How Not To Create Karma 🙏 With Sadhguru in Challenging Times - 21 Apr

10:17 - Sadhguru: Namaskaram to everyone. (Smells a Flower) No, I’m not checking whether I’m positive or negative.

10:56 - It’s a, it’s one of the most fragrant flowers you can find in the world.

11:01 - So, you know, this is one way of checking whether you’re virus infected or not.

11:08 - I can smell, still beautiful. Well, the virus dances all over the planet.

11:19 - It’s a dance of death. Well, on an average I think for the last one week United States is maintaining over 2,000 deaths for more than a week if I’m right.

11:32 - Crossed, 45,000 is it? 42,000, deaths in US alone.

11:42 - France has crossed 20,000 deaths. India, reaching towards six-hundred but the relaxation, just the promise relaxation, which most states refused to do because they knew, once they open up a little bit, then everybody tries to squeeze through that little gap.

12:10 - Already traffic jams around Delhi. Everybody says they’re on emergency duty, their own kind of emergency, you can’t…

12:22 - you know, everybody thinks their work is important, their little business, their work, their family, whatever.

12:34 - So, maintaining an effective lockdown, how effective it will be as time goes by, is a huge challenge, and questionable.

12:51 - Singapore has declared a lockdown till 1st of June.

12:59 - Many experts are suggesting to India to close down till end of May.

13:06 - But I don’t think India being largely an agricultural nation at this time of the year you can’t really lock down.

13:17 - Sixty-five percent of the population is involved in agriculture, or allied activity.

13:24 - And agriculture is something that has to happen on time because the seasons change and it doesn’t wait for us.

13:37 - So, there are challenges, once the relaxation happens, how the virus will behave.

13:44 - But the good news is, ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) is saying, eighty percent of the people who come in touch with virus may not show any symptom, or very mild symptom, that’s about it for them.

13:57 - It’s just that they will carry it and give it to somebody else.

14:01 - So I think we need to do a lockdown for all those who are over fifty-five or sixty years of age, pooof (Gesturing to Himself) and younger people can go and work, something like that.

14:17 - Vulnerable populations must be locked down to keep the death toll down, others should get back into economic activity or something, I don’t know, there’s no perfect solution.

14:28 - Everything is… cruel decisions to make, very cruel decisions to make - Who should die this one or that one.

14:37 - What kind of a decision is that, but unfortunately that’s what we’ve been forced to make.

14:45 - Hospitals in India are not really overwhelmed.

14:50 - They have created over 100,000 beds, spread across the country, just for the virus infected.

14:58 - But we have only identified a little over 18,000 positive cases, out of which most of them are home quarantined.

15:10 - So, in anticipation of overload of patients, all hospitals are sitting there like that but there’s actually no overload yet.

15:22 - I hope it stays this way and it passes this way.

15:25 - I don’t know the power of monsoon maybe it’ll wash it off.

15:29 - Hope. There is no evidence anywhere that rain will wash it off but you know, it’s a southern Indian hope.

15:46 - Because people in the south, always believed, that no matter what happens to the world, the southern peninsular of India will live.

16:03 - At one time, this was called as the Jumbo Dweep - That means, it was a golden Island because, north protected by Himalayan mountains, south predicted by Indian Ocean.

16:21 - It was a land of plenty, in every way. In terms of biodiversity, there is no other place as rich as this really, it is even much more than the rain forests in southern America, in terms of what you find in the soil.

16:41 - Well, we are killing it systematically that’s a different matter, but it’s like that.

16:47 - So, the lore and the culture has built this up, in the south, no matter what comes, we will always be protected and we’ll be well because Shiva himself comes from the south.

17:09 - I don’t know, when I go to United States, I have this, why even in United States, the southern people think they’re the best! This is a summer vacation and in a large Southern family, all the… you know, usually they’re large families.

17:43 - All the cousins, brothers and sisters have all arrived there, more than forty people.

17:49 - We used to be like that when we were young, we were about thirty-six people coming…

17:54 - living in various parts of the country but everybody assembling for the summer.

17:59 - So they all arrived in a big ranch. Aunt Matilda, who was good with children, was trying to tell them how literally every virtue of kindness, of gentleness, of etiquette, of love and compassion, everything came from the southerners.

18:27 - So a skeptical teenager, one of the boys asked “Aunt Matilda, did Jesus also come from the south? Was he a southerner?” Then she looked at him, you know, it would be too much of a stretch to transport a man from Palestine to Texas.

19:00 - She said, “No, but he was good enough to be a southerner. ” So, we have our own South Indian prejudice.

19:16 - Nature has supported this prejudice, with its biodiversity, with its plentifulness, with its culture, variety of things.

19:29 - So, Southern people think they will fly through this also.

19:35 - Kerala, which was one of the first places, which got maximum amount of infections because people came from elsewhere has contained it very well and getting back to business.

19:50 - I’m talking to various people in the administration in Tamil Nadu, they’re also very confident that they will deal with it within the next two weeks, and they will be back in business.

20:05 - Except for one committed group which caused a lot of aberration.

20:11 - They’re saying, if that group was not there, by now we would be back in business, totally! So, the confidence is not totally unfounded, there is something to it.

20:25 - And we are… here we are, in the pristine south.

20:32 - So, I think we will fly through this. It’s just that, hope it happens with minimum amount of damage.

20:42 - Unfortunately, a whole lot of medical care workers are succumbing to the virus all over the world.

20:52 - And also unfortunately certain groups of people in India, are attacking the doctors and nurses when they go to treat them.

21:03 - These are tragic aberrations otherwise, the medical community is doing a fantastic job.

21:11 - The police in India have become exemplary in bringing discipline to everybody and they themselves are conducting everything with such a sense of dedication and commitment.

21:29 - And political leadership largely, largely almost really, you know, in a very large percentage are beyond their normal petty politics and really on the job! If we stay like this… I think using the virus if we stay like this, in two-to-three years time India will be somewhere else altogether.

21:58 - So, summertime! Summer is a time when in southern India life gets a little lazy; just the heat.

22:17 - Even the farmer goes to the field at 4:30 in the morning, and he finishes by 8:30, 9:00 o’clock, rests during the day, and again starts at 3:30, 4:00 o’clock and works till 7:00 in the evening and stops because this is a time when sun’s relationship with us is very intimate.

22:43 - Yes because he’s hot, it’s hot, that’s it. It’s an intimacy.

22:49 - It’s a very hot relationship. Because we are at eleven degrees latitude and the planet is tilted like that, and our relationship with the sun at this time moving towards to summer solstice is getting more and more intimate.

23:09 - By May 14th, we have what is called as Agni nakshatram, that means, really a fiery star will blaze.

23:20 - This is not for the whole planet. This is for this band of the earth, latitudinal band, ah, really on fire.

23:31 - But it is the best time for all life because all life, when I say all life, most of the life on this planet is plant life, you must understand this.

23:49 - All life means (Gestures Human life). No, no, we’re talking about life! You one recent happening.

24:02 - A little bit of a nuisance that nobody can ignore you.

24:06 - See when somebody is a big nuisance nobody can ignore them.

24:10 - You can ignore the best people in the world, but somebody who is a real nuisance you cannot ignore them, in that context human beings are standing out, because we are one big nuisance on the planet as far as the other life is concerned, really.

24:25 - If you were a tree, if you were an ant, if you were a grasshopper, if you were an elephant, if you were a tiger, you definitely think who is this nonsense, hello, for sure.

24:40 - Even now they’re thinking I… they’re definitely thinking, see.

24:51 - Now, many of them are beginning to walk on the street, and there are all kinds of videos going around, tigers lying down on the road, lions lying down on the street, all kinds of things.

25:03 - Panthers walking in Hyderabad. Panthers walking around in the streets of Mysore.

25:11 - They’ve always been there, but because we were such a nuisance, they kept away.

25:17 - Now that we are keeping ourselves in, there are exploring the town.

25:26 - So, this human existence is different, but all other life like summer because life happens at its best.

25:37 - Maximum growth happens, only thing is, in between there needs to be a little bit of water.

25:44 - Till now it’s been great because two rains in April is just fantastic.

25:48 - You can see the health of the mountain that tells you how life is doing.

25:54 - If those two rains were not there the mountains would be brown.

25:57 - It’s all green and lush. We just need one more big shower.

26:02 - Towards the end of this month or first week of May summer is over for us, because by third fourth week of May again monsoon winds will be on.

26:14 - So, summer is a great time because everything grows at its full pace, all the trees are putting on a fresh coat of leaf.

26:25 - Well actually, you… if… if we had allowed a whole lot of if… if the world… at least, if Tamil Nadu looked like the Isha Yoga Center, if this much greenery was there across the state, well the temperatures wouldn’t go up so much and summer would be a great time.

26:49 - Only when you’re out in the sun it’s a little exhausting.

26:53 - But in shade it’s very good because everything is buzzing, all fresh leaf, enormous amount of oxygen in the air, because trees are feeling very happy.

27:07 - Only thing is once in fifteen, twenty days, at least once in three weeks one shower, we are just through the summer.

27:17 - So talking about summer, I scribbled something for you.

27:24 - Am I torturing you with my poems? You can tell me, okay? No problem.

27:35 - It’s called – Summer. Fragrance of flowers keeping bees and birds busy and Happy.

27:46 - Fragrance of flowers keeping bees and birds busy and Happy.

27:52 - Crickets going jeee day and night about something they gained or lost.

28:00 - Crickets going jeee day and night about something they gained or lost.

28:09 - Breeze ever so hesitant, either to spread the coolness it carries or hold it to itself.

28:18 - Breeze ever so hesitant, either to spread the coolness it carries or hold it to itself.

28:26 - You can be fragrance or filth Can lose or gain Share or Shed You can be fragrance or filth Can lose or gain Share or Shed All Tamil people are clapping.

28:53 - Thank you. Questioner: This question is from Sarah.

29:09 - “Namaskaram Sadhguru. Karma is our action. How should our action be so that it’s liberating and not binding? Most of us do not have an understanding and recognition of what is compulsive or conscious action.

29:23 - How can we get the ability to discern such that we are able to perform only conscious action?” Sadhguru: I am…

29:34 - There’s one more day’s work, I’m completing the Karma book, which is being published by Random House in United States.

29:46 - That will be published in the rest of the world but not in India.

29:52 - Because for thousands of years you’ve been talking karma, you better figure it out.

30:01 - Sarah doesn’t sound very Indian, so I think it’s okay.

30:05 - But I think this is a conspiracy to get the book free right now.

30:15 - There’s one more day’s work, it will be complete.

30:22 - There are many ways to look at this. How do I perform activity? Karma means, let us understand this.

30:36 - Karma does not mean just doing something in the world alone.

30:42 - You sit here, you’re performing karma – karma of sitting here.

30:48 - Body is functioning, it’s breathing, taking in oxygen, leaving carbon dioxide, the tree is blessing you because you’re letting enough carbon dioxide out.

30:59 - Suppose that also you stored in yourself and made a diamond so that you could give it to somebody.

31:06 - No, no, carbon no. Then the tree would look at you and say, “What kind of a lout are you, even carbon dioxide you’re not letting it out?” That’s one kind of karma I’m telling you.

31:21 - I’m trying to talk without overlapping on the book.

31:28 - Because there is some… issues with that. So if you sit here and breathe, as far as the tree is concerned you’re doing a good karma.

31:45 - You don’t know. You can be conscious too – tree is giving me oxygen, I’m giving carbon dioxide.

31:55 - Does it mean you have to breathe hard? Nothing like that. You just breathe.

32:00 - It’s anyway happening. So physical karma is happening.

32:09 - Mental karma is always going on for most human beings almost all the time.

32:13 - Emotional karma is going on. Energy karma is going on, otherwise you wouldn’t be alive.

32:19 - So karma is happening. It’s not necessarily what you do, consciously it’s just happening.

32:27 - Life is karma. If you want to become nishkarma that means people think no karma.

32:40 - If you want to become no karma, there’s no such thing.

32:43 - You can become very minimal karma. So he’s a couch potato, nishkarma.

32:53 - No, no, lethargy, is a tremendous amount of karma because it takes lot of work to be lethargic.

33:02 - In the sense, you will have to generate a lot of explanations for everything and convince yourself that you don’t have to do anything about it.

33:15 - Right now, there is virus going on, somebody is dying around you.

33:19 - You have to do something within yourself not to respond to that.

33:27 - Otherwise it’s natural for you to respond to it.

33:31 - So, being a couch potato is not nishkarma. Well, a yogi can become almost like a hibernating state where everything is minimised, but still he is not free from karma.

33:49 - He may take less number of breaths per minute.

33:52 - You may be taking twelve to fifteen minutes.

33:55 - When somebody simply sits, they may just go down, maybe three breaths, maybe six or eight.

34:05 - But below that you cannot go, you can even stop for some time, but it’s only some time.

34:11 - If you stay without a breath, not by holding, just by lowering the metabolism, then slowly a different level of karma will begin to pick up momentum in the body, when it picks up anyway it’ll breathe.

34:24 - Again, it may go into breathless state, again it will come back, so this way you can minimise, but still, you’re not free.

34:33 - You will have to get up to drink little water or put something in your mouth.

34:40 - When you put something in, something has to go out.

34:43 - All these things are karmas. So what is the way to handle this.

34:50 - Well, what do you think we’ve been doing with you with Inner Engineering, what do you think it is? It is simply this.

35:01 - Many of you… almost all of you, when you did even the online Inner Engineering program, you still not done any practice, or you went through the program first two days, no practice yet we’re still talking to you.

35:22 - Suddenly, after two days you suddenly felt a new sense of life and freedom and things, it’s happened to millions of people, I know this.

35:32 - Suddenly you light up. Not because all your old karma went away, just those two days you did not create too much fresh karma.

35:44 - Suddenly it’s feeling so light and wonderful because you are not creating unnecessary burden upon yourself.

35:51 - So what was the trick? The… There are various aspects, let me not go into all that now.

35:58 - The simplest thing is this, your ability to respond.

36:06 - See, whether I should do something or not if I think about it…

36:15 - Right now, many people are struggling with this.

36:21 - Let us say, somebody around, somewhere close, fortunately it’s not come to our panchayat area yet.

36:31 - We are managing it in a very tight way. No infections anywhere close by.

36:38 - So in Coimbatore, there are some. So let’s say, somebody is infected there.

36:44 - Now, should I do something or not? “Huh, Why should I do? Other people will do.

36:49 - Who are those other people, we don’t know, he must have a family. Let them do. “ But if we just put up that man’s suffering in front of you, you will have to do a lot of work not to do anything.

37:03 - But to respond in whichever way you can, not everybody can go and save everybody’s lives, but at least, do whatever you can.

37:13 - It’s very simple. The amount of karma, you have to do, mental karma, will come down dramatically within your mind, simply because your response has become indiscriminate.

37:26 - Indiscriminate, in response, but not indiscriminate in action because you cannot afford to be indiscriminate in action.

37:37 - In action, you are always discerning because action requires physical capability, energy, intelligence, means to do it, time to do it, many things are involved.

37:51 - And these are all limited commodities. Nobody can do indiscriminate activity.

37:58 - If they do indiscriminate activity, they will die very soon.

38:03 - And that is also a bad karma. Yes, it is. Activity is not indiscriminate, but our response is indiscriminate.

38:13 - Wherever it is, I would like to do something.

38:17 - If possible, everything that’s possible we’ll do.

38:20 - For what is not possible, we at least have a little intention.

38:28 - Just because of that, you came to the programme, and you felt such a sense of freedom.

38:35 - People have been asking me “Sadhguru, how will the online programme work without the practice?” I want you to know before you came for the Shambhavi initiation already you were feeling fantastic.

38:51 - Simply because you stopped creating fresh karma.

38:56 - Old karma did not go away in those three four days.

39:00 - Just that new load is not happening. For the old karma, actually just living is enough.

39:07 - Sitting here breathing, living, heart beating is good enough to start dissolving the old karma.

39:13 - A few things need a little more nudge, but most of the things will just go away if you simply sit here, breathe, live, heart will beat by itself.

39:23 - You don’t have to do anything, or are you doing. .

39:28 - some of you think you’re doing everything. The whole issue with people when it comes to their health and whatever, because everybody’s an internet doctor now, you know, they’ve done lots of research.

39:42 - Doctors are having hell, because every patient who comes, knows more about the damn thing, than the doctor is supposed to know.

39:51 - Doctor knows something more profound because he spent nine, ten years studying and experience of treating people, but these people looked it up, after they came to know they have this particular ailment, last three days they looked up everything that’s on the internet.

40:06 - And now, all kinds of questions, they go with their own prescription “Please give me this drug, other drugs I will not take. ” A whole lot of them coming to doctors and saying, “I will not take this drug, I will take only this. ” This is supposed to be a very educated patient.

40:25 - A highly educated patient means, you are going to be a life long patient you need to understand.

40:32 - Yes. If you become a life long doctor, it’s a good thing.

40:37 - You become a lifelong patient, very qualified patient, what is the point of that? This is simply because, you think you’re doing this, tuk, tuk, tuk, you have to do, you have to check how many beats are happening, everybody’s wearing a band.

40:52 - Well, people ask me “Sadhguru, you must go through one master checkup. You must have this. . ” I say, “What?!” Every year I’m going to, I’m trekking in the Himalayas, I’m in Tibet, I’m going to Kailash.

41:08 - It’s my stress test. If I don’t make it, you bury me in Himalayas, that’s all.

41:17 - Otherwise, you live. Because you pay little attention to yourself, you know what’s happening.

41:23 - Well, if you notice something is wrong, then you go to the doctor and maybe, get a little more qualified advice on that.

41:30 - That’s different. But all the time being worried, “What is happening? What is happening?”, this itself is sickness.

41:39 - Too much concern about health itself is sickness and it’s a terrible karma.

41:44 - This karma will have an enduring effect on you.

41:48 - So, this is all that happened in the first three days of Inner Engineering, online or otherwise.

41:55 - All that happened is, we gave you little tools with which you stopped creating new karma, and suddenly it felt so wonderful.

42:05 - You did that little homework. Okay? little homework, what happened today, five things to write down.

42:12 - Just because of that homework, you paid attention to what you’re doing and what you’re not doing, suddenly, tremendous sense of liberation.

42:23 - If a two and a half hour programme can have such an impact on you, if you pay a little more attention, in this lockdown time, you can just learn how not to create karma.

42:41 - Simply this, that your response is unbrittled.

42:48 - You don’t decide what is worth responding, what is not worth responding, it’s not your business.

42:57 - A bird, a grasshopper and a human being, man, woman, child, doesn’t matter, you respond.

43:09 - Do you have to act? No. Action is always a discerning action, because there are quantities involved in action which are not unlimited.

43:21 - Our energy is not unlimited, our intelligence is not unlimited, our actions, in no way, can be unlimited they’re always limited.

43:29 - But our ability to respond is limitless. This one thing, just this one thing, if you do, you will not create any karma today.

43:43 - You will not add up load. Just not adding up new load, you will see, it feel like liberation.

43:50 - That’s a kind of damage you’re doing to yourself, why do you think when you were a child, you are like this (Gestures) still you had loads of warehouse of karma on you, but still you were grinning.

44:01 - Now (Gestures) you became like this, “Ah, virus Sadhguru, virus. ” Even before the damn virus came, most people were looking so grave, it looked like they walked out of it.

44:19 - Yes. This is because, every day building up this rubbish endlessly every day.

44:27 - Whatever happens, you build it up, build it up, build it up, build it up, something happens, something doesn’t happen, for everything you create a mess, within yourself and the load of that mess, just garbage.

44:41 - You’re like a garbage truck I’m telling you.

44:44 - Yes. But now it’s a lockdown. You don’t have to pick up any garbage.

44:50 - That’s a good thing, about lockdown. You just simply… You don’t be selective.

44:59 - Who are you? Who are you to decide what is worth your attention, what is not? Whatever created all this, whoever created all this, do you see a blade of grass is created with as much care, as this big tree or yourself, or an elephant or a tiger? A little creature, a tiny little insect that is going there, is better decorated than you. Hello? You have to put on all kinds of dyes, they’re all very well painted by themselves.

45:42 - So whoever created. . has creation paid any less attention to these tiny little creatures than yourself? No.

45:51 - So then, who are you to decide what to respond to, what not to respond to? Your ability to respond, always has to be unbridled, if you’re not getting what I’m saying, well we can’t come and teach you now, there is Inner Engineering online.

46:07 - Just go through this three days, just first three days, what is being said there, let it sink into you, soak this in, completely.

46:18 - You will see, in three four days time, you feel like you’re floating, simply because no new garbage.

46:26 - That’s how it feels. So please make it happen.

46:30 - There is no need to go on adding up trash load upon your head.

46:39 - Because… Sadhguru chants Yoga Yoga Yogeshwaraya maja you.