Exploring Human Potential | NHRDN With Sadhguru in Challenging Times

00:09 - Speaker: Namaskaram Sadhguru. Thank you…

00:11 - First of all I’d like to thank you very much, immensely, on behalf of the National HRD Network for making your time available in spite of… Sadhguru: (Sadhguru laughs) _____ (Unclear) (Overlapping conversation) Speaker:… so much pressures on your time.

00:21 - I can see in every corner of the world has been wanting to have your wisdom and guidance in these difficult times across the globe.

00:32 - Thank you very much sir and we expect to listen to you today, a large number of people from across the world.

00:39 - Not only HR people, although we expect a large number of our National HR network members from there.

00:46 - All people management professional bodies, some CEOs, CXO…

00:51 - CXOs and other employees and others who are interested in exploring the potential to fight the COVID-19.

01:07 - Sadhguru, National HRD Network was founded in 1985, conceptualized precisely to promote the concept of human resource development, its philosophy, values and culture.

01:17 - And the philosophy we articulated in those days was, “All human beings are born with tremendous potential. ” Organizations are platform to explore this potential.

01:28 - It is the job of HRD facilitators to create happiness at work and help people to explore these potential.

01:35 - Though the first HRD department was started in ‘75, by ‘85 the human resource development…

01:42 - “development” got replaced by “department. ” And by post-liberalization, by late ‘90s the human got totally dropped and what remained as “Resources. ” This is why about five years ago the director at Isha Leadership Academy at your teams request and gave a course on talent management.

02:08 - I heard you speak that, “Human is not a resource. ” It’s a crime to call human as a resource, human is a possibility (Sadhguru laughs).

02:16 - I was very touched by that because that is what precisely was happening that we have reduced human to a resource and dropped human and development.

02:25 - So we caught on this. JB and a lot of others from Isha Leadership Academy started this program under your guidance, “Human Is Not A Resource. ” And we had run by now about three such programs exposing almost about three-hundred and odd CEOs, CXOs, CHROs and so on.

02:43 - So it has been a pleasure to visit the Isha Foundation and Isha Academy of Leadership and interact with you off and on.

02:54 - I had the good fortune also to go through the Inner Engineering program before we started the first program, which was a wonderful experience.

03:02 - I still remember, very good lessons I have learned from there about how we are products of memory and the responsibility we have to everyone around.

03:14 - Sadhguru, starting in 1992, you have made marvelous contribution to the entire world.

03:22 - It is amazing that in twenty-eight years, you have nine million volunteers.

03:28 - I just can’t… I mean it’s unimaginable that Isha Foundation runs with nine million volunteers and you are helping they globe in every sector through various programs, whether it is Rally For Rivers or Youth And Truth or Action for Rural Rejuvenation, yoga and so on.

03:50 - If you have nine million volunteers I am sure each one of them, even if they impact ten people a year, it will be ninety million people who are getting transformed.

04:05 - Sadhguru I also had the pleasure of witnessing the Insight program where you were able to mobilize a lot of who-is-who in Indian industry.

04:17 - You addressed United Nations, addressed the World Economic Forum.

04:21 - You have been impacting everyone. Sadhguru this is a difficult time where we are all passing through, and I believe HRD professionals have a dual responsibility.

04:32 - While medicals save lives, HRD professionals also have to save lives and also ensure livelihood.

04:40 - They are also passing through a difficult time because many companies that are closing down are asking HR managers to serve notices of termination, so instead of creating happiness at work, we probably are unconsciously are becoming the source of unhappiness.

04:56 - How do you get out of this dilemma? What are some of your thoughts? Sadhguru we look for your guidance and blessings so that we can use the human potential to solve the current crisis.

05:09 - For today Sadhguru ji we… after you give your initial remarks and some answers and guidance, we have the National HRD network president, Krish Shankar from Infosys, he is going to take over, he has invited a group of people to ask you questions and we look forward to your blessings, Sir, and wisdom so that we can prove ourselves to be great HR professionals and above all great human beings.

05:39 - Thank you very much Sadhguru, now it is off to you.

05:43 - Sadhguru: Namaskaram, namaskaram to all of you.

05:52 - Well (Sadhguru laughs) you were talking about nine million volunteers.

06:00 - What this means is nine million problems, and nine million possibilities (Sadhguru laughs).

06:07 - Because this is the nature of a human being – if well nurtured, everybody is a fantastic possibility; if not nurtured properly, everybody is a serious problem.

06:22 - Whether it’s a family or an institution or organizations like all of you are participating in, it is important to understand that what we call as a human being is not an established quantity.

06:40 - It is just a possibility. Because unlike other creatures we have not come fully developed.

06:49 - If a tiger is born (Laughs), he need not sit and worry, “How to become a good tiger?” Just get enough food, he will become a good tiger.

07:00 - You’re born as a human being (Laughs) but to become a good human being how many things (Laughs)? After doing all those things you still don’t know where you are.

07:11 - This is the nature of human life. Because what is human is not defined.

07:18 - Because for every other creature nature has drawn two lines.

07:25 - Within those two lines they live and die. A human being has reached that point of evolution where there is only a bottom line or even that is not there.

07:35 - He has reached a space where there are no lines.

07:39 - He can become god-like, he can become an absolute brute.

07:44 - Anything is possible any moment in a human being.

07:48 - This moment they’re fantastic, next moment what they’ll become you do not know.

07:52 - Yesterday they were horrible, today they are so wonderful.

07:56 - You must have seen this happening (Laughs) handling people all the time, but far more so for me because they are volunteers, and you cannot fire them, you must understand (Laughs).

08:09 - So… but the business of human beings. When I say the business of human beings, essentially the business of human beings is in a way we are born like a seed.

08:26 - We do not know whether somebody will turn into a sage or a sorcerer (Laughs).

08:34 - How we nurture it is how it is. When I see a seed – being mango season (Laughs), if you plant a mango seed you don’t have to worry whether it’ll become coconut or it’ll become thorns or something, you plant a mango seed, nurture it, it becomes only mango.

08:50 - But that’s not the case with a human being.

08:52 - You nurture a human being, he can go this way or that way (Gestures).

08:57 - He can become absolutely fantastic or unimaginable level of horror he can become.

09:05 - Because the worst things and the best things on this planet are done by human beings.

09:10 - We do the best things, we do the most horrible things.

09:14 - It is the same people, like you and me – one moment when they get angry, when they get frustrated, when they get something else they will do horrible things.

09:23 - When they are in a very pleasant, wonderful states they do wonderful things.

09:28 - So how to get human beings to stay there as much as possible that they are in the zone of wonderfulness, not in horror? How to get them there? This is lot of work! And to keep them there it needs enormous sense of involvement.

09:50 - When I say involvement, human beings get involved in different ways, you can get intellectually involved, physically involved, emotionally involved, energy-wise involved, or involved in a… on the level of your consciousness.

10:07 - Different levels of involvement. A time is coming because today human beings are immensely empowered by various technologies that are available.

10:21 - Education for almost everybody. We’re just very close where education is for everybody.

10:26 - Everybody’s empowered, everybody can go… you can (Laughs)… you can even go on the internet and learn how to assemble a nuclear bomb! I’m saying information is available to that extent! When this is the case, it becomes very significant how we nurture human beings, because the instruments of well-being and the instruments of destruction, both are available in enormous quantities for every human being.

10:57 - In ancient India for example, before education was given to a child, from zero to twelve years of age it was called balavastha where nothing was taught – a child should just grow, physically, mentally, his body and his brains must grow.

11:17 - So he should eat well, he should play, he should sleep well, that’s it.

11:21 - Because it’s important a human being becomes full-fledged in body and mind.

11:27 - So once body and brains have grown to a reasonable size, then education starts.

11:34 - Before starting education there was one process where every human being who had to go through educational process had to take this step of universal identity.

11:47 - So there was a process at the age of twelve where you have to identify with the whole universe because it is limited identity within a human being which makes him do terrible things.

12:02 - If you just look at life around us, whether it’s individual level of crime or it is organized levels of crime.

12:10 - When I say organized, I am not talking about Dawood Ibrahim’s of the world, when I say organized crime, I’m talking about religions, I am talking about nations, I’m talking about large communities.

12:24 - What kind of horrific crimes we have done upon each other is simply because we have a limited identity of being something.

12:34 - So because every human being is today empowered with the tools of education and technology, it is extremely important that in our organizations wherever we are, we bring a larger sense of identity, otherwise this empowerment will be serious destructive process, which is already happening in many different ways.

12:57 - And if we don’t cross this, well our intelligence can become our destruction.

13:04 - Our capabilities can become our destruction.

13:07 - Already it is in many ways because if you really look at it (Laughs) just see this – are educated people destroying the world or illiterate people destroying the world? Please see this.

13:18 - It is the educated people who are destroying this world, not illiterate people.

13:22 - It should be the other way around – those who are endowed with knowledge must be building this world, those who are ignorant must destroy the world.

13:30 - But unfortunately it is reverse because those who are educated have limited sense of identity, because of that destruction will happen.

13:39 - Whether it is of nationality or race or religion or caste or creed or whatever, so it’s important when we are talking about nurturing human potential, one fundamental factor is to ensure that human beings have a very large sense of identity, not narrow sense of identity because once they have that, they will become very destructive.

14:05 - This can be just personal identity, “This is me,” (Knocks on chest) you know? “My identity is just myself,” unfortunately this is being built around the world, “I believe in myself, this is me, I like this, l like that, I love this, I love that” – just about everything.

14:20 - When people say, “I love this kind of food, I love that ki… ” see you liking and enjoying things is different, but you getting identified with this, is a problem because for small things… football teams, which football team I support (Laughs)! Not natio… nation or religion, football teams fight themselves to death! Simply because they are not identified with football, they are identified with a particular team.

14:48 - Otherwise whoever kicked the ball well you would have enjoyed it, like I do (Laughs).

14:53 - It doesn’t matter which team, whoever kicks the ball really well, you will enjoy it.

14:58 - That’s what needs to happen with life – it doesn’t matter where you are, how you are, if your identity is not a very limited process then that is the most fundamental ambiance that is necessary to nurture human potential.

15:13 - If we don’t do this then we will see powerful human beings will become most problematic human beings.

15:22 - People who have enormous sense of energy, competence, intelligence, they will become the biggest problem in the world because of limited identity.

15:31 - It is better they are without much power, much competence.

15:35 - It is right now… it’s human competence which is destroying the planet, isn’t it? If we were… if we had half the brain that we have right now, we would be very eco-friendly, how’s that (Laughs)? Isn’t it most unfortunate that only if we were incompetent we would be nice? Competence has turned against us – competence should work for us, our intelligence should work for us.

16:01 - Intelligence and education must be a solution, but unfortunately it’s becoming a problem.

16:06 - So because all of you are handling large masses of people, it is very important that one fundamental thing that should happen is that the moment people get into some position…

16:19 - See, wherever you get them, either they have a power over some machine or they have power over ten people or hundred people or whatever number of people – when they have this power over something, it’s important their identity is not limited, it must be a universal identity, this is most important.

16:35 - Unfortunately, this is missing in modern education system, this is why human beings are becoming such a big problem.

16:43 - Speaker (Krish Shankar): Thank you, thank you Sadhguru, I think that was a very, very comprehensive kind of overview of things.

16:53 - I think you’re very right, I think we need to get people in that zone of wonderfulness that you mention and nurture them.

16:59 - And I think the key point that you made is where we create a larger sense of identity in each human beings so that they can really do larger good.

17:08 - So thank you very much for that. It’s a really great pleasure to be spending this afternoon with you.

17:14 - We have a group of people who are very keen to ask questions.

17:19 - The first person who’s… who’ll be asking the question is Mr. Manoj Kohli.

17:24 - Manoj is the country head of SoftBank, he has got an illustrious business career and has been the CEO Bharti Airtel CEO of Bharti Airtel in Africa and Indian all across and one of the well-respected business leaders.

17:36 - So Manoj over to you for your question. Questioner (Manoj Kohli): Thank you Shankar and namaskar Sadhguru.

17:45 - Sadhguru what you said was so profound that it is our problem of giving a limited identity versus a universal identity to our children, to our students it is most important.

18:01 - The question I’m going to share… ask you is that this is a unprecedented crisis and a challenge to human race in the last hundred years, where there is a huge dilemma of health versus economy and many corporations are going through trouble, many corporations are shedding people.

18:25 - So how will a manager or a leader keep his calm and composure, and how will he or she motivate and inspire the team members during this period? Now this period could be… there’s a lot of uncertainty, this period could be three months, six months, one year maybe till the vaccine is found.

18:46 - So just… just share with us your advice how will the manager do all this? Thank you.

18:53 - Sadhguru: Well, Manoj, bankers are in a good place, I don’t think bankers will be troubled too much (Laughs), every other business may struggle immensely, but people will queue up at your doors (Laughs) because you will be the key for anything that needs to happen.

19:16 - So having said that, yes, these are very challenging times, there is no question about that, but a challenging time is also a time of enormous possibilities.

19:31 - Particularly for India, I think there has never been a better possibility than this because even among the Asian countries we have been left behind at least by twenty-five to thirty years behind every other nation.

19:47 - If at all there ever was a chance to level that situation, this is the best time.

19:55 - Well a possibility is there, but will we have the agility, the commitment and the courage to make this possibility into a reality, that is always a question mark.

20:07 - That is dependent on all of us. There is no one person for this.

20:11 - All of us matter in this, that we must make this possibility into a reality for this nation because as…

20:19 - I mean all of you are living in cities but I’m sure you’re exposed to some rural life.

20:28 - Well the life in India for most people I would say nearly fifty to sixty percent of the people is very, very… basic is not the word, it’s below basic.

20:43 - People may put them above poverty line but if you look at the quality of life that they live and how a human possibility is stymied by the situations in which they exist, is a very distressing situation.

21:01 - Well these people for almost probably eight to ten generations, people have been kept in abject poverty.

21:11 - In the last twenty years we say we have pulled about two-hundred-and-forty million people out of poverty, but in the next six months it is possible that we may push them right back below the poverty line once again.

21:25 - It is very much a possibility that it’s… you know, it’s at our doors right now.

21:33 - So how to handle such a massive thing but your question is more specific to managers, how… how to keep people, how to… whom to fire, whom to keep, what to do, because everything will be curtailed in many ways for various businesses may close down, many will be downsized, all this is there.

21:53 - It’s a, it’s always very hard when you have to decide about somebody else’s life that you have to decide whether they should live or not is a very terrible thing to decide, but unfortunately such a time has come, where, you know, even in the hospitals it’s been happening, but now that situation has changed a little bit, but it happened in Italy that doctors had to decide who should get the ventilator.

22:23 - So if me and my mother are in the hospital for the same virus reasons, they will give the ventilator to me and let my mother die – that is the decision that they’re making.

22:36 - Or if me and my daughter are in the hospital for the same reason, they’ll give it to her and let me die.

22:43 - That is a, this thing… the decisions they’re making.

22:46 - This is not a nice decision to make for anybody, it is a terrible thing, but unfortunately sometimes when hard times come, such decisions will be thrown at us.

22:59 - It is very, very important this must be handled with utmost compassion and care, but still there’re going to be terrible decisions.

23:07 - Whichever way you decide, because when there is only one piece of something it has to be decided who gets it.

23:15 - There is not enough for everybody, that is what poverty means, there is not enough for everybody so you will have to decide who will eat, who will not eat.

23:23 - Whose children will go to school; who’s children will not go to school.

23:27 - It is a terrible decision to make but we are faced with such a situation.

23:33 - This is a time where our humanity should be at our best but still we will make very inhuman decisions.

23:43 - If you don’t make those decisions, you cannot manage the situations which… for it to prosper, for it to be possible tomorrow.

23:51 - Today you have to make very hard decisions so that tomorrow will be a workable situation that we don’t get all sappy and destroy everything.

24:00 - No, it is very important we make hard decisions.

24:04 - One of the things that companies could consider – this is not a reality for everybody, but it is possible in many businesses, not in every business maybe, but in many businesses it is possible that we could inspire the employees to go for half pay and keep everybody going and use them for some other possibility.

24:26 - See we are still a developing country, that means, the word developing means there is still a lot of things that need to be done.

24:35 - We’re always expecting that the government should do it, “We’ll just run our business, you do the development,” but this is a time, this is a time to negotiate things even with the government, what the government has not been unab… not been able to for the last seventy-five years, this is the time companies should look at the problems of this nation and say, “We will take this problem and solve it for you, we have this many people, but we don’t have money to pay them so we’ll pay half salaries instead of firing half the people.

” This may be a great possibility because there are so many things in this country which need to be sorted out, which the government machinery is unable to sort out.

25:16 - Well to get it, wrest it out of the government hands is going to be some kind of task, but right now there is a dynamic leadership, if somebody proposes this properly with specific problems in the country that, “We as a company can solve this problem for this many people in this country, or this particular state, or wherever we are, wherever our competence is,” I think this could be minimized, these hard decisions could be minimized.

25:45 - It’s not that it can be avoided, it is anyway going to be there, as you see migrant labor are all going back.

25:51 - That migrant labor going back also is a issue because if they had gone back in the first week and come back now, it would have been nice, but you kept them in the cities for six weeks, now when you’re just about to open things, now they’re going away.

26:10 - This is going to be a major problem because once they go back they will once again…

26:14 - because this is agricultural season, rains will come, they will try to get into some agriculture.

26:19 - One small piece of land they will have somewhere, they will go and start scratching that, that means another four months, five months they won’t leave their village, before they harvest that.

26:30 - This is a… not a good situation but at the same time for the HR professionals, how many people you have to fire has come down because they have gone voluntarily.

26:41 - But businesses cannot fire without those people coming back, especially construction industry and variety of other activity cannot come back immediately, simply because the labor are gone.

26:52 - It is going to be quite something to coax them back to the cities where they have suffered for a few weeks.

26:59 - If we had sent them in the very first week and asked them to come back now they would have happily come back.

27:04 - So this management did not happen because nobody thought it’ll go for six weeks, they thought it’s fifteen days, then they thought it is thirty days.

27:12 - Well, these are hard times. Nobody knows exactly what to do.

27:17 - We have to take that… in hindsight all of us can make fantastic decisions (Laughs), but in foresight it’s very difficult, because nobody knew and even now we do not know what this damn virus is going to do to us.

27:33 - You said vaccine. I have my very big doubts about vaccine, because already they are identifying ten varieties of viruses.

27:42 - The same virus has taken on ten different forms.

27:45 - So even if you make a vaccine, it may not work for all the ten of them.

27:49 - You’ve looked a… You’ve seen the polio eradication program.

27:55 - Though the vaccine was well-established and it was very easy, just a drop in the mouth, in spite of that, it took us twenty years to administer these polio drops to every child who needed it.

28:07 - So for 1. 4 billion people or… you cannot think of that in en… anymore like that, because this is a pandemic.

28:15 - For 7. 6 billion people, how are you going to administer the vaccine? How long will you take? Even if you find the vaccine tomorrow, when will you produce it, when will you administer it, how will you make sure it goes everywhere? Now, after the vaccine…

28:30 - Well, the flu vaccines are happening in United States all the time.

28:34 - If you take a flu vaccine this year, that doesn’t mean next year the next flu that comes, you are immune to it; you are again getting it.

28:41 - So by the time you take the vaccine, after a few months this pandemic makes its circles elsewhere, because of international travel it again comes back to you, you may again get it.

28:53 - So how this is going to play out is a… nobody’s prediction.

28:59 - It is not nice to be simply predicting and thinking, “This will happen, that will happen. ” We just have to understand in many ways, at least for the coming year, the way we have been living and how we will live in the next twelve months for sure is going to be very different.

29:16 - Only if we make it very different, there is a possibility of us coming out of it.

29:20 - Otherwise, we may get embroiled in it for a very long time.

29:23 - It’s very much possible. Scientifically, there are various explorations happening, but there is not one clear voice about it.

29:33 - Nobody is certain that this is how it will behave.

29:36 - There is no such… It is not giving you such a clue, because it’s behaving differently in different people.

29:43 - It is even affecting children now. It is doing variety of things, not just the respiratory infection, it is doing variety of things –damaging livers, damaging even neurological systems, damaging… brain damage is happening, now digestive system is seriously being affected in many children.

30:00 - So looking at the complexity of what is happening, a va… a vaccine may not be an absolute solution.

30:09 - It may prevent for some people, but it may not be a total solution for the world’s population.

30:15 - So we are facing an unprecedented problem. For this generation, this is a serious issue.

30:23 - We have to survive this, we have to prosper out of this, which is going to… you know, the best in us have to come out right now.

30:31 - Our (Laughs)… Our compassion when it comes to handling other people, our competence, our ingenuity, our intelligence, everything has to function at its best if we have to ride this time well.

30:44 - Speaker (Krish Shankar): Great. Thank you Sadhguru.

30:48 - I think that was well put. I think these are tough times.

30:54 - We’ve got to make some tough decisions, unfortunately.

30:57 - But as you said, with our compassion, try and minimize the difficulties for people.

31:03 - But yes, as you said ingenuity, compassion, everything come under our competence at the maximum, we’ll be really get through this.

31:11 - So thank you very much for that. We now go to our next question, thank you.

31:17 - The next question is from Anuradha Razdan. Anuradha Razdan is the CHRO, HR director of Unilever in South Asia – India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, which is called HUL in India.

31:30 - So Anuradha, over to you. Questioner (Anuradha Razdan): Thanks Shanks.

31:34 - Sadhguru: Namaskaram… namaskaram. Questioner (Anuradha Razdan): Namaskaram Sadhguru.

31:37 - It’s a pleasure listening to you today. My question is that you know, for generations we have nurtured managers and leaders who are very task-focused, who are always you know, trained to go for productivity.

31:53 - But do you think that this will herald a new era of leaders who lead through compassion and empathy, and how do you think that we can start building those qualities right from the start of people’s education and careers.

32:10 - Any thoughts? Thank you. Sadhguru: About being task-oriented essentially means we are trying to handle human beings like a limited quantity, like a machine – what it is capable of, let’s get the best out of it.

32:30 - I think it’s a very wrong approach for human beings, because see when you or me were five-year-olds, nobody thought you would become HRD or I will become a Sadhguru.

32:48 - Nobody thought. Our parents did not think, I am sure.

32:53 - Nobody recognized any such things. Well, it may look all accidental how somebody gets there, but if you really, very consciously look at it, you will see there are few right steps that we took which makes us who we are.

33:10 - So if you take a person, whatever age group, now I was talking about a five-year-old, but let’s say they come to you at twenty-five, and you say, “This is the task you are good at, just do this. ” I think that’s a very sad way of handling a human being, because you are handling a human being like a quantity.

33:30 - A human being is not a quantity. A human being is a certain quality.

33:35 - A quality can be always enhanced. Quantity cannot be enhanced you know, you can add.

33:42 - If you have one person, it’s not enough, you can add two people; if two is not enough, you can make it five people.

33:47 - So quantities can only happen in addition. But a quality is not like that, quality can be enhanced.

33:55 - So if that possibility we don’t create, I know maybe further up in the hierarchy of your corporates, may be enhancing of a human being to some extent, it is possible, but down below a worker comes, “You just do this well,” because we are into mass production of some kind.

34:14 - I am sure you also have no problem, because you will be selling lot of soap.

34:19 - Everybody is washing, washing, washing, washing (Gestures) (Laughs).

34:24 - So when we talk… when you talk about the products that you make, that is a question of quantity – how many… how many? How many soaps will you make? It’s a quantity.

34:35 - That has to be measured in quantity, because it is a material item.

34:39 - But now, when it comes to a human being, how we are thinking is, “Okay, how many soaps can you make as an individual?” Well, if we go like this, it looks like we are getting some sense of efficiency from people at a given time, but in many ways we have stifled the whole possibility.

34:58 - Will an industry or a business have the capacity to really nurture a human being without any fluctuations in their production lines and stuff? Well, that is a massive challenge.

35:12 - It’s not a easy thing to do. But at the same time, if only… if only our interest is in the well-being of the human being and we keep on enhancing the human being, you don’t have to worry about how many soaps.

35:27 - They will make as many that can be made. But that has not been the focus of mass production in the world.

35:35 - The focus of mass production in the world is about making a machine out of human being.

35:42 - Now, today because of information technology and artificial int… intelligence coming about, we are seeing how to make a human being out of a machine.

35:53 - When we are seeing how to make a human being out of a machine, is it not important that we clearly see how to make a human being as full-fledged as possible? But that focus has not been there.

36:09 - That cannot be just done by one single company or one HR person.

36:14 - That needs to become the culture of a nation or cul… culture of the world.

36:19 - I feel it is coming, because once this (Laughs) mass production of education is gone, which I think it’s time has come; it’s nemesis is coming.

36:31 - Even as a child, I went to school only when it was absolutely necessary, because I thought it was totally unnecessary process (Laughs).

36:41 - But I… after my dreams that I had when I was seven, eight that all this schools should just vanish one day, I think is happening now.

36:49 - Thanks to the virus and to the artificial intelligence.

36:52 - Both together may destroy the schools. It’s every child’s dream, believe me (Laughs).

37:00 - So once this mass production of education process is taken away, I think many changes will happen – in the way you have to run your businesses, the way everything has to be done will change quite dramatically, because wherever that simple machine like efficiency is needed, we’ll just have machines.

37:21 - A human being is not about just efficiency; a human being is about ingenuity, human being is about creativity, human being is a possibility that he can do something that’s never been done till now.

37:34 - That is a human being. A machine will just repeat what’s been done continuously with the same level of efficiency in the same product.

37:43 - Well, this… this may look little philosophical right now, but I feel in the next five, ten years’ time, this will become a very practical reality.

37:52 - Speaker (Krish Shankar): Thank… Thank you Sadhguru.

37:58 - I think you’re saying that, “Yes, we’ve got to be human beings, full-fledged. ” I think part of the blame is in our mass production of our education where we kind of creating clones.

38:09 - I think that’s something that… that we all have to work together and change, so that right from the beginning we create this… this full-fledged human being that’s, can really reach their potential with all the possibilities.

38:21 - Thank you. I think we’ll just move on to the next question, and for that we have Mr. Prem Singh.

38:28 - Prem Singh is president group HR of the JK group, in with a very illustrious career.

38:34 - So Prem Singh, over to you for your next question.

38:39 - Questioner (Prem Singh): Namaskaram Sadhguru.

38:41 - Sadhguru: Namaskaram. Namaskaram. Questioner (Prem Singh): It is such a pleasure interacting with you Sadhguru.

38:49 - Thank you for your time. So my question is at two levels Sadhguru.

38:55 - One is, as a result of this pandemic, how do you see the world changing – one is at the social level.

39:03 - Do you foresee people again going back from consumerism to minimalism, and even more focus on sustainability? Point number two, as a result of this, do you foresee the emergence of new kinds of businesses and industries in the long run? Thank you.

39:27 - Sadhguru: Well, many things are going to change.

39:31 - For one thing, you may be able to get a Boeing for free (Laughs), because before all these grounded airplanes take off, it’s going to be a very long time.

39:44 - It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen too soon.

39:48 - And in many ways, as right now we are interacting, probably six months ago if you wanted a conference like this, you would insist that I must come there and you would all be there in one of these cities, whatever.

40:02 - But now, see we are quite happy looking at each other, stamp-sized pictures on the screen (Laughs).

40:08 - Well, a lot of human contact is lost. But now human contact is dangerous.

40:16 - So we’re keeping good distance. So many things will change for sure.

40:22 - One important thing is, how mobile human beings are going to be, is going to be severely restricted, I believe at least for two years to come.

40:32 - The lockdowns may go away in many countries or in almost every country within the next one-and-a-half to two months’ time for sure, because nobody can stay lockdown beyond that.

40:43 - Maximum two months. Not because the virus has been tamed, simply because we can’t afford to simply be on a lockdown forever, we are opening it up.

40:54 - Even now, we are supposed to open up on 17th, but… well, maybe many of you are in Mumbai.

41:03 - Where will Mumbai open up on 17th? If you open up Mumbai on 17th, it’ll be a disaster.

41:07 - It’ll be a serious disaster. So similar things can happen elsewhere once you open up.

41:16 - So these whole numbers that media is putting out there – “There are only five cases, new cases in this city, there are only ten,” all these things can completely change.

41:26 - At times like this, statistics should be used like how a drunk uses a lamp post – only for support, not for illumination.

41:38 - It doesn’t tell you anything, it just gives you little support to make a few decisions, that’s it.

41:43 - So how many things are going to change, what is going to change, it’s nobody’s guess, but definitely things that will change are anywhere where people have to be close together is going to change.

41:55 - That means… well, our yoga programs are going to change immensely (Laughs).

41:59 - We are gathering 8000, 10,000 people in every program – that’s going to change for sure.

42:05 - And god will be free for some time, because nobody is gathering in the churches, mosques…

42:10 - mosques and temples. So he is also having a nice holiday, and (Laughs) cinema theaters, that means whole entertainment industry is going to be seriously affected, because mass gathering won’t happen.

42:25 - So maybe they will allow only one-third of the population, one-third of the seats will be occupied, that means the box-office is gone.

42:34 - So like this, all these industries will go – airline, travel, many things.

42:39 - People may travel by road. They… You can’t contain them, but airline travel, because it’s a contained space, where re-circulated air is going on, I think there is going to be immense amount of fear, and once airlines don’t happen, a whole lot of things will not happen, because these are the traveling and spending people in the world.

43:02 - People who fly in the world are the people who are traveling and they are the spending people.

43:08 - So when these spending people don’t travel, I think only SoftBank and amazon will be making lot of money (Laughs).

43:18 - Everybody else will have their troubles. But new possibilities are there for sure.

43:24 - As I said, many areas of this country for example, which are unattended, which are in government hands but unattended for long periods of time could be taken up as businesses, could be taken up as business services, and there is a huge possibility.

43:42 - And as I said, because of certain level of distrust in our neighboring nations, there’s a huge, huge possibility… already Japan has announced five-hundred-and-twenty-five billion dollars for all Japanese companies to move out either partially or fully out of the Chinese territory, just to see that they spread their footprint, it is not all focused in one place, and much more severe things or much more drastic things will be done by United States.

44:14 - India is a prime possibility, but we must be quick on our feet to grab this.

44:20 - Certain policy changes are being made. In my opinion, we must… you know, these twenty-eight states are there, because this needs to be spread out – every state must get a minimum… there are over three-hundred companies like this which could be amounting to about 1. 5 trillion dollars of investment.

44:39 - If that kind of investment comes into the country in the next one-and-a-half to two years’ time, then you don’t have to worry about people’s employment and stuff – that will happen.

44:49 - But this time of these six to nine months or one year – this gap where those things may not happen is a serious challenge for hu… you know, human beings in different levels of employment.

45:02 - But this could be done if… I think we should even declare an economic emergency, and make this thing – anybody who comes with an investment of more than a billion dollars must be given land, water, electricity, every permission that is needed, environmental clearances, whatever, and also immunity from litigation.

45:23 - This’s very important. In the world, people are terrified of Indian courts.

45:27 - I am sure you are also (Laughs), because we… see if I drive the car very fast, you will be terrified.

45:38 - But here we are terrified because of the slowness of the speed – the legal system with what pace it goes, it is terrifying because once you end there… enter there with a civil case, probably twenty years of your life is gone.

45:54 - So people are terrified of litigation. At least by five years you must give them a litigation-free existence in this country, otherwise, people will not bring their money into this country.

46:05 - If small… See when you’re doing large operations, some small problems will come up, some litigations will be there.

46:12 - If those things cannot be quickly settled, no business can progress or prosper in this country.

46:18 - So litigation-free and no kind of… what to say… labor strikes, this, that, that’s not a big issue now, it used to be at one time.

46:27 - But it must be litigation-free for at least five years.

46:30 - Whatever other tax sops and this and that you’re willing to give, anybody who brings a minimum one-billion-dollar investment, we must make those policy changes at least for the next three to five years if we want to come out of this quickly and take advantage of a certain geopolitical change that’s happening, because otherwise catching up with other nations which as I said already, twenty-five – thirty years behind we are, catching up is not going to be possible in usual way of doing things.

47:02 - Whether this virus turns out to be a disaster or a great possibility simply depends upon how agile and innovative we are to grab this opportunity.

47:12 - Speaker (Krish Shankar): All right. Thank you, thank you Sadhguru.

47:18 - I think that’s very clear. This is a big change, and also a huge amount of opportunity for us as a country to really, you know, to capitalize this.

47:27 - Thank you for that. We’ll move on to the next question, and we have Seema Bangia.

47:32 - So keen to ask the question. So Seema Bangia is Head of HR for Mahindra Defence, part of the Mahindra…

47:38 - Over to you Seema. Questioner (Seema Bangia): Thank you Krish.

47:44 - Sadhguru: Namaskaram, maa. Questioner (Seema Bangia): Namaskaram Sadhguru.

47:48 - I have a question. Now, as employers or as seniors, how do we help our teams to face and confront this COVID-related fear and apprehensions? Sadhguru: Let me not go into the… the medical precautions that you need to take.

48:10 - I think now everybody is aware of this. But the big problem is people… anxiety and fear of wa… what will happen, how to deal with that? See we need to understand this.

48:26 - Whenever there is a challenging situation in front of us, that is the time when our bodies, our minds, our emotion, our energies must function at its best.

48:40 - But for most human beings, I would say at least for eighty percent of the human beings, when they face challenging situations, that is when their mind gives up, their body gives up, their energies fail and their emotions spill all over the place.

48:55 - What this means is, in a way there’s an external enemy that you need to deal with, a situation has turned against you.

49:03 - But now you choose to turn against yourself – this doesn’t make any sense, but most human… human beings are doing this to themselves.

49:12 - This is what they call as stressful situation, anxiety, this, that.

49:16 - These are all many names. Essentially, the problem is just this – your intelligence has turned against you.

49:24 - Once your intelligence has turned against you (Laughs), no power in the universe can save you, because it can destroy you from within.

49:32 - So it’s very important that every human being at least does a few simple things with oneself to see that especially when difficult situations come, your emotion, your thought, your body, your chemistry is one-hundred percent with you, does not turn against you, because any kind of anxiety or fear is debilitating; it does not enhance your life, it destroys your life.

49:58 - Who you are, what you are capable of will get super-minimized simply because you are in a state of anxiety or fear.

50:06 - So this is a time when you should be enhanced, but you get minimized.

50:09 - So how do I do this? See there are only two problems for a human being or two levels of suffering for a human being – that is physical suffering and mental suffering.

50:22 - Physical suffering, unfortunately has come to a… you know, the labor level of people, they’ve lost their things, their starvation, all these problems are there.

50:32 - Our teams are also working in this region. I never imagined in rural India there would be so many people, but it is absolutely shocking to see thousands of people queue up for the food that we are supplying, because there are that many migrant labor merged with even rural India, not just in the cities, and they have no means, there’s no work.

50:55 - Six weeks – there is no way for them to survive, they don’t have that kind of, you know, bandwidth to survive.

51:01 - So that is happening – physical suffering that is.

51:05 - But what you’re talking about is mental suffering.

51:10 - Mental suffering is totally self-inflicted.

51:15 - Mental suffering essentially means see if I ask you a simple question – would you like your intellect to be sharp or blunt? What would be the answer? Sharp of course, isn’t it? Everybody would say, “I want my intellect to be sharp. ” So essentially we need to understand, intellect is like a knife.

51:34 - The sharper it is the better it is. So it is a cutting instrument.

51:39 - Now (Laughs), if you dissected something else, it looked like a revelation.

51:46 - But when you try to dissect yourself, it is going to be extremely painful.

51:52 - So if you… We don’t give a knife to a child’s hand not because a knife is dangerous, simply because a child’s hand is unpredictable and unsteady.

52:01 - So right now this is all the problem – you’ve been given a mind which doesn’t have a stable enough foundation right now.

52:11 - Because you know Charles Darwin, you’ve heard of this man – an English man – Charles Darwin you know.

52:19 - So he said something like this, “A goat could’ve become a giraffe over so many million years.

52:25 - A pig could’ve become an elephant over many more million years.

52:29 - But an ape or a monkey became human being rather too quickly. “ So quickly that anthropologists have been searching for a missing link, which they’ve not found yet.

52:41 - So in terms of our relationship with the monkey, for example in terms of DNA difference, between you and a chimpanzee, the DNA difference is only 1. 23 percent.

52:54 - 1. 23 percent is not a very big difference, isn’t it (Laughs)? Physiologically, that’s how close we are to a monkey.

53:07 - But in terms of our intelligence and awareness, we are worlds apart from a chimpanzee.

53:13 - So right now our problem is just this – we have an intelligence for which we have not been given a stable enough platform on which it can function.

53:23 - So unstable platform and intelligence is hurting us so much.

53:28 - Human beings don’t need any outside help, they are on self-help.

53:33 - Simply they will suffer, nothing need to happen.

53:36 - If something happens, they will suffer; if nothing happens, they will suffer.

53:40 - If somebody is there, they will suffer them.

53:42 - Right now, everybody is complaining at homes, “How to be with family?” If you are away from the family, you suffer.

53:48 - So no matter what they are suffering, what they need to understand is, they are not suffering life; they are suffering their own mind.

53:57 - And the two main aspects of the mind which they are suffering is just this – memory and imagination.

54:05 - What happened ten days ago or ten years ago, people can still suffer.

54:09 - What does this mean? You are suffering your memory, not life.

54:12 - What may happen day after tomorrow, you’re already suffering.

54:15 - What does this mean? You’re suffering your imagination, not life.

54:19 - So you’re suffering the two most important faculties of being human.

54:25 - Because we are human, we… our lives are the way they are, our lives are rich only because of a vivid sense of memory and a fantastic sense of imagination.

54:35 - But these are the two fac… faculties that most human beings are suffering, simply because there’s no stable basis.

54:42 - So this is what yogic process is all about that the first and fundamental thing is to create a stable base.

54:49 - When Patanjali was asked, “What is yoga?” He said, “Sukham Sthiram… ” “What is asana or what is the posture for the body?” He said, “Sukham Sthiram Asanam. ” What this means is a body should be stable and in comfort always.

55:07 - Once the platform is not comfortable, the intelligence is going to turn against us.

55:12 - That’s all that’s happened. Nobody else is coming and bothering us.

55:15 - Just now virus has come. Otherwise, all these days we were torturing ourselves, we didn’t need any external help at all.

55:23 - So this is the… this is a tragedy of we suffering our own intelligence simply because we don’t have a stable enough base.

55:32 - If we had half the brain that we have, all of us would be peaceful, isn’t it? If…

55:39 - If we didn’t have this much brain, if we had the brain of an earthworm, sitting peacefully would be very fine for everybody.

55:46 - Right now, sitting here peacefully (Laughs) or just being happy or joyful has become such a huge challenge for people, which all of… every human being was capable of when they are five, six years of age.

55:58 - Now, because they are thirty-five or forty, they have lost even that capability.

56:03 - At the age of five, if you were so happy, by the time you were thirty you should’ve been ecstatic, but just the reverse has happened simply because we have not created a stable base for the intelligence that we have.

56:16 - This is something we must do. So simple processes are there.

56:20 - A… As a part of this, for all the COVID warriors, we’ve offered Inner Engineering Online free of cost, and for everybody we’ve reduced the price to half price.

56:31 - Apart from that, there are many free offerings like Isha Kriya and also to fa… because if you are in contact with people once you get back to work, it is important you enhance your immune system so that you don’t become a victim of this whole thing that is happening.

56:45 - So there is a… there is a simple process called Simha Kriya.

56:50 - Doctors who are in the front line have been practicing this and they’ve all come out with immense benefits saying clearly that this has made a big difference for my immune system.

56:58 - These are just twelve-minute practices. Anybody can do.

57:02 - It’s available on our app. Please people who’re working for you and yourself, please make use of this, because it is at times like this you must stand up for yourself.

57:12 - Once you turn against yourself, then who is there? Speaker (Krish Shankar): Thank you.

57:18 - Thank you Sadhguru. That’s… That’s very good.

57:23 - I think it’s a lot that we have to do ourselves really you know, so that we are stable, and really…

57:29 - Sadhguru: Gods… Gods are on a vacation.

57:31 - So you have to stand up for yourself (Speaker laughs).

57:33 - All temples, mo (Laughs)… churches, everything closed (Laughs).

57:36 - Speaker (Krish Shankar): Okay. I don’t know if we have time for one last question before we…

57:43 - This question is by Nikita, Nikita Doshi. She works for Publicis Sapient Leadership Development team.

57:49 - So over to you Nikita. She’s part of young leaders, among the young leaders we have in the NHRD.

57:58 - So over to her for a quick question. Questioner (Nikita Doshi): Pranam Sadhguruji…

58:03 - Questioner (Nikita Doshi): It’s an honor to interact with you and just to listen to you.

58:07 - You are an inspiration for happiness, you are inspir… for so many people around the globe.

58:12 - My question today is on happiness Sadhguruji, and its connection with expectation.

58:18 - So it said that happiness is reality divided by expectations.

58:22 - So if we keep our expectations low, happiness will increase.

58:26 - So my question is, is it wrong to have expectation? Often they told to lower our expectations, is it wrong to have expectations and how does one do that, how does one lower expectations from self and also from others, people in our family, at work, friends? Thank you.

58:46 - Sadhguru: See this lowering of expectations, this works as you get older and older, you lower your expectations, when you’re dead – you will be absolutely free from expectations.

59:03 - If there is no expectation, how do you strive for something? How do you work for something? These philosophies are fatalistic philosophies.

59:14 - It is not about lowering your expectation, it is just that your expectations must have reality as the basis.

59:23 - Your expectations should not be fanciful about yourself.

59:28 - Your expectations is as reality is, in that how to get the best.

59:33 - Have you ever plucked a mango from a tree? Oh! How can you miss such experiences being in India (Laughs)? This’s the time to do it, you’re on a vacation right now.

59:46 - So if you want to pluck a mang… you want to pluck a mango from a tree, you went and you started digging the ground thinking it grows like potatoes in the roots, well, you’re not going to eat a mango.

60:01 - If you want mangoes, you have to look up and maybe you have to climb up the tree.

60:05 - So I am saying, if your expectations are in completely wrong directions, then obviously it won’t happen.

60:12 - When things don’t happen the way you want it, you think you have a right to become unhappy.

60:16 - Ri (Laughs)… That’s what is the question.

60:18 - So first of all the question is, “Do you have a right to be unhappy?” Right now, people are saying, “We are free.

60:26 - We don’t want to follow all these restrictions,” you know, the virus restrictions whatever in many nations.

60:33 - Especially in United States, people are saying, “We are a free nation.

60:35 - We have first amendment, we have sa… second amendment, we can shoot it with the shotgun – the virus,” that’s the attitude.

60:42 - Well, yes you’re free, but you’re also free to die.

60:47 - Everybody is free to die, you know. Anyway we all die, so we are free to die right now.

60:52 - There is nobody stopping us. Somebody is telling you.

60:56 - If you were sensible, you don’t have to die.

60:58 - That is the thing. Not only about you, people around you.

61:02 - So now what happens in one direction, if you try to do it in another direction, obviously you will fail.

61:10 - Let’s look at it very simply. Whether it is happiness or unhappiness, whether it is pain or pleasure, agony or ecstasy, does it happen from within you or outside of you? Within you or outside of you? From within you, isn’t it? So what happens from within you, if you try to get it from outside, how will it work I am asking? Ho…

61:34 - How will it ever happen? Obviously it won’t happen.

61:38 - So obviously you will be frustrated, obviously you will be thinking something is wrong.

61:42 - You are digging the ground for mangoes. You are not going to hit mangoes, once in a way a mango may fall down from the tree, and you will only pick those ro… rotten mangoes.

61:53 - You will not eat the best of mangoes in your life.

61:55 - The sweetness of life will not come to you unless you understand human experience is eshen… essentially generated within us, no matter what it is – pain, pleasure, joy, misery, everything, everything comes from within us.

62:11 - So if you want to be happy, expectations are about work.

62:17 - Expes… Expectations are about activity, expectations about… are about what we want to create in the world.

62:24 - Expectations are not related to your happiness.

62:26 - The… Once you link them, well you being happy is going to be very remote.

62:31 - Then you will get into this grandmother philosophies – reduce your expectation so that at least you will be reasonably happy.

62:39 - This is a killer, okay? This kind of philosophy is a killer.

62:43 - It destroys all human potential, because now you’ve lowered your very possibility of life.

62:50 - What you’re calling as expectation is essentially some kind of a plan for life, isn’t it? If you make a small plan and say, “Yes, I won,” what is the point of that? What is the point of that? What is the point of making a ridiculously small plan and say, “I am a success”? No, you make such a big plan that you’re bound to be a failure in your life, but a blissful, wonderful failure, because your plan is so big it can never be completed in a generation.

63:23 - That’s how big your plan should be so that you are fine dying as a failure, because your plan is so big, your expectation is so big…

63:32 - I will die as a failure, I know this (Laughs), but a blissful failure for sure.

63:37 - Thank you. Speaker (Krish Shankar): So I think that was a wonderful kind of an end to this session, because I think you’ve captured it.

63:47 - I think we’ve got to aim high, make a plan which is really worth living for and make it last.

63:53 - Thank you so much. I think it’s been wonderful Sadhguru, thank you very much.

63:57 - Sadhguru: Namaskaram. Namaskaram, all of you.

63:59 - In whichever way we can be use to yourself or to all the people who… whom you manage, we are available to you.

64:06 - Please make use of us. That’s why we are here, because our… our entire work is about the human being, please make use of this.

64:15 - Namaskaram. Speaker (Krish Shankar): Thank you very much.

64:19 - (Overlapping conversation). .