Compassionate Knife - President of ASI in Conversation with Sadhguru

And traditionally, every year during the conference, the president of the association is invited to deliver the presidential oration. So, for a change, to break the monotony, I thought I must break this monotony and have a luminary… have an engaging conversation with a luminary and it is such a great privilege to have you Sadhguru. Sadhguru: You escaped your responsibility and putting it on me, hmm? I am an uneducated guy, what will I do with you surgeons, hmm?  Dr.

P. Raghu Ram: It has been a great blessing, you know, and it is a high point in my life to have you in a conversation at this conference congress. Thank you. So, we start off with a few questions Sadhguru and thank you very much for your time. So as surgeons, we try to do our very best and we use all our knowledge and skills to ensure the best possible outcome for our patients. But despite our best efforts and doing all that is required, occasionally things don’t go as we expect things to go.

And what happens sometimes is that patients whom we expect that they would recover, in front of our eyes, they rapidly deteriorate and there is nothing much we can do to save them. Sadhguru, how does a surgeon deal with this difficult predicament, both as a healthcare professional and as a fellow human being? Sadhguru: Well, when somebody puts their life into our hands, it’s a tremendous privilege, responsibility and an onerous responsibility, sometimes with terrible consequences because after all as a surgeon, you’re using a knife.

Normally in social terms, if someone says, “I was knifed,” it means somebody tried to kill me because putting a knife into somebody – not to take life but to fix life – is a tremendous thing. It’s a very courageous thing to do. Well, the complexity of what human mechanism is – this is the most complex system on the planet. Of all the many things that we have, the most complex system on the planet is human mechanism, which is a consequence of millions of years of evolution.

Now, surgically fixing something within that means, you’re mechanically intervening in a machine, a sophisticated machine, which is still running. It’s not an autopsy, the machine is still running and it must run better after the surgery. If you allow me to (Laughs) tell you a joke because I feel surgeons should be a joyful lot because with this responsibility of opening up somebody’s belly or somebody’s head or somebody’s something which is dangerous to open and not have nerves about it, needs a joyful, balanced human being.

05:19 - So, this happened in United States. A cardiac surgeon was having little trouble with his Mustang car, Ford Mustang, and he went to the local mechanic. So, the mechanic said, “You leave it here, I’ll have it ready for you for tomorrow morning. ” So next day morning, the surgeon took a taxi and went to the mechanic’s shop. The car was untouched and not ready. So, the mechanic said, “No, no, on your way back you come. I’ll fix it. ” So, the surgeon on the way back from the hospital in the evening, again he came back, still it was untouched and unready… not ready. Then the mechanic said, “Come tomorrow, definitely I’ll have it ready. ” Again, the next day morning he came and still it was not ready. Then the surgeon asked, “Hey, what’s the problem? Three times I’ve come and still the car is not ready. You’ve not even opened it and seen what is the issue. Then the mechanic swaggered around a little bit and he said, “Hey doc, see, you fix engines, I fix engines. How come you’re paid twenty-five times more than me?” So, the doctor looked at him and said, “Okay, try to fix a running engine, let me see” (Both laugh).

So, switching off the engine and fixing it is one matter. When it comes to a human being, surgery is fixing the engine when it’s running and it must continue to run. If it stops with the surgery, that is not a successful surgery. But the risk… But the risk of putting your hands inside a running engine is always there, because it’s such a complex system and just about… it is not necessarily… mistakes can happen of course, but it’s not necessarily due to a mistake.

You may do everything right and still the patient can die, as you said, because it is such a complex mechanism, it is not just based on the mechanical aspect of what it is. There is a karmic substance, there are other dimensions of life which are not even within the purview of the surgery. The purview of the surgery is purely mechanical aspect of the body. That itself is too complex for anybody to understand. I’m saying, you may study for a lifetime of medicine, still a really good doctor knows that he knows just enough to do a few things but nobody really knows the entire system in its entirety.

That is why it ke… the knowledge keeps growing endlessly. Believe me, after another thousand years of medical sciences, it will only get more complex, it will not get more simple. This we’re realizing, isn’t it? Now for each… each part of the body, there is a doctor. There was a time, hundred years ago, there was only one doctor for your entire family. But now, for your children separate doctor, for your wife separate doctor, for you separate doctor, for your parents separate doctor.

That is not the only thing – for your eye, separate doctor; nose, separate doctor; heart, separate doctor. The way we’re going into specialties, of exp… expertise, clearly demonstrates the complexity of what we are looking at. And another thousand years if you look at it with the same intensity as twentieth and twenty-first century has, believe me, you will still have surprises, you will still have things that you do not know, still many things will not be in your purview, even if you… So, if you go like this to do a surgery upon a person or to treat a person, you will need hundred different doctors for different parts of the body. We’re getting there because of specialization, specialization, which will create so much complexity in the knowledge that we have that to analyze and get to a solution will become difficult. Already it is becoming like that. So, I’m not saying this with any negative context to medical science. All I’m saying is, you are dealing with something that complex and you’re trying to fix it with whatever knowledge we have today, all right? People have been doing surgery from the time of Sushruta (Referring to ancient Indian physician) but at that time they did surgery from whatever they knew best at that time.

Today, we are doing surgery from whatever we know best at this time. Hundred years later, our surger… surgeries may be very, very different. Our surgery capability, what it was twenty-five years ago, what it is today is unimaginable, but still, it is very limited because that is the nature of creation – it is so absolutely complex and sophisticated. It is not for nothing that human being is the peak of evolution on this planet, it is the most sophisticated machine, so inevitably, not all of it is under your purview.

And many of those dimensions are not… many of… many of those dimensions are not even physical, so you can’t see it, your instruments can’t measure it, nothing in medical science can tell you about those things. You’re fixing one part of it but still, not all of it.

10:37 - Dr. P. Raghu Ram: Very true. Very true, Sadhguru. Human body is very complex and as you said, the most complex, you know, body that is… is there. But the corollary to what I’ve just asked you – surgeons on a daily basis, we operate on seriously ill patients, some of whom have significant comorbidities, and in these patients, we don’t expect very good outcomes but there is always a guarded prognosis in these patients. But from time to time, we see miracles happening and in those patients that we don’t expect to recover quickly, in those patients we expect that they stay for a prolonged period in ICU because of the various comorbidities and because of the illness itself but they bounce back, they recover remarkably soon and they lead a normal life.

And how does one explain these miraculous happenings?  Sadhguru: See, for a patient or for his relatives and loved ones, that he was… they thought he’s going to die but they came fo… the patient came for a surgery, post-surgery he recovers in a month’s time, he’s back to normal, that is a miraculous experience for them and it’s great that they see it that way. But a surgeon should never think his surgery is a miracle. He must always be in awe of the miracle of the human body.

You’re doing a mechanical job, you know what you’re doing, but if you think you’re performing a miracle, then there’ll be a disaster. Patient thinks it’s a miracle, that’s good for him to see it that way. But you should never think that you are performing a miracle because that will lead to a disastrous process. There will be no medical science left, something else will happen.

12:32 - So, the miracle is the way creation is, how it is capable of doing things. We are making a small intervention. It’s our privilege that life has allowed us… It’s your privilege that somebody allows you to open their body. They won’t allow their loved ones to do it (Laughs), I’m saying. Hello? If… If somebody says, “I want to open your heart and see,” will anybody allow? No, but they allow you to do that. It’s a tremendous privilege, we must always bow down to that trust that somebody is offering to you that they’re willing to knife them, they’re willing to allow you to knife them.

You know, that is a tremendous trust. How many people can earn that trust in their lifetime from anybody around them?  So, they’re offering that you… maybe out of helplessness, but you don’t look at their side, from your side you look at it that they are privileging you with something that they do not honor their parents or their spouse or their children with, but they are giving it to you. They will not allow their wife or husband to open their heart and see what is inside, but they’ll allow you – it’s a tremendous thing.

So, let not the doctor ever think he’s performing a miracle. He’s doing a little bit of re-engineering for a fantastic engineering which is already there, a little bit of re-engineering.

14:01 - So, what is a miracle in one person’s experience is actually engineering in another person’s experience or knowledge. So as far as you are concerned, you are doing a mechanic’s job for a very sophisticated machine. See right now, if somebody is driving a bus, we call him a driver, but if somebody is driving an aeroplane, we call him a pilot. Similarly, if somebody is fixing a bicycle, we say he’s a mechanic; if somebody is fixing a spacecraft, we say he’s a scientist.

Similarly, you’re a surgeon but actually the job is mechanical. There is nothing wrong with that. I keep describing myself as a mechanic. People ask, “Sadhguru, but you are not doing any miracles, you are not blessing us, no gold chain is coming. ” I can add one medal to you if you want (Both laugh). Dr. P. Raghu Ram: Sadhguru, actually I think you misunderstood my comment that we… I don’t think that we are doing a miracle. Sadhguru: No, no I did not, no I got the question but I’m just saying, not just for you.

Dr. P. Raghu Ram: Yeah. Sadhguru: A doctor; the one who performs it, should never think it’s a miracle, he should look at it as mechanics. Another person experiences as miracle, that’s fantastic, you know. That is the privilege you have, I’m saying. Though you are only exercising what you have studied and understood, somebody else thinks it’s a miracle. The same with me – everybody thinks I am causing miracles. All… I clearly know, I am only exercising the knowledge and knowing that I have, what I perceive is what I am doing.

Similarly, what you perceive about the human body is what you are doing. You are not doing a miracle but how fantastic it is, somebody thinks you’re conducting a miracle, isn’t it fantastic? Such a privilege. I’m saying never ever complain about that privilege, it’s a tremendous privilege but at the same time it comes with the responsibility, that sometimes the miracle that they expect does not happen. You may know mechanically that this is not going to work but you may give it a try, hoping something will happen.

But when the miracle doesn’t happen to their end, they are very deeply disappointed because somebody is dead or somebody does not recover or whatever happens as a consequence. So, this is a transaction where two different parties are looking at it differently – one is expecting a miracle, another is trying to exercise his knowledge. So, it’s a very tender kind of relationship (Laughs).

16:36 - Dr. P. Raghu Ram: A very big responsibility as a surgeon. So, one of the major limitation, Sadhguru, in a surgeon’s life, is to lead a balanced life. A surgeon cannot work from nine to five, many times the operating goes on very late and we start very early as well, and it’s all the time work, work, work. Leave early in the morning and sometimes many of us come back very late and this creates a lot of tension at home, the family is not happy. And the kind of environment; a happy environment which should be at home, once you come back, sometimes is missing.

So how does one strike a balance and yet lead a peaceful, content and happy life. Sadhguru: So essentially, you’re saying too many surge…surgeries but not enough surgeons in the world. So, one thing is, we must definitely strive to increase the number of surgeons because a stressed surgeon is a dangerous man, okay? Dr. P. Raghu Ram: Yes.

17:46 - Sadhguru: You don’t want to go under… go under his knife when he’s in a certain level of stress or distress about his own condition or his family or whatever other situations that he goes through in his life… should not get transmitted through his knife, because it’s possible. Because a sportsperson goes out there, after a lifetime of practice but if he is little stressed about some situation, he becomes a total failure. Let’s say, a cricketer goes out there to bat but he has some personal stress today, you will see he’ll just do something which doesn’t work, because in a way he is trying to use it; bat, like a scalpel, all right, for his… for his profession. So… but, there it is just out, here somebody else gets out which is not a good thing. So, it’s extremely important, I would say definitely the number of surgeon should go up but more than that, the number of surgeries that we are doing in the world must go down. This will only go down if we create a culture of health. We are not focusing on creating culture of health, we are only talking about healthcare, as if somebody else can deliver health to us.

Somebody else del… delivering health to us is not a good idea. Health must happen from within us. Beyond that, certain things will come to us. For that a doctor is needed. Beyond that, a doctor cannot fix it, then a surgeon should come in. Right now, I feel too much surgery is happening. I’m sorry, I know people are not going to like this but I’m saying, I feel there is too much mechanical intervention with human body which could be large… which could be significantly brought down, if not largely, it could be brought down to a certain level where only beyond a certain level, surgery is needed.

But first of all, why does a human being get to that level? He lives wantonly, irresponsibly, he doesn’t know what to eat, what not to eat, how to sleep, how to get up, nothing he knows. Nobody has taught him what he should eat. Even today, after millions of years of living on this planet, still we don’t know what to eat. Every other creature has figured out what to eat, what not to eat for their well-being. Human beings; the most intelligent, are still debating what is the best food to eat, they have not figured it out.

So, if we settle certain things, if a society is largely healthful because of their own innate efforts, every human being… individual human beings are committed to their health and they stay healthy, the number of surgeries will come down and surgeons can go home on time and everything will be wonderful, okay? Maybe, it is not commercially a good idea but I’m saying we need to invest in other ways. Right now, what I’m seeing is, in Hyderabad city I see advertisements – “Come and have your surgery done here.

” Never before I’ve seen an advertisement for surgery. How is this? Surgery is something you go through when everything else has failed. That’s how I understand medicine, I hope I’m right.

20:53 - Dr. P. Raghu Ram: Very true, Sadhguru. You’ll be very pleased to know that I come home at five o’clock in the evening and even if I leave early, I make sure that I’ve seen my children, I’ve seen my parents and you know, I make sure that I lead a balanced life. Thanks, thanks to Isha Foundation and thanks to Inner Engineering. Sadhguru, six years ago our Honorable Prime Minister launched the “Make In India” campaign, which is a major national movement to foster innovation and enhance skill sets, and also build best-in-class infrastructure.

And in terms of medical healthcare… I would use the word healthcare although you just brought out that point, we have the most brilliant minds as far as doctors are concerned – whether it is their knowledge, their abilities or their skills, wherever they are in the world, they are really the best. We see many doctors who are really made a name for themselves, different parts of the world. Similarly, in terms of medical infrastructure we have very good hospitals and we have very good medical institutions as well; medical colleges.

But Sadhguru, having worked in the UK for ten years and having worked in some of the best centers of excellence, how do we make a Harvard or an Oxford or a Yale or a Cambridge in India and how do we develop leaders in medical education and in healthcare infrastructure and have a world rating that we have the best infrastructure – not only doctors, but we also have the best infrastructure relating to delivering medical care? Sadhguru: See, that’s a very vital question for the country’s development in this area because we have 1.

4 billion people. If we have a healthy and focused 1. 4 billion people, then this very nation will become a miracle, but if we have unhealthy, unfocused, uneducated, one billion people, we will be the greatest disaster. Right now, we are at that time, at that juncture, in many ways we are at that cusp – either we are going to cross this chasm or we are not going to. In various forums, in many ways I have conveyed this to the government and to everybody concerned that what is needed is investment into education.

If investment has to happen, you must open it up. I’ve been asking them to do this. Why don’t you allow businesses to invest in medical schools, in engineering schools, whatever… highest level of education. Why I’m saying this, is on one level, how many Indian students are going out to study? Hundreds of them are in Russia, now many of them are in China, many in Germany, of course United States, they’re not allowing so everybody’s in Caribbean, all right, to study and somehow enter the United States.

Why is this happening? Why can’t we provide the same level? But if you go to these universities, the premier universities in the world; whether medical schools or business schools, if you go, most of the Deans are Indian origin people. Why is it we are exporting talent? We should export talent, that is fine if we have plenty, you always export something when it is excess. But you’re exporting the best and you don’t have that here, simply because there is no investment in the arena.

And that should happen only if we open up our minds that somebody will invest only if there is profit, otherwise nobody will invest and why will they invest? Why will I invest and work hard if there is no profit to it? Right now, in this country, still profit making is a evil word. Right now, you see, things are going on in the country, for everything they will say something; your suit is a big problem, okay, for them (Laughs). They will put you under the suit-boot category (Laughs).

I’m saying this, we have not dropped our socialit… socialist mindset.

25:15 - Is the government capable of really taking it to heights? I don’t believe that. Well, some of the AIIMS institutions have functioned at the height, but they cannot scale up. They cannot scale up and create multiple universities like this or multiple hospitals like this, they cannot do it and government should not do it because it will be an unnecessary burden on the government. Government should make the policies which will make these things happen, exuberantly.

So, right now I’m saying for example, if I say I want to start a Medical University, I have you and let’s say another hundred experts from across the world, I can put them together. If I put them together, will you give me thousand acres, allow me to raise investments, start a medical school, maybe I will charge very high but if students are willing to pay, parents are willing to pay because they are getting a certain quality that they don’t have to travel to Harvard Medical School or some other, you know, Royal Medical School in UK, they will get something as good or better here, it will happen.

Right now, nearly thirty billion dollars’ worth of education is going out of the country simply because we are not willing to invest, because we are afraid somebody will make money.

26:34 - See, making money is not the issue, creating quality education system is the real thing, isn’t it? If you want, if you are interested in this, but right now we are in a socialist mindset, we don’t even want to recognize there are different levels of economic streta… strata in the country, at least five basic levels of economic strata; the poorest, who just want to come out of that level. Maybe for them you’ve opened up IITs… I’m sorry, not IITs, what do you call them? ITIs, you know, small diploma courses this, that because you want to provide livelihood.

There’s another middle class, which is everybody in their middle class is aspiring to be a doctor or an engineer. There’s an higher middle class which is thinking of business and stuff like that. There are rich people who are thinking of something else in the form of education. So, there are many layers of India, you have to recognize that. You cannot say, all of us go to ITI and become a diploma in mechanical engineering, it’s not going to work. They will go to some other country and study, naturally.

So, I’m saying, this can be only done if you relax the policy for private players to look at the needs of a given society and do that. I have gone to the extent of telling the authorities, why are you trying to manage education, even school, I’m saying, why are you prescribing a certain curriculum and stuff? Why? Why are the bureaucrats doing this? Just leave it to me. I will run a school; I will charge ten times what anybody else is charging. I will teach whatever nonsense I want to teach.

Children are happy, parents are happy. What is your problem, I’m asking? What is your problem? When did it occur to you that a bureaucrat cares more about my child than myself? How did this idea come into your head? So, “No, no, no, they will exploit. ” What will they exploit? You think parents are not able to figure out if their children are being exploited? If they… if I teach nothing, will they just pay money and send their children to me? Will they do that? Only if some productivity is there, they are happy with what’s happening with their children, then only they will pay, isn’t it? So, just because… See, market force is always the best force to regulate things. Yes, there will be a period of time and an outburst of things will happen but it will naturally settle down. What will make it settle down is quality.

29:01 - Right now, quality is not the criteria for settling down, something else – government funding, this one, that one. I’m saying, you leave this. If I say I want to start a Medical University, don’t ask me if I am a doctor or not. I am not. That’s not the point. I want to start one, I’m willing to get the investment. Will you just open up all the permissions? No, you will ask thousand questions. Those thousand questions will take a lifetime to answer, so I won’t start one.

Don’t do this. This is the time; this is the time nation’s education has to burst forth. Suppose, suppose I take people who have gotten the lowest marks in their twelfth standard because I see some competence there. What is your problem? Why are you saying they must get ninety-five or ninety-eight or whatever is the standard for medical entry? I’m telling you (Laughs)… This may be very upsetting for a lot of people… I am telling you a lot of people who get thirty-five, forty in their examinations are far more brilliant than those people who get ninety-five, hundred.

It’s a fact. But you will reject them because you don’t want efficient doctors, you want somebody who’s got zeros in his mark sheet. This is a ridiculous way of selection. “No, no, we got NEET exam. ” What is NEET exam? It’s again like, general knowledge kind of exam, it is not really testing anybody’s competence. If I set up a Medical University, I will set up a completely different level of aptitude test whether you can be a surgeon or not. Just because you got ninety-eight, this doesn’t mean your hands are good, hello?  Dr.

P. Raghu Ram: Absolutely. Sadhguru: Isn’t it? You got ninety-eight? Does it mean to say that you have the sturdiest hands and the sharpest focus in your life? Definitely not. You’re just a memory machine.

30:56 - Dr. P. Raghu Ram: Absolutely. So, totally agree with you Sadhguru. Actually, investment in education has not happened the way it should have happened. I’m just moving on to, you know, whether traditional medicine and modern medicine can co-exist, because I deal with treating breast cancer patients on a daily basis and I get patients who have already commenced alternative treatment before coming to me. And they are very fearful to even express that they are on those kind of treatments.

And I’m not against them using alternative treatment. I sit them down, I counsel them, I explain what they have and I say that as long as you’re able to take the allopathic treatment based on the multidisciplinary protocols, I have absolutely no issues in your continuing the alternative treatment. But there is a view that alternative treatments should not be taken in those who have cancer, which I totally disagree. I feel that as long as they’re able to take allopathic medicine in the way that they should and also parallelly use alternative medicine, I have no issue.

So, do you think traditional medicine and modern medicine can co-exist? Sadhguru: See, essentially what you’re asking is, whatever knowledge and insights we have gleaned out of thousands of years of experience of life upon this planet, should we keep it simply because a new force has come into play? Should we throw out all that and just go by the new things we have discovered in the last one-hundred-and-fifty years? No, this is… this is not the way to approach life.

Why do we think it is an alternate? It is not alternate; it is part of it. Tell me if I’m wrong. The yogic understanding of cancer is like this – that cancer is not really a disease, but a certain malfunction of our own system that it throws up. What is already there in our body, concentrates itself, we… I would describe it like this. In a city if there are ten pickpockets, you know, in every city there are… there is a little bit of crime; somebody’s picking somebody’s pockets, something, burglary is happening, whatever, we deal with it in a certain way and keep going.

But suppose these ten people got very organized and they built a team of one thousand people and became an organized crime and everybody’s pocket is being picked tomorrow morning, then we will say we need to act in a serious way.

33:47 - This is how we understand cancer. There are cancerous cells in our body, there are cells which have gone rogue in our system, they are always there but we don’t care because they don’t really affect us, we just manage them. Managing them, there are many, many systems in the traditional system of medicine, where you can manage them below a certain level. For some reason, either because of external stimuli or genetic stimuli or whatever else, somehow it gets triggered and they become organized crime.

When they become organized crime, you will say this is a cancer has established in the body, but nobody can say cancerous cells were not in the body. Probably even a just-born infant has, I don’t know. You must tell me. Even a just-born infant may have cancerous cells. Will it get organized or not? To keep them disorganized, there are many systems in yoga and Ayurveda, that if you do certain things, they will keep them disorganized. But now they’ve already gotten organized.

See, when it was disorganized, to handle a pickpocket, a police constable who is little alert is good enough; if five of them get organized, then a sub-inspector will handle it, but suppose thousand of them got organized, then you need national security, all right? So, this is how I look at cancer. If it is gotten so organized that something is rotting in your system already, now it needs a different level of intervention which is what allopathic medical intervention is.

But, at the same time even if that is happening, should still the constable on the street be alert? I think he should be.

35:30 - Dr. P. Raghu Ram: Yes. Yes, absolutely Sadhguru. Thank you. Sadhguru, I’m moving on to something that, you know, you’ve written a book on death and (Laughs), and basically there is always this constant fear… Sadhguru: (Overlapping conversation) That is post-surgery, okay (Both laugh)? Dr. P. Raghu Ram:… there is always a fear amongst many people about the risk of dying. In fact, death, as you have described is an eternal truth and is an existential, you know, phenomenon.

So, what are your views and how do we face death? Sadhguru: Let me tell you a story. There was a Jewish surgeon. He’s an acclaimed surgeon doing very well but his father got some, you know, some serious surgery is needed for him; for his own father. So, he felt very nervous operating upon his own father and he asked one of his colleagues who was also good, to do the surgery upon his father. When his father came to know, he insisted, “No, no, no, you must do the surgery.

” So, he tried to tell him, “Father, I can do the surgery but I’m little nervous doing surgery upon you. ” Father insisted, “No, you must do it. ” He said, “Why, my friend is good, he will do it. ” “That is not the point. I want you to know, in case the surgery failed and I die, your mother will come and live with you and your wife, you better know that (Both laugh). So, you, you do the surgery for me” (Laughs). So, I’m saying about death, all of us will die but most people don’t realize this through their life.

They think, you know, like peop… somebody, it happened some time ago last year.

37:40 - A very well-known sage in Karnataka, he’s a hugely respected man. He lived an absolutely dedicated and devoted life, he created many educational institutions, he’s transformed thousands of lives… hugely respected man. He died at the age of one, one, one; one-hundred-and-eleven, all right? And all the newspapers and politicians and others who say condolences, they’re saying, “We’re shocked at his demise. ” I said, “At one-hundred-and-eleven, how are you shocked? What’s your problem? Hello” (Laughs).

Why are you shocked at one-hundred-and-eleven? You must know from the day you were born, you are on a short fuse. If you understand this, if you are conscious of this, then you will organize and plan your life in a way it’s most fruitful. If you do not know this, that after hundred years you’re still shocked that you may die… well, then you will live a wasteful life because you don’t understand it’s a limited amount of time. If you understand something is very limited, you will plan and organize it well, if you think it’s unlimited, then you will live wantonly, isn’t it?  This is very, very relevant for time because time is one thing that you cannot… you cannot stop, it is running away. So actually, in Tamil, I don’t know how you say it in Telugu… maybe in Telugu also but in Tamil it’s said very well. When somebody dies, they’ll say “Kalamayittanga – that means their time got over,” you know. It’s a perfect description of death – time got over, that’s all. Well, we can kick the can a little bit. There is nobody here who can avoid death, there is no such thing. Some fools have tried (Laughs). Some fools, in ancient past you see lot of people sitting and doing tapas and asking, “Can I become immortal?” You’ve seen those idiotic affairs in the stories, you know, in our history we have heard people doing that.

In recent history, people have been seeking immortality in so many ways. Once again, this foolishness is manifesting itself; as people become wealthy, they want to become immortal. You know, these are foolish efforts. Yes, we can… we can make the life little longer, we can kick the can. It’s not that anybody wants to die, but they’re willing to die, only then you can live. If you say, I’m not willing to die, all that will happen is, you will end up not living.

40:15 - “I don’t want to die,” will not lead to an endless life; it will lead to a life where you don’t live. So, the problem is not that you will die, the problem is that you did not live. That is the biggest problem. You may be physically alive according to medical parameters but you did not live life, experience life in its full profoundness. This experience of life will not happen because of what you do or do not do in the world, it happens because you deepened your ability to experience.

Your ability to experience life, whatever it is; the food that you eat you experience within you, the air that you breathe you experience within you, pleasure and pain you experience within you, joy and misery you experience within you – just any experience happens only within you so it is in profoundness of experience that there is life. If you understand time is limited, then you will make sure, your experience of life is super profound. This must happen to every human being, so everybody must be reminded.

I know as a surgeon you should not do it. If you tell the patient you will die anyway, then he will get very scared. It’s not your business, it’s my business to tell them you’re anyway going to die (Laughs). Dr. P. Raghu Ram: Yes, Sadhguru (Laughs). We sometimes have to counsel patients… sometimes seriously ill patients, that mortality and death is a possibility in the counselling, in the consent form (Laughs). But I wanted… Sadhguru: But it’s a very inconvenient thing for a surgeon to say that (Laughs).

Dr. P. Raghu Ram:… particularly to the relatives who need to know what might happen to a seriously ill patient. So, Sadhguru you’ve enlightened us on so many issues. We have today delegates from across the country. As I mentioned to you, they’re all practicing surgeons, we have budding surgeons, surgical trainees. We also have distinguished surgeons from across the world. Six of them are being conferred Honorary Fellowship of the Association of Surgeons of India.

What would be your message Sadhguru to this audience? Sadhguru: As I said earlier, I would once again repeat that with a little different context. You’re a surgeon means, somebody, you know, they may not know who you are, but they trust you to a point that they will allow you to knife them. This is not a simple trust, never misunderstand this. This is a tremendous privilege that somebody offers you this level of trust; lies down there, willing to become unconscious willingly, so that you can cut them up.

If you’re aware of this that what is the level of trust involved in a person lying down there and allowing you to cut him up, that privilege never, never take that lightly. But another aspect is of course, you have to educate yourself, you have to enhance your expertise and knowledge. That is a medical part of the thing, I will leave that to you. But the other dimension of it is, whatever you may know – your intelligence, your skills, your knowledge, all these things will work for you only if you have a balance within you… above all balance. If you are not balanced, your intelligence will work against you, your knowledge will work against you, your very capabilities will work against you. So, this is important that you are balanced, especially being a surgeon, where other people are putting their lives into your hands, all right? They even don’t trust God this much; I want you to know. They’re okay doing a deal in the temple from a distance, they are not willing to put their lives into his hands, hello? This is a fact.

44:02 - Dr. P. Raghu Ram: Yes. Sadhguru: They’re putting their life into your hands. Please treat it with the highest level of privilege that a human being can enjoy in many ways. And, so you must equip yourself not just with medical knowledge and skills, but with an inner balance. For all the surgeons if you wish, we will offer this Inner Engineering online. You can see how to reach them and then we can also initiate them into the process, which will bring a certain level of steadiness and balance within you, for which there is no substitute in life.

Either to live your personal life well or to execute your professional life well, for both these… for both these things, you need an absolute sense of balance within you. Namaskaram and thank you very much.

44:46 - Dr. P. Raghu Ram: Namaskaram, Sadhguru. In fact, I’d like to highlight the point about Inner Engineering that you said. It has been a Godsend opportunity and an incredible privilege to have attended, participated and benefited from the Inner Engineering program, which has really profoundly changed my life, the way I look at life, the way I look at work and the way I look at the, you know, the world around me. And prior to doing this program, I would be mentally stressed out even for small things and I would get tired very easily and I would not have my focus for too long.

So, after attending this program, first of all, I become very joyous, I become more relaxed, I become more focused, I get less tired and I don’t take life seriously at all now. And I feel that I have had so many benefits, my family has seen that happening and if I can benefit, I’m sure many of my colleagues can certainly benefit from this and I would strongly and happily encourage them to take this Inner Engineering program. And thanks to you and to Isha Foundation, I think, since the beginning of the pandemic this has been offered free of cost to the healthcare professionals.

So once again Sadhguru, I have no words to express my heartfelt thanks to you for sparing your valuable time to be with us today virtually. And to me personally, this has been a high point for me to be able to converse with you in a conversation for forty-five minutes. And most grateful to you Sadhguru for your grace and blessings. Namaskaram. Sadhguru: Namaskaram. Thank you very much. .