more and more tricks about education. As a human being, if the teacher blossoms, becomes a joyful, loving, compassionate human being, above all conscious human being, everybody has to strive for this, otherwise this will not happen. This is not something that will happen because you've got a PhD. This is something that you have to work upon yourself. If this process is brought into the teachers, you must see the tradition of this country is this. Usually parents gave away their children to a teacher, an acharya or a guru, took the children totally in his fold because people saw him as a evolved human being. Not just a knowledgeable human being, a evolved human being. So they saw that if we leave our children in their… in his hands, in his or her hands, naturally our children will blossom. So this has to come. This may look like, oh, is this possible to train all the teachers? Why not? I'm asking. For the first time, for the very first time in the history of humanity, we have capabilities that no other generation could ever dream of, isn't it? In this country, let's say a Rama or a Krishna or a Buddha, so revered, all right? I want you to look at the reality of this. Suppose a Rama sat here and spoke, the gentle being that he was, I'm sure his voice wouldn't carry to first fifty people, others would sit there and just gape. Yes or no? Krishna a little more playful, maybe he stood up and spoke a little more loudly, maybe hundred people heard. Gautama made simple systems and trained thousands of monks. He made sure a few hundred thousand people heard. But today, I can sit here right now and talk to the entire world. Never before this was possible. So we have come to an age, we have come to a time when we can make truth mainstream. Never before it was possible. Krishna spoke only to one guy. How can it become mainstream? It's bound to be fringe, isn't it? Jesus spoke to twelve, so bound to be fringe, isn't it? For the first time we can speak to the entire world, it is time we make truth mainstream. If truth becomes mainstream, truth means what really works? If I sit here, what will leave me in the highest state of experience is the truth of my existence, isn't it? If every human being knows what is the truth of their existence that you can sit here in the best possible way a human being can be right now, you don't have to worry about tricks of education. In those hands, every little tool will become a powerful process. In this effort to make educators, teachers and others who are involved in children's education in this country or anywhere else, we want to offer these things to you. Simple tools for transformation, something that you can do with yourself which will leave you in a better place than you are right now. This must happen. It's my wish and my blessing that this must happen. The first question is from Ramesh Balasundaram and he asks, are you open to the idea of replicating the Isha Vidya and Samskriti model with like-minded organizations to increase impact? There is nothing very unique about Isha Vidya. It is the dedication of the people which has made the difference. It's a simple school but the people who are managing this, people who are teaching there, people who are doing everything around it are highly dedicated people. It's the devotion of their hearts which makes it look different. I don't think anything that we're doing in Isha Vidya is something that any of you do not know. It is just the devotion of the people which makes it look so different. See Samskriti is not designed to take in the entire population into it. It is designed as a niche. Certain number of people have to go into this because if you want to have a balanced sensible society where whatever tools that we have in the form of science, technology and so much knowledge about so many things today, if this has to be used in a sane way in a society, as many people as are going into science, mathematics, technology, similarly that many people should go into music, dance, art, aesthetic. It's very important. In homeschool also we have all these aspects but still the pressures of being a part of some board that there is a curriculum to finish never allows those children to really you know soak it up. But here Samskriti children are one hundred percent on that. You just saw them on stage but you must see them how they are in their life. Above all the stability that's come into their life is phenomenal. I must share this with you. This is about four years ago when the first batch reached 15 years of age, we have a system where from the age of six to eighteen they are with us. The last three years that is from fifteen to eighteen they must take Brahmacharya. It's a three year or a two and a half, thirty months of Brahmacharya they must take. Last six months we will relieve them. Brahmacharya does not mean you know giving up something and going away. Brahmacharya means you fix a certain period of your life as a period of absolute discipline and learning. Nothing else know the distraction. So I am to initiate these children they go into fifteen-year-old kids they go into sixty days of total silence and a sadhana which starts at three thirty in the morning and closes at eight thirty in the night. After the sixty days of silence another three four days are there for initiation. I just want to see how the children are this is the first batch. So morning three thirty I come to see the children in this building. Fourteen of them six girls and eight boys they're all sitting there. I walked in and I just sat there. I just looked at them. They were just glowing literally. I just sat there and cried because when I was fifteen I was not like this believe me. I was not like this. When when I saw them at fifteen if they can be like this for me to sit like that it took a long time. For me to simply sit unmoving, unconcerned about anything around me it took a while. But these kids at the age of fifteen not by natural realization but just by training and dedication they're simply sitting there and glowing like you know lit from inside. And some idiots in the society are worried what will these children do. So what they mean by that is how will they earn their living. I think it's pathetic a human being has to construct their life. Human beings have to construct their lives all the time thinking about how to earn a living. An earthworm, a grasshopper, a bird on the tree all of them earn their living isn't it? With such a big brain you're supposed to do something little different than just earn a living. Earning a living should be the most basic thing. With a millionth of your brain you can handle it. But we have raised earning a living to the heavens today unfortunately. Entire system is about how to earn a living, how to earn a living. This is a way of completely destroying human intelligence. This is a way of tarnishing human genius in every possible way because how to earn a living has become the greatest thing in the world. Why people are driving you in this direction is because they've built one fake economic engine which they have to feed all the time. They have to feed it all the time. Because of this we are sacrificing our children as a fuel for this economic engine that we have built. It is time at least a niche amount of children are not concerned about how they will earn their living. When I was growing up, not for a moment I had this thought in my mind, how will I earn my living? My father used to be worried, what will happen to this boy? There is no fear in his heart about anything. One day I turned around and asked him, when did fear become a virtue? I'm saying we are bringing up children with this fear. If you don't pass, you know what will happen to you? Continuously fear based education that if you don't get this many marks, you're finished. 18,000 children in 2015 have committed suicide in our country. When our children commit suicide, we must know we are doing something fundamentally wrong. There's no question about it anymore, isn't it? Children are fresh life, exuberant life. If children have to take their own lives, there is no worse thing that can happen to your society. I'm asking you, is there a worse thing, many of your parents, is there a worse thing than this that your child less than twelve, thirteen years of age committed suicide? Can you ever recover from that I'm asking? This is the most horrible thing that can happen. And this is happening because in our country ninety-eight is past mark. Yes, even if you get ninety-eight, parents will ask what happened to the other two percent. So we as educators, if we are really responsible human beings, we need to turn this around. It's very, very important. And this is a crucial time. All these years, there has been a certain economic depravity in the society where they wouldn't listen to anything. Earning a living was everything. At least we are on a threshold of an economic possibility. This is the time to change the mentality of education. This is the time for the parents and the children to look at it little differently. So you can Sanskriti partner with other schools. If you want one of those disciplines to be taught, maybe we can look at it in the next few years, but you cannot transform a regular school like a Sanskriti. It needs parental, total you know, agreement with the parents that this is possible. I don't think a school like this would happen unless people were spiritually in a state of experience where they want their children to pursue something like this. Right now we are not able to take the children who are coming in because we are not able to build facilities and certain forces in the society are filing cases against Sanskriti education because these children are not concerned how they will earn their living, that is their concern. The next question is from Dr. Nethirajan. Namaskaram Sadguru, as teachers who deliver knowledge to children, is it not important for teachers to remain physically and mentally fit? This concept of fitness of teachers is not looked into properly. Teachers need sound body and mind to make a child learn well. I find many BH trainees are physically and mentally not stable. There is no system to address this. Definitely it's very, very important if you want to inspire a child. As I said earlier, it is not just by talk. When they look at you, you must be an inspiration. Just the way you are. This has to be brought into education system that teachers are of a certain quality in terms of physical well-being, mental well-being, aesthetic, simple aesthetics. It must be brought into their training because a child is looking like this. He doesn't miss a thing. He misses everything that you're saying, but he doesn't miss anything that you are. So definitely it's a very important aspect. Unfortunately it's not been done because generally that ethos is yet to be in the society itself, but we have to bring it. The next question is from Naveen Krishnamurti. How important is spiritual and yogic thinking in school education? How to implement it? See when we say, when we use the word spiritual, the moment you utter this, everybody has their own misconception about what it could be. So let me put it in proper perspective. You must understand, the moment you refer to somebody as spiritual, the word seeker also goes with that. You are a spiritual seeker. You are not a spiritual believer. You are referred to as a believer if you adhere to a certain religion, but you are referred to as a seeker. The moment you say I am spiritual, a student is a seeker, isn't it? A scientist is a seeker. A teacher must become a seeker. It's very important. So spiritual process in its essence is a must for education because they have to be active seekers. Whether it is physics or chemistry or biology or spiritual spirituality, essentially it is the seeking for the truth of the matter in that particular aspect of life, isn't it? What else is education? Education is about seeking truth, maybe not the ultimate truth, but right now what we are looking at, we want to know the truth about it. We don't want to know some rubbish about it. We don't want to believe something about it. We want to know the truth about it. If we look in a microscope, we want to know the truth about an amoeba. We don't want to know… we don't want to believe what an amoeba is. We want to know the truth about it. So a student is a natural seeker. A spiritual process should bring the discipline into a student. See, not to believe anything, but at the same time not to become abusive and disrespectful of things around you, takes a lot of discipline. I don't believe a thing that you say, but still to listen to you, takes a certain amount of discipline and culturing. This culturing is a must for a student that every human being should learn. I don't have to believe anything that you say, but I have the necessary regard, respect and inclusiveness to sit and listen or to raise a question and object. This is something that has to come into your society if human thought process has to rise to a different level. If you abuse people, people will get restricted. If you don't question them, they will get restricted. Questioning without abuse, questioning respectfully everything that happens around us is most important and this is the fundamental of spiritual seeking. So spiritual process is a must for any genuine student, unless you're just trying to earn a living. When you say yoga, you also… the previous question was about fitness. Above all, a capacity to stretch yourself beyond what is normally considered normal without yoga. When I say yoga, don't think a particular system of yoga, this, that. When we say yoga, it means union. In some way, without a certain amount of union happening between the teacher and the student, how can there be education I'm asking? Education is yoga, isn't it? I know you're referring to physical yoga, should we bend the teachers and twist the teachers? We should. It'll keep them physically limbed up. I'm saying this is true in the eyes of a child. This is true even in your eyes, it doesn't matter what is your age. If you look at somebody walking towards you, whether they're agile and come lightly like the breeze or they waddle around, makes a difference for you or no? Your impression and your willingness to interact with that person, will it be different depending upon how their physical stage of ease? Definitely for a child it's important. Teachers must be put through a certain… why yoga, why not some other exercise? Every other exercise largely, most of the time needs equipment. This is a simple form. If you have a ground to stand on, you can do it. There is nothing more secular than yoga because everybody can do it wherever they are. You don't need equipment, you don't need instructors, nothing. In the beginning, if you just learn for a week, you can do it by yourself. So in rural schools in, you know, a large part of India is still improvised, all right? It's very important we bring yoga to bring health, well-being, mental agility, everything. I… I got into yoga for all the wrong reasons, but it worked miraculously well for me because that is the beauty of this existence. Whatever your intention, if you do the right thing, right things will happen to you. So the science of yoga is about understanding the body and the mind and how we can get the best out of it, so that your body and your mind does not become an impediment, but they're wonderful stepping stones in your life. Tell me, right now your back is aching, you're sitting like this. A child comes bubbling with enthusiasm. Because a child's enthusiasm and effervescence is such, you need the energy of ten people in you to handle a child. You need the energy and effervescence of ten people if you hand… want to handle children in a healthy manner, otherwise put them down. That is what will happen. This is not just in school, even at homes it's happening, because the parents don't have the energy to manage the child. They just reproduce, but after that they find they don't have the energy to manage a child because he's all over the place. When you have a hundred children on your hand, you better be super energetic. For this you need yoga for sure. The next question is from Ganesh. Dear Sadguru, what is your opinion of teaching in native language versus teaching in English? These twenty-five or thirty different languages in this country. If you add up all the dialects, they tell me there are thirteen hundred dialects. But at least twenty-five to thirty full-fledged languages with a script of their own, with a huge body of literature behind it. A full-fledged language is not our overnight happening. The oldest language on the planet is Tamil language, you're in Tamil Nadu. When… see language is a very important part of human intelligence, many linguists around the world have clearly recognized the power of language. Human ability to use language essentially is rooted in India. It's from here, the ability to use the language came to the rest of the world. Almost all the languages which are largely in Europe and Arabia based, all of them have Sanskrit influence on them. So in our eagerness to just get a job, we don't have to completely destroy these languages. We will lose out something very, very big. See, English is a fantastic thing in terms of its simplicity, in terms of because internet and you know modern technology has taken to English language, it is a must. Nobody can be against English anymore, you got to take it. Even if you don't like the British, you have to like the English language. It is part of our language now. One good thing we did, though many bad things happened during the British rule, one good thing is we absorbed the language. Today many educated Indians can speak better English than most British can speak. It's a good thing, but at the same time we should never kill these languages which have been there for thousands of years. Because the phonetic range that is there in Indian languages is such, it stimulates every aspect of who you are. English language has a very narrow phonetic range. So, this ability to use sounds to stimulate and trigger one's intelligence and energy within ourselves is something that we should not give up. Every child must know one more language other than English, whatever that is, because anyway our states are divided on linguistic basis. So, in that state whatever the language is, they must know. In our over-enthusiasm for employment-oriented education, I know many schools are completely destroying the local languages. This should not happen. Local language must be there. It must be a part of you. At least people should know how to speak and read. If not you are not a great… you don't know how to write great literature. At least you must know how to read and speak one more language other than English language. Our education policy has taken that into consideration. It is the responsibility of every school to ensure that happens. And I feel the easier way to do it is maybe they're studying science, they're in an English medium, they're largely studying English language. But you could make some play, some theater, some art, something in local languages so that people use that as a social thing, use that as an entertainment where there's a natural interest in how to express themselves in that language. It is a must. We should not kill these languages because it's taken thousands of years to create it. This is our national pride that we have the maximum number of languages. If we had to create this many languages, see we must understand this. For example, let's say Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. There is no... there are no geographical separation. There is no... there are no oceans between these states. There are no mountain ranges clearly demarcating and separating the populations for a long time. But though they lived here for thousands of years, they kept their language, these people kept their language. It's so beautiful. When they went to trade and transact, they learned the other language. But they always kept their language. But today the new generations are losing their language so rapidly. It's very important, all of you, at least in your homes with your children and wherever possible. There must be a certain amount of time where we must use the local language. It's very important. We will regret this deeply after a couple of generations if we don't take care of it now. Because you can't bring back a language. You can kill it, but you can't breathe life into it. It's very difficult. We teachers are constantly instructed to make the children be aware of good touch and bad touch, even at the age of three, when they are in kindergarten. After they get to know, they react in a very different way. As a teacher, I find it very embarrassing to see them. Is it very necessary for all the kids to be taught about this? Dr. Raghuram Gopal Ji See, unfortunately, a lot of very ugly things have happened in schools. Unfortunately, it is a reality. Child abuse in schools has been a very, a very deep concern. Tell me if I'm wrong. I'm saying this from my own experience of being in school, which is long time ago. When I was growing up in the schools, I have heard of a few cases of some kind of abuse. I would say it was maybe today, even boys are being abused, which was, I believe, was not there at that time, largely. Maybe one hen in a school where there were about 400, 500 girls, maybe about 10 or 15 girls could say that in some way they were, you know, not properly handled by somebody. It was never a widespread thing, as far as I know. Even today, I think it is not so widespread, but it's much bigger than before. I think this compulsiveness growing like this, one important factor, which has contributed to this sudden upsurge of this kind of things could be, I'm not an expert on this, but knowing human beings, could be because of advent of internet and pornography being freely available to everybody. These simple-minded people, when they watch these things, I think they're just going crazy. One drop of alcohol, that's it. They'll lose their control upon themselves and all kinds of things happening. It's not that these things have not happened in the past, unfortunately, human history is replete with these kind of things, but it's not on a large scale. This talking to very young children about this healthy touch or unhealthy touch or whatever kind of touch, I think puts unnecessary fear and they become close to everything and everybody around them. It is, you know, there was a time if you see a young child, you could go and pick it up. Whoever child it was, now you have to hesitate. Which is the losses tubing that human beings cannot respond to a child without concern. The loss is too big in my perception, but at the same time in the schools when something goes wrong, then of course all of us will complain. Especially if you are the parent, you will be devastated, I feel if it is happening from the teaching staff, putting them through proper screening, training, a certain amount of spiritual… see this is important when we say spiritual people think you're trying to take them to heaven. No spiritual means you're relieving them from the compulsiveness of the body and the mind. Some amount of spirituality, this needs to happen for people who handle children, this needs to happen to every human being, but particularly because you're handling of fragile life. If all these things are done, will it stop hundred percent? No. But we can only improve things. We can't eradicate things. This is not some pull you or something that you can put a drop and get rid of it. There is no magic wand for all these things. In a continuous committed way if we work at it, we can bring down the incidents to a negligible point. But even if it happens to one child, you can't really ignore it. But using that as a basis and poisoning the child minds of every child is not in my… in my understanding it doesn't agree with me. But I understand that those who are running schools, when certain incident has happened they become hyper. This thing and the media glare and the ugliness that happens around that, I have not still figured a hundred percent solution for that really. But I feel a spiritual evolution in the teacher's constant effort to do that could considerably bring that down. I have a concern. I've attended several conferences and in each conference we go away with a key point and we say that teacher education is a solution to most of the travails of education in India. So we go back and all of us agree and we think it's an urgent need. This we all agree. But then I don't know what kind of steps concretely we can take towards this in terms of teacher education. There are two sections. One is existing teachers, how to improve their state of mind, their attitude towards children, towards curriculum and new teachers. New teachers it seems to me is easier. But also when you look at the B.Ed program with all due respect to Dr. Rajput, Dr. Rajput, that they are also, they don't answer the need of modern children, modern society. And when the in services goes on for existing teachers they're all fragmented and because it's not supported by the system they don't stay. It's just like one more flash in the pan. So while we all agree that we have to give a major thrust to teacher education and empowerment, what concrete steps can we take in a holistic way and in a completely, in a country wide manner. That's the biggest question looming here for me for all of us I suppose. See country wide when you talk we must know how wide our country is. It's a very wide country all right? Not only wide in its size very wide in its variety. There are language issues, there are cultural issues, there are a variety of things. So I don't think we should think country wide. We can think board wise. There are different boards, main boards like ICSE, CBSE, whatever. It's very easy to impact them because these boards are sensitive and active and they want to constantly they're looking for improvement. In these boards easily it can be brought but the majority of the children are in the state boards. So then it is statewide you have to convince the state government. Every state government at least in Tamil Nadu I believe there's a 20-day training for all the teachers every year. So there is an effort I'm saying. There is an effort from the administration to do that. But what happens in this whatever number of days these training aspects I'm sure the government won't hand over the entire thing to you. Suppose it is 20 days, these five days, your five days, suppose you give it to me or some other organization who's capable of that. Now at least a part of the training an NGO which is competent to run that which is committed to education can run at least a part of it. Government will not hand over everything because the education department has its own stuff. I don't want to get into administrative issues. But even a part of it if an NGO conducts you can improve the quality significantly. This could be a solution. To get the government operators, apparatus to another level or another dimension of quality that's a very aspirational I would say. Efforts are there but it's not going to happen overnight. It's too big a machine to make any decent change in a reasonable amount of time because it's too large a machine. So some committed NGO, some university, somebody else could take up this training and at least offer a part of the training to this. In this we can include how to have the teacher physically mentally fit, some meditativeness, some yoga, some various other aspects which will enhance their life, which will benefit them in some way. So the teachers are incentivized to come there and also in United States we are doing this with some of the schooling systems. They have credits. So how many credits a teacher earns, how many trainings a teacher has gone to adds to their credits if so many credits means adds up to their increments in their salary. These are policy decisions we can't change them but bringing an NGO or a university or a certain schooling system which is successfully functioning right now can take up a part of the training and make a difference. So I'm saying that the idea of competition is so much ingrained in our minds not even at the school level but even at the postgraduate level or any aspect of our lives that it creates a lot of unnecessary stress. So what can be really done about this? If you're incompetent and you're in competition you will feel stressed. So if you… if you want to be in a competitive situation the thing is you have to work on your competence. Right now the problem is you're tweaking your desire, you're not tweaking your competence. This is what has to happen that we must teach children to tweak their competence not their desire. We're calling this ambition, we're calling this goal-orientedness. Ambition means what you tweaked up your desire, you'll suffer invariably. If you tweak up your competence you will see wherever you go you're doing better than what people expect you to. So naturally things will go well for you. Competition is not the bad thing, lack of competence is the bad thing. We must understand this. In this country this is very important because we still think our education is cooked in heaven because I… people tell me temples are crowded just before the examination. Just the wrong place to be, just the wrong place to be when your examination is coming, you sitting in the temple is just the wrong place to be. In the vacation you sat in the temple, great. So instead of competence we have big desires. If you focus enough on enhancing your competence, you will see there is such joy in breaking limitations every day and becoming something better, you don't care a damn how somebody else is doing. Yes? If every day if you're breaking limitations, when I was speaking to the… I think our home school, I was telling them, a class… a class full of children should sound like eggs are hatching. You know, I used to be… at one time I used to do sericulture, you know, silk farming and I was amazed. I was so amazed I didn't take them to the market sometimes because these… these… if you just leave the cocoon long enough, if you don't take it to the market, you should see how it opens up. Like this it will be making noise slowly they're opening it up. When a million of them are trying to open, you go inside this room, this is how a school should sound that every moment they're breaking their limitations. If you are breaking the limitations of who you are, if you're competence, you're working constantly to expand, you don't even have the time to look at somebody how he's e-doing because this is such a great thing happening within you. So please focus on your competence. Con… competition you don't bother. If you're good, you will be on the top, otherwise you'll be somewhere. Namaskaram Sathru. I'm glad you brought up the topic of natural resources and if you look at education or even natural resources, especially in the rural sector, it comes directly under the purview of the government and unfortunately, as you rightly said, it's not easy to dent the system and get them to realize what is actually needed for the betterment of the nation. So in that case, what is it that we can actually do because as far as natural resources are concerned in the rural sector, there's a lot of encroachment that happens and nobody wants to touch that aspect, be it the bureaucracy, be it the polity, because they're afraid of losing out on votes. If you speak of education and empowering the children as well as teachers, they don't want to wrench in that space because they feel that if they empower them, then who's going to come to them? How will they retain their power? So how do we make that mind shift? And how can we who are here today and a lot of other people working in that field can come together to ensure that we can drive a leadership towards a direction which is needed for the betterment of the nation? There is a serious resource crunch on all levels. The fundamental problem is in 1947, when we got our independence, we were 33 crores of people. Today we are 125 crores of people. That's a four time, four times, four hundred percent increase in 70 years. So naturally there will be resource crunch, you can never create. Nobody is growing at four hundred percent, isn't it? So you can't grow anything at four hundred percent. So obviously everybody will have less and less as time goes by, but of course there are fertility clinics running busy in Chennai and everywhere. That's another matter. Another important aspect is this is the bane of democracy. I mean I'm not saying we should leave democracy and go elsewhere. There's no other option. We have to stick to it and see how to make them responsible. But when you give somebody just a five year mandate, in that last one year goes in election. In between of course there are three states election, that another one year goes. So after all you're giving him a three, three-and-a-half year mandate. When somebody has only three-and-a-half year commitment to what they want to do, none of the long-term goals will be taken into consideration. Only short-term goals will be taken into consideration. It's a natural outcome of that. There was a time then king ruled for twenty-five years or thirty years. Now in his time whether that kingdom prospered or went down, people could make a judgment. In three-and-a-half, four years making the judgment itself is not fair. A nation of this size, how can any man, even if a superman comes, how can you turn everything around and make everything beautiful and wonderful in three-and-a-half years time? Hundred-and-twenty-five crore people, diverse people. I'm saying it's a little... it is a dichotomy in which we are. We cannot go into any other mode of governance other than democracy. There is no other way for us. At the same time, how to make it worthwhile for the person who occupies that seat to invest in long-term goals, if he invests in long-term goals, he loses his election for sure. So obviously people are not able to recognize what is our true well-being. If you give them something free, they think this is great. This has been happening since I think they started in 80s. Suddenly they started at that time the rice, you know the rice we eat used to cost twelve to fifteen rupees. In Andhra Pradesh, I think that's where it started first. They started giving it for one rupee, one rupee, one kilogram. Who pays the remaining fourteen rupees? Nobody knows. I'm saying even a rural housewife knows if I have ten rupees, I can only buy ten rupees worth of goods, isn't it? That much economics everybody knows. You don't have to be a PhD. Everybody knows we can only spend what we have. You cannot spend what you don't have, isn't it? So still I think we need to educate the citizenry that they can understand if a political leader talks about long-term goals. People can understand this as, oh this is our well-being. Right now the electorate does not understand that. So naturally the leaders try to do those shortcut methods where none of the long-term goals get addressed unfortunately. So ecology, education, all these things are backburners because they won't when you vote. After all, a democratically elected leader is always thinking about votes, you can't blame him. You can't blame him, isn't it? I'm telling you if you were in the game, you wouldn't be thinking of the vote, you would, isn't it? So we need to educate the people what is a true well-being, what is a sham of a well-being. This must come to the hearts of people, then they will also have the opportunity to focus on long-term goals. Any long-term goal means whether it's in individual life or the life of a nation, any long-term goals means short-term sacrifice. We must understand this always.