Motivational Speech From SADHGURU
Jonathan Berent: Thank you so much for joining us today, Sadhguru. I think the audience is very interested in what you have to say. I guess to start, they define inclusive consciousness. I’d love to hear your thoughts on– Sadhguru: They did not define it. Jonathan Berent: They did not, OK. Well, I was just going to ask you what's missing. So you can start. Sadhguru: With all due respect, they spoke about intent, right intent.
They spoke about the right kind of thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and to some extent actions. There is no consciousness in this. If we are understanding that the way we think, feel, and act is of consciousness, no. It is like we are mistaking a plant. We are mistaking the flower for the soil. We are mistaking expressions for the source.
This is something that’s happening everywhere, not just here. People think by changing attitudes, their consciousness will change. No. By changing attitudes, certain actions will change — yes, positive, beneficial. But it is not truly transformative. The change will happen. The transformation will not happen.
If I have to define a distinction between change and transformation, change means the residue of the past will still remain. A transformation means nothing of the past will remain, which is what is needed today if you want to create a new world if you want a new generation to have a fresh life. It’s been expressed in so many ways.
Being in this part of the world, what their family is with, generally, someone said, leave the dead to the dead. It’s very significant. This is not coming out of recklessness. This is not coming out of unconcern. But this is coming with the concern that you must be a fresh life. You can learn many things from the past about how to conduct yourself.
But there is nothing to learn from the past about how to be. Because you are a complete life by yourself. You don’t have to learn how to be a life from the past. Maybe you have to learn how to be a good engineer. Maybe you have to learn how to be something else in society from the past.
But you don’t have to learn how to be alife from the past, because the past has nothing to do with this. This is a fresh life, and this is a complete life. Consciousness is that dimension, which is the very source of who we are. Our intentions, our actions, our thoughts, and our attitudes are a consequence of that. Or in other words, we are trying to fix the consequence without fixing the source.
Now all these distinctions of a variety of things that they said, gender discriminations, racial discriminations, every kind, OK? Somebody is Hindu, somebody is a Muslim, somebody is a Googler– it becomes a religion after some time, believe me. The second generation, they will become a religion by themselves.
Yes. I’m saying you will see a football match going on. It’s like a religion, two different clubs. They’re willing to fight and kill each other. Just a game. So where does this come from? See, the nature of being human is this.
If you give me two minutes. There are four dimensions of our mind. In modern societies, the nature of our education has constipated our mind in such a way because we are just largely using just one dimension,which we call as the intellect. The other dimensions of mind, if I have touse Indian terminology, it means buddhi, ahankara, manas, and chitta. What buddhi means is the intellect. You do what you want.
The nature of the intellect is to slice things open and see. If you leave the world in the hands of your intellect, your intellect will chop it into a million pieces and will want to chop itinto further micro pieces and want to chop it into further micro-micro pieces, depending upon how sharp your intellect is. The sharper your intellect, the more you dissect the world. You cannot stop it, because that is the natureof the intellect. And it’s good. So you must apply intellect only to know the material aspects of life. You can’t know life this way. If I want to know you, can I dissect you? Jonathan Berent: No. Sadhguru: But if a doctor wants to know some aspect of you, materially what’s wrong with you, he will take a biopsy. And in a way, he opens it up and looks atit. It’s OK on that level. But I can’t know you as a person by dissecting you.
I can’t know you as a life by dissecting you. I can know a part of your body maybe. Similarly, I can know parts of the world to make use of it. But I can’t know life as such. So intellect has been over-energized in the last 100, 150 years. This is a European impact on the rest of the world, where we think our thought is supreme. Someone went to the extent of saying, I think so I exist or whatever. I want to ask all of you a simple question. Tell me, is it because we exist we may think? Or is it because we think we exist? Which way is it? Hello?
Because we exist, we may think, because peopleare in such a state of mental diarrhea all the time. Nonstop it’s going on. They think it’s more of an existence thanexistence. But my head is all the time empty unless Iwant to think about something. So I know a thought is not necessary. I can just live here without a thought. When I want, I will think. Otherwise, I’ll keep quiet. Just like my hand– if I want to use it,otherwise I keep it here.
Similarly, you must be able to do this withyour mind. Just because you lost control over your mindand you think it’s everything because it’s entering into every aspect of your life whereit has no business. Thought has been over-energized by people.
And the very nature of the thought is suchthat if you think it must be logical, it cannot be any other way. Well, what somebody is thinking may look illogicalto you, but they have found their own logic. The most extreme person that you have met,within himself or herself, they have their own logic. Isn’t it so? They’re not speaking illogically as faras they’re concerned. They have found their own kind of logic. Logic means it needs two. Logic means it needs division. Now logically you’re trying to arrive atinclusive consciousness.
It’s not going to happen. Because you’re using a knife to stitch. This is not going to work. If you use a knife to cut, it’s efficient. You use a knife to stitch things together,you will only tear it up further. So my thought and your thought, I am tellingyou, whatever great meetings you have– I’ve been to every kind of peace conference onthe planet.
What happens there? It’s just short of war. After some time, it heats up. But on the second day anyway, it’s all over. They all get drunk in the evening, and theygo home. If you make them stay there for a week, I’mtelling you right there, there will be a battle. Yes, it is true. I’m not saying this with any disdain. I made a sincere effort to participate inall these conferences at one time, believing they’re going to lead to peace. But eight years ago, I decided I will neveragain go to these events, because people are professional conference attendees. They’re making a living out of it. It’s not about peace.
So the next dimension of intelligence is calledas ahankara. Ahankara means identity. This is important that in modern societies,we have not cultured our children to culture their identity. When I say identity, the fundamental identityfor you is always your body. There’s a racial thing that concerns himand concerns all of us. I’m darker than him, you know. I face it all the time, joyfully. But I face it everywhere I go. I have extra features which make me furtherdiscriminated. But our first identity is with the body. When we identify with the body, the colorof the skin also becomes part of it. Why do we identify with the body?
Because our experience is limited to this. If you say me, you mean this, isn’t it? Because you experience of life is limitedto this, naturally you are identified with this, and this is you, and this is how youlook. Somebody looks so different, whether in genderor because of race or because of maybe just fashion– who knows what makes them different? But suddenly, this is me, that’s you. It’s established. But we sit here in this hall.
Whatever the color of our skin, whatever ourreligion, whatever our agenda, we are inhaling and exhaling the same air. But we have no issue. Body has no problem. But the identity has a problem. You are identified with something. We have not cultured our children right froman early age that your identity should be universal. This is something in India traditionally. Before you start education for a child, thereis something called Vidyarambham, where the first chant that they must do is that my identificationis with the entire cosmos. Without this, you should not give educationto a child.
That is the understanding. Because education is seen as an empowerment. You should not empower a person who has limitedidentifications. Because it doesn’t matter whether it’sof individual nature or of family or of community or race, religion, nation. It doesn’t matter. Once you have limited identity, you will causedisharmony. You will cause cruel things thinking you’redoing the right thing. I know the debate always goes to ISIS andthings like this. I want you to understand this. These people, looking at their actions, youmay be sitting here — I know I’m getting into a minefield. Sitting here, all of us think, these are horriblepeople.
But you must understand this. They believe they’re doing the greatestthing that a human being can do. They’re working for God. There can be no better employer. Not Google– God. Jonathan Berent: Who you’ve never prayedto… Sadhguru: That’s my problem. What I’m saying, you should have seen this. I’m sure you guys can Google anything.
You must see there is a press meet that theAfghan Taliban is conducting with the international media just before the United States invadedAfghanistan. All these young guys with long beards andbig, big turbans, they’re all sitting like this. And they’re asking questions. Just then they bomb that Buddha statue, andthey made this thing that girls should not go to school and many other things.
So these kind of questions are coming. Whatever you ask them, they say, in our holybook, our prophet, our God said this, this, this. We’re just doing that. I was just watching those guys, I had tearsin my eyes. These are wonderful guys. These are guys who are willing to die forwhat they believe in. But they’ve been screwed up by the scriptures. Yes, these are wonderful people who are willingto die for what they think is that right, all right? A man who is willing to die for what he thinksis right is a great man. But look at the consequence, simply becauseof limited identity. So there’s ahankara. This identity is what wills the intellect. If you hold the right identity, from an earlyage if it’s brought into us that your identity is with the entire cosmos– because nothinghappens here without everything’s involvement in you. We are sitting on this round planet, whichis spinning and moving at a great speed in the middle of nowhere. You don’t know where it begins, where itends, this thing. And look at us sitting here and talking. How many forces– how many forces in theexistence are keeping you and me in place on this chair? So there is no way we can exist without theinvolvement of all this. But talking about this intellectually is notgoing to help, because you try to understand intellectually, you’re using a knife. Further you will divide. So there is another dimension of intelligencewithin you, which can make you come to an experience of this. The next dimension of intelligence is calledas manas. Manas means a huge silo of memory. There are eight types of memory in this. I will just name them.
I’m not going through this. These eight types of memory are referred toas elemental memory, atomic memory, evolutionary memory, karmic memory, sensory memory, andin the karmic memory there are two types. One is called sanchita.. there is a bank ofmemory, which determines the very shape and size of your body. There’s another one which is right now inplay, so two dimensions of karmic memory. Inarticulate memory, that there is a memorybut you can never articulate but it’s finding expression. When you see a chair, you know this is whereyou should sit, not there. You didn’t think about it, because thereis a memory in you that this is where you must sit. When you see a glass, you know this is howyou must hold. This is not simple Without this knowledge,you cannot build this. There is an enormous memory which allows youto do almost everything automatically. Because an inarticulate memory is constantlyin action. And that is articulate memory, which is avery minuscule part of your memory. The next dimension of intelligence is mostimportant. This is called as chitta. This is an intelligence without an iota ofmemory in it, unsullied by memory. See, memory means a boundary. You guys are always dealing with information. Today you’re in technology. I think memory does not mean what’s here. Memory means– chh– all over the placeMemory is a boundary. What I know is always a boundary. What I do not know is a limitless possibility,isn’t it? We have misunderstood the power of ignorance.
Our knowledge is always bound within boundaries. Our ignorance is boundless. So always in the yogic system, we identifywith our ignorance, never with our knowledge. This is something we must do in a technologycompany. Because that’s where the possibility is. That is where the new terrain is, in yourignorance, not in your knowledge. So chitta is unsullied by memory. It’s just pure intelligence. Right now, if you eat an apple, it turns intoa human being. You cannot do it with your brains. Even your brains were created by what youeat, isn’t it? There is an intelligence here, which is capableof transforming anything to this, because it is making use of the memory and the manasand making this happen. But the most important dimension of your intelligenceis chitta. In today’s education systems, in today’ssocial conditions, there is no effort to dip into deeper dimensions of our intelligence. We’re just too enamored with our own intellectand now using this knife to stitch everything. Jonathan Berent: Well, you should know thateven at Google when we interview people, we have something called GCA that we look for,which is General Cognitive Ability. I suppose that that would fall into that intellectdimension.
Most of us weren’t raised where we weretold from an early age to identify with the cosmos. So is there any hope for us? Or are we lost? Sadhguru: See, identifying with the cosmosis just another thought. As a thought, it doesn’t do much. It makes people a little airy brained andthey’ll start acting funny. You become New Agey. You know, I love the cosmos. It’s very easy to love the cosmos becauseit’s not here with you. If you’ve got to love somebody next to you,there’s lots of problems. See, this wanting to set up boundaries, theinstinct of wanting to set up boundaries, is so deep. You see a dog peeing all over the place notbecause he has some urinary problem. He’s building a kingdom. It’s a pee kingdom, but it’s a kingdom,all right?
He’s building a kingdom. Every human being is also doing the same thingbecause there are two dimensions of your intelligence. One is designed to create self-preservation. One aspect of your intelligence is designedfor self-preservation, which is your intellect. The chitta, that dimension of the intelligenceis designed to make you expand. Once you have come as a human being, thisis your issue fundamentally. Whoever you are, whatever you are right nowin your life, you want to be something more. If that something more happens, you want tobe something more. If that something more happens, you want tobe something more.
I’m sure you guys want to set up GoogleMaps for Mars. Yes, if that happens for the entire universeif it’s possible. Because this is the nature of being human. There is one dimension which always wantsto expand. Another dimension always wants to build walls. You build a wall. You feel safe. After two days, you feel you understand thewalls of self-preservation are also the walls of self-imprisonment. You want to break it, you break it, and youput a new wall there, and you think this is great, this is freedom. After some time, you feel that’s not it,and you want to expand it. These two dimensions are not opposing eachother. They’re are not diametrically opposite toeach other. They are complementary.
There is only one thing about you which needspreservation. That’s your physicality. This body must be preserved, because if youbreak it, you can’t fix it. Everything else in you right now– supposeI take out all your thoughts, all your emotions, all your ideas, all your philosophies, allyour belief systems, and trashed them right here, break them into pieces. You can come up with a fresh thought, freshemotions, fresh belief systems, fresh philosophies just like that. So all those must be every day put into the–what you call them– the shredder. You must have a pulverizer, because shreddermeans they’ll go again, pick it up, and fix it. You must have a pulverizer for yourself beforeyou go to bed. Today’s ideas, today’s thoughts, today’sbelief systems, today’s experiences, you must leave the dead to the dead. Jonathan Berent: Let me challenge. Let me challenge that. Because I thought something that [Pabani]said was very interesting. And she said almost the wound becomes thehealer. Or sometimes you hear the wounded become thehealer. So you can take some of that, can’t younot transform some of those things that have been difficult and use that energy, use yourintellect to do something for good? Sadhguru: So the experience of life can causetwo things. All this is nice when things, small thingshappen.
When really major things happen to you, thewounds are so big for people that they don’t heal in a lifetime, many of them, OK? So the choice is just this. The experience of life, whatever happens tous, you can either make it into your wound or into wisdom. You can either become wise or you can becomewounded. If you become wise, you will become a solution. If you become wounded, you will also becomeone more problem. It’s a choice we have. Jonathan Berent: So where does this wisdomcome from? How do we access– if we’re so used tousing one of these four, and probably like most people in the audience, I wasn’t evenaware that there are these other dimensions, what’s a starting point? What’s a way to access beyond the intellect? Sadhguru: See, it’s like this. Right now there is water in this glass. This is definitely not you. Yes? But if you drink it, it becomes you. What is it that you did with this water thatsomething that’s not you became you? When you say inclusiveness, this is all you’retalking about, something that is not you. You want to make it a part of you in someway, isn’t it?
So this is right now not you. But if you drink it, it becomes you. So what is it that happened technically foryou, peace, justice? Right now I’m asking you– you take yourright hand, all of you. Take your right hand and touch your left hand. Is that you? Hello? Touch the chair on which you’re sitting. Is that you? How do you know this? What is the basis of this? How do you know this is me and this is notme? Here there are sensations. Here there are no sensations. Or in other words, what you are saying is,whatever is in the boundaries of my sensation is me, whatever it is outside the boundariesof my sensation is not me, isn’t it?
Right now this is not me. If I drink it and include it into the boundariesof my sensation, this becomes me, isn’t it? Now, the boundaries of your sensations aresuch that if you make your life energies very exuberant, you will see they will expand. If it happened to you, suppose– it shouldhave happened to many of you– there was a moment in your life when you felt so joyfultears came to you. Has it happened to you? You were so joyful or loving tears came toyou. At such a moment, if you take your hand andjust put it six to eight inches away from your body right here, you will feel sensations. If such things did not happen to you, I cando something horrible to you so that you experience something. We can chop off your right leg. If you chop off your right leg, the leg isgone, but still the sensory leg may remain intact for a period of time. You’ve heard of this phantom leg. Leg is physical. Leg is gone. But the sensory leg is still there. This means sensory body has a structure ofits own. If your energies become very vibrant and exuberantwithin you, your sensory body expands. Suppose my sensory body became as big as this.
Now you’ll become a part of me and my experience. If it became as big as this hall, all thesepeople become a part of me and my experience. Because my sensory body has stretched. We can do a small experiment. You OK to be a Guinea? Hello? Audience: Yes. Sadhguru: What we will do is– with you eyesclosed you have to do this, but right now observe me. What do you do is with your eyes closed, justrub this briskly like this for two minutes, let me say, one minute — briskly OK, keepyour eyes closed, and just hold your thumbs three to four inches away from each otherwith your eyes closed. Something happening between your hands? Hello? Audience: Yes. Sadhguru: OK, please open your eyes. So just a little bit of rubbing– you didn’tdo it for a minute, either, just 20 seconds. You rub it, and suddenly something happeningbetween these two hands, simply because of vigorous movement the sensory body has expanded.
You can feel something happening right here. You know why people are rubbing each other all the time? It’s an effort. It’s an effort to include someone who is not a part of you as yourself. If this happens– If this happens in a very basic, physical level, we call this sexuality. If it happens emotionally, we call this love. If it happens mentally, it gets labeled as greed and ambition and conquest. If it happens on the level of your sensory body, we call this yoga. Now, yoga means union. Union does not mean you cause the union.
Anyway, this happening is one. You are allowed yourself to experience it. That means the walls of self-preservation you loosened up a little bit, that’s all. Why you want somebody close to you, why you want a loud one in your life is somewhere you want to loosen the walls of self-preservation where you don’t have to worry about protecting yourself. Suddenly you feel one with them. And once you feel one with them, in some way you want to be in touch with them. Because you’re trying to loosen up your sensory body in such a way that you can experience that which is not a part of you as a part of yourself. Now, this need not limit it to be one person or anything like that.
This need not be biologically connected. If you can sit here with your life at itspeak of exuberance, you will experience the whole universe as yourself. Then we say you are a yogi. Jonathan Berent: And you had that experience34 years ago. You talked about it a little bit yesterday. I’m just curious for those of us that haven’thad a peak experience where we’ve had this sense of union, what advice, what step wouldyou take if we are of the place where we think, all right, I’m willing to try this out. I’m a skeptic. I don’t know what the sensory body is. I had a little taste of it here. What would be the next step if we wanted totry for ourselves?
Sadhguru: Let’s describe what is being skeptic. Being a skeptic means you don’t believeanything unless it truly makes sense to you. Most people are just downright suspicious. But they think they’re skeptics. They don’t qualify as skeptics. They’re just suspicious about everything. This comes from a certain fear within youthat everything around you can be wrong. Suspicion means you made a conclusion aboutsomething that you do not know. Believing something positively or believingsomething negatively is not different. They’re the same things. You believe something that you do not know. Skeptic means whatever I do not know, I donot know. I don’t assume things in my life. What I know, I know. I think everybody should come to this muchsense and straightness in our life, that what I know, I know, what I do not know, I do notknow.
It’s perfectly fine. “I do not know” is a tremendous possibility. Only if you see “I do not know,” the longingto know, seeking to know, and the possibility of knowing arises. So if you are a skeptic, you are an idealcandidate. If you’re a believer, we have to debriefyou. Jonathan Berent: Get the shredder out. Sadhguru: Because you assume too many thingsthat you do not know. You know the geography of heaven, though youcan’t operate the local Google map. Jonathan Berent: OK, well, we’ll be takingquestions, so be thinking about the question you might want to have. I think one more question I want to ask is,how do we– we’ve been talking about some things that are very big. I think they’re promising. But yet think about the conversation we hadearlier. And how do we tie these two things together? How do they relate in your mind? Sadhguru: Those of you who are interested,because right now we must understand this. Your intellect needs data to function– yesor no? Hello? Without data, your intellect is useless. It needs data.
That’s why you guys are in the business. Everybody knows everything in the universeright now, not because they went there and saw it. Because they googled it up. Because intellect feels stupid without data. Now, the nature of the intellect is like thisonly, that it feeds upon the data. Where does the data come to you? What you see, what you hear, what your smell,what you taste, what you touch. In the video nature of things, these fivesense organs, which are the main agents of gathering information for you, are all outwardbound. You can see what’s around you. You can’t roll your eyeballs inward andscan yourself. You can hear this. So much activity here. You cannot hear this. If an ant crawls upon your hand, you can feelit. So much blood flowing. You cannot feel it. Because in the very nature of things, yoursense organs are outward bound. You cannot use these to turn inward. There is another dimension of perception,which needs to be activated. Why is it not active in me? Because the sense organs are instruments ofsurvival.
They come on when you’re born. Whatever kind you are. Anyway, it comes on. It comes on for a dog, pig, cat, elephant–for everybody. Similarly, it comes on for us. Whatever is needed for survival for any biologicalcreature, it turns on at the time of birth because it’s needed. Otherwise you wouldn’t survive. But anything beyond survival process, withoutstriving it would not have ended your life, isn’t it? Anything that you know from an alphabet towhatever else you know– I’m sorry I’m not talking about your brand. I’m talking of the real alphabet. Anything that you know, from reading to writingto using a computer or singing a song or whatever, you know these things with certain striving. I want you to remember when you were three,four years of age, that damn A, how complicated it was, as if it were not enough, there weretwo versions of it, which freaked the hell out of you. Today you can write with your eyes closed. Still, there are others in the world who didnot strive in that direction Even today, you ask them to write, they will struggle, yesor no. Without striving, anything beyond survivalwould not enter your life and will not enter your life. So turning inward is not a survival process. So there are two fundamental dimensions withinyou, instinct of self-preservation, longing to expand limitlessly. Both true for a human being. This is essentially a human problem on theplanet.
No other creator wants to expand limitlessly. They are only thinking of survival. Their stomach full, life settled. For you, stomach empty, only one problem Stomachfull, 100 problems. Yes, so all your trouble begins after stomachgets full, isn’t it? Because this is longing to expand limitlessly. In the evolutionary process, we can say this. But every other creature, nature has drawntwo lines within which they live and die. They’re quite final. But once you become human, there is only abottom line. There is no top line. So what humanity is suffering and confusedabout is not their bondage. They’re suffering their freedom.
What do you do with that? Jonathan Berent: Wow! All right, well, I’m going to invite anyone– Sadhguru: All these identities of religion,race, caste, creed, nationality is they’re trying to set their own bondage. Because no bondage has been given to you bynature. You’re trying to set your own bondage sothat you feel secure somehow. Jonathan Berent: And so that’s part of themotivation that’s driving the attacks. Sadhguru: All these identities, being identifiedwith the color of your skin, with whatever nonsense you believe in and nationality–just a cloth, a flag. People will stand there and tears will cometo them.
Just look at that. It really amazes me. And on one level, it’s beautiful. On another level, it’s super ugly that youget identified with all these kind of things. People get identified with a symbol, witha word, with just about anything, all right? So you are trying to create some artificialboundary of your own. Once you create this boundary and you haveanother boundary, I have my boundary, when they meet, we clash. Jonathan Berent: So if you have a question,please go ahead and come to the mic. And again, we’re trying to think about thistopic of inclusive consciousness. You’ve heard a lot of things shared fromour VPs and also from this conversation. So let’s hear what’s on your mind basedon all this. Over here. Audience: Hello. So I’m involved in organizing a peace conferencein India. And it’s a very grassroots-led effort, sono politicians, thank God. And I found it interesting that you said youstopped attending peace conferences.
So I’d love to hear from you any adviceon what we should do or what we should avoid to make this small effort a success for thepeople who are attending. Sadhguru: See, when you say, no politicians,thank God, you’re just not attending to the source of problems. Politicians are not another breed of people. A democratic society means tomorrow you maybecome the president of this nation. That’s what it means, yes? If you’re willing to stick your neck out,you may become the president of this country or a prime minister of another country. So a politician did not drop from the sky. He is not some other creature. He is just like you and me. He stuck his neck out, which you and me arenot willing to do. Let’s admit this. It’s not an easy thing. It’s easy to sit down and comment, but it’snot an easy thing to try to run a nation. It’s complex, believe me. So you must have politicians. But you must have an atmosphere where it’snot political in nature, where they will also let their hair down and talk like common citizensor human beings.
But without them, what are you going to change? So peace conferences, if it’s just an entertainment,you can gather your friends and have a peace conference. But if you want peace on the planet, the mostimportant politicians, the most powerful politicians in this world must be there. Only then there is a possibility of peace,isn’t it? Otherwise it’s just entertainment. I’ll tell you I was in a very importantpeace conference. There were 42 Nobel laureates, each one ofthem pulling out 10, 20, one of them 44, 45 pages of printed sheets without even lookingup at anybody, just went on reading their paid speeches from morning to evening.
And slowly, the hall was becoming peaceful. In one afternoon, the second day afternoon,I’m sitting right here in the front row, and I look around. Literally everybody has fallen asleep exceptthe security man who was standing there and me, the idiot, who is sitting up there andbelieving there’s going to be world peace because of this conference and sitting upthere, alert, listening to every word. Then I looked around. Everybody’s become very peaceful. They’ve been having late-night parties,and they’re all very peaceful. Then when my turn to speak came, I said, see,I’ve heard so much peace. Today I want to ask you, can all of you orany of you put your hand on your heart and say you are genuinely peaceful in your life? They were straight enough. They said, no, we are not peaceful. I said, if you cannot make your mind peaceful,how the hell are you going to make the world peaceful? What’s happening in the world is just alarger manifestation of the nonsense that’s happening in our heads, isn’t it? If you and me were truly peaceful human beings,do we have to worry about you and me fighting someday? Hello? Whatever the issues, we’ll sit down andhandle it, right? Because there is violence in us, now we haveto have a boundary. Here there’s a barricade just in case Iget violent or you get violent. Jonathan Berent:
How about from this sideover there. Audience: Hi Just a very basic question–you mentioned that before we start educational of our children, we should try and make surethat their identity is the cosmos. But how do you do that then we ourselves areso hard-wired– I mean, how do we tell our children that their identity is more whenmy own thinking is so limited, when in my own identity is so limited? How do I pass something like that to a childwhen I am not capable of doing that myself? Sadhguru: Anyway, whatever you tell your children,your children don’t listen to you… if you have them on the way, I’m telling you,forewarning you. They don’t listen to a damn thing that yousay. But they observe you. They pick up things from the way you are behaving.
If you don’t show that in your life, yourteachings will be hated after some time. Yes. See, this is most unfortunate I just see thishappening to so many people. When they have a child, these parents, theydid everything possible to the child. They thought this is their life, not justchanging diapers, so many things, everything possible. They taught they’re living for this person.
As this person becomes bigger and in theirover-concern about how this child should be, trying to teach him the best things in theuniverse, which is not true in their lives, slowly you will see by the time he becomesa teenager, he avoids them. If he wants to share something, if he wantsto listen to some sense, he goes to his friends, never to his parents. Not everybody, I’m saying, but largely itis happening. Because they don’t make sense. They talk things that doesn’t make sense. People keep asking me, Sadhguru, how did youbecome like this? What is this… Did you display your life and you are likethis? This is all I did. I strive to remain uneducated.
It’s not easy, believe me. From the day you are born, just everybodyaround you is trying to teach you something that did not work in their life. You can clearly see it’s not worked in theirlife. Because if it had worked, they should havebeen joyful and ecstatic. It’s not worked. They’ve become long-faced. But they’re teaching you all kinds of bestthings, louder universe. It’s not going to work. You don’t have to say a word.
I will tell you– is it OK if I can sharesomething? Jonathan Berent: Sure. Sadhguru: I brought up my girl alone. At the age of seven, she lost her mother. So one rule I put– she’s been travelingwith me since she’s 4 and 1/2 years of age, OK? I’m sorry since she is 4 and 1/2 months,not years. 4 and 1/2, I sent her to school. But as a little infant, she traveled withme. And I made one rule. Wherever I went, I always stayed with many,many families all over the country. I always told everybody, never teach her anything,no ABC, no 1, 2, 3, no rhyme, nor nonsense. I don’t want anybody to teach her anything. People thought this is strange or… And I said, just leave her. By the time she was 18 months, she was speakingthree languages fluently because nobody messed with her. And she grew up joyfully, went to school,everything. At the age of 13, something she was disturbedat school, and she came back home. And one day she said, you’re teaching everybodyso many things. You’re not telling me anything.
I said, well, I don’t do anything unsolicited. I’ve been waiting. It’s all right. Now you come. There’s only one thing you need to know. I said, never to look up to anybody. She looked at me, “what about you?” kind of thing in her face. I said, not even me. Never look up to anybody. Never look down on anybody. That’s how you have to do with life. Never look up to anything or anybody. Never look down on anything or anybody.
Suddenly you will see life just the way itis. Right now, something is high, something islow, something is God, something is devil, something is virtue, something is sin. You divided the universe in a million differentways, and then you’re trying to fix it. It’s not going to work. The instrument which broke the world intopieces is your intellect. With that, you’re trying to fix everything. It’s not going to work. Now, this racism thing, it’s disastrousthat in 21st century, every day there’s a shooting. I think this has been happening all the time. Only now because of cell phones and Facebookit’s out there and everybody knows. I think it’s been happening right through,all right?
At one time, it was happening legally. Now it’s been happening illegally. Now, these kind of things are happening becausewe’re using our intellect to fix the problem. You’re using a knife to stitch. This is not going to work. You just live that way .Whichever way youlive, your children will grasp it, and they’ll make a sense out of that in their own way. And maybe they’ll fall this way or thatway because you are not the only influence upon them.
You better know that. You’re going to be a mother. You must know this. You are not the only influence. There are all kinds of people, and there’sGoogle. Audience: Sadhguru:, you talked about identityand inclusive consciousness. So I want to know, let’s say like you talkedabout the sensory body and feeling that everyone is part of you kind of thing. So where does the role of action come in? So if I do something, do I identify myselfwith it what I did? And let’s say if I feel that you are oreveryone is part of like me or the whole cosmos, and you do something. Is you doing something, cosmos doing something,me doing something?
Where does the action come in the picture? Sadhguru: See, this is the beauty of our existence. In this existence, in this cosmos, we arenot even a speck of dust. That small we are. But still, creation has given as an individuality,an individual nature that we can experience these things. But countless number of people who lived onthis planet before you and me came. Where are they? They’re all topsoil.
They’ve become part of the Earth, isn’tit? So if you get it from me today, you can transformyour life, that really everything is a part of you, and you are a part of everything,not as a thought, but experientially. If you can experience everything around youas you experience the 5, 10 fingers of your hands, then you will see life becomes tremendouslybeautiful. Otherwise, anyway one day you will get itfrom the maggots. But it will be a bit too late lesson. But everybody will get it one day, isn’tit? Hello? When people bury us, we are going to get thepoint that we are part of the Earth. Right now, we forget it. We can live sensibly. So this must come from an experience. If you come from a thought, again you’rethinking how is inclusiveness and individuality existing at the same time?
That is the beauty of this existence. It is the filth which has become the flower,isn’t it? Yes or no? It is the filth which has become the flower. In your mind filth is different, flower isdifferent, but in existence filth and flower are same. They are not different, just different waysof existing. For you nose, filth doesn’t feel goo.d Butif you were a pig, you would like the filth. Nothing wrong with that. Because it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing or no? Hello? It’s the same thing, isn’t it? It is just that in our mind and with our intellect,we are breaking everything. This breaking is only a psychological reality.
This is not existentially true. See, we started a huge movement called ProjectGreenHands. I think something a little bit was there inthis. This happened like this. When I saw that entire southern India wasturning into desert very rapidly, rivers were drying up, ground water went from like 100,150 feet to almost 1,500 feet and palm trees, the crowns were falling off, we thought wemust do something. Then I did this to them. One day I called– I went to a small villageand called for people. About 5,000 people turned up. So I made them– this is around 11 o’clockin the morning. The weather is not like this in southern India.
It’s hot, summer sun. I made them sit there. Close by, there were about five rain trees,three of them really large ones.
You’ve seen rain trees? Some of them can be as large as an acre. It’s shade. So three of them are really large ones. Two of them were medium-sized ones, very attractive. I would love to be under those trees. But I made them sit here in hot sun. And I went on talking, stretching the talk,telling them stories, telling them jokes. They were all very enthusiastic in the beginning. Slowly– if you’re walking around, youwon’t feel the sun. If you just sit under the sun, it just reallygets you. About 1 and 1/4, 1 and 1/2 hours, they werereally going away. They’re thinking, what’s wrong with thisSadhguru? He’s just frying us in the sun. Then I said, come, and I took them under thetree. Ah! Everybody.
Suddenly, you know what is a tree. Otherwise you were thinking of how to makefurniture out of this. Now suddenly you know what’s a tree. I made them sit down there and read. It’s a certain spiritual process that Iset up, a process for them where I told them, what you exhale, trees are inhaling. What they exhale, you are inhaling. Once they experienced it, now you can’tstop them from planting trees. They planted over 28 million trees. And you can’t stop them. They changed the entire culture. But when this happened to me about 9, 10 yearsago, I went back to my city, which I had not gone and done any work there, I had neverspoken there, I avoided this because my family lives there.
I wanted to be anonymous in that town, notrecognized. But because of the Google and stuff, I gotrecognized everywhere. So when I went there, they insisted I mustdo something. I called for a program. All kinds of people turned up, my kindergartenschool friends, teachers, my college teachers, school teachers, everybody. When I spoke and all this happened, and myEnglish teacher came up to me from school and she said, now I understand why you wouldn’tlet me teach Robert Frost. I said, ma’am, why would I not let you teachFrost? I like Frost. I have some poetry in his own voice. I said I like Frost. Why would I not let you teach?
Don’t you remember? You didn’t let me teach Frost. Then I remembered. One day she came up, and we were always studyingEnglish poems and English literature. Suddenly she introduced this American poetand said, this is Robert Frost. He’s a great guy. And she started out the poem “Woods arelovely, dark and deep”. I said stop. I said, a man who calls a tree a wood, I’mnot going to have anything to do with this guy.
She said, no, no, Robert Frost is a great–I don’t care who the hell he is. He calls tree a wood. I’m not going to listen to that guy. I didn’t let her teach. We chose Longfellow instead of Frost becauseI didn’t let her teach Frost that year. So I’m saying if you call a tree a wood,it’s a commodity. This water, this Earth that you walk upon,the people that you see, these are not commodities.
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