With Sadhguru In Challenging Times - 22 April

Sadhguru,

Namaskaram everyone,

Wherever you are.

Well,

The situation around the world continues to go on.

United States crosses forty-five thousand fatalities and over.

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I think four nations or five.

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Four.

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Four nations cross twenty thousand fatalities.

While playing a little seesaw in some places it kind of went down and again it's going up.

As I said earlier,

We are only controlling human behavior.

We have not found a single handle on the virus.

And virus is displaying various new capabilities and different level of competence and different level of damage that it can cause.

What was understood as a largely respiratory problem now has gone into various places.

One of deep concern is.

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One thing is it is definitely attacking the immune system.

And something of deeper concern is it is also impacting the neurological system,

Causing a certain level of brain damage.

Those who are already damaged,

Maybe there's room for them but.

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This is a deep concern because many,

If not many,

At least a few of the patients,

Those infected by the virus have gone into seizures,

Loss of memory.

And of course everybody knows about loss of smell is a first thing which is a neurological sign.

And it is leading to various levels of damage.

And scientists.

.

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Nobody is very clear,

But they're estimating it could also leave permanent damage in the neurological system.

Or in other words,

Essentially it's getting more complex than what we thought it is,

That we thought it's just a respiratory thing,

We just manage our lungs and things will be okay.

At the same time,

The positive sign is over eighty percent of the people infected by the virus don't show any sign,

Any symptom,

And they go through it silently,

Which is plus and a great minus two because this silently infected people,

Asymptomatic infections,

They are giving it to everybody all over the place because they don't even know they carry it.

So ultimately,

A huge economic cost of in the end testing all the 7.

6 billion people,

This onerous task is what the virus is kind of pushing us towards,

Because eighty percent of the people who are infected don't show any signs means we will have to quarantine people who have no symptoms.

We will have to treat people who have no symptoms,

Which is going to be very difficult.

As it is around the world,

Also in India,

A certain amount of social restlessness is also building up,

Cooped up in their homes for too long,

Concerns about economic well-being,

Businesses being closed.

People,

Not only the daily wages,

Even monthly salary earners losing out on their economic,

You know,

Advantage that they had,

Or their savings and other things running out.

And the fear of that people see that more than fifty percent of the world's workforce can go unemployed for a year or two.

Those who are in variety of businesses right now,

I think,

Software industry is already started load shedding.

That is they're trying to drop people from their employment roles because they think next three to four quarters,

There will be no demand and they cannot sustain these people.

Clothing industry,

They believe eighty percent of the jobs may go away for a year or two,

Because fashion and clothing will be out of fashion for some time.

Which is,

I hear that those who are eco warriors,

They're all saying this is it,

This is good.

People can live with less number of clothes,

All this is very true.

But this is not the time to talk that language.

I've been talking that language in the past.

But now when people are losing jobs in a massive way,

This is not the time to celebrate those gains.

Those gains have to happen in a planned way,

Not in such a cruel way.

So,

Challenges are multiplying but nations are losing their patience.

Nations are losing their resilience to hang on to the lockdowns.

There's a lot of debate all over the place whether this lockdown is really needed or let's go out and do what we have to do,

Let's say.

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Let's see what the virus will do.

These kind of bravados are going on.

But at the same time,

I think,

About a quarter million people have died,

Is it?

Nearly,

Nearly 200,

000 people have lost their lives.

That's not a small number to ignore.

So,

This is a real challenge,

How we deal with this.

Every one of us have to figure out ways to rejig ourselves,

Our activity,

How we do things in the world,

How we live in this world.

We can't just go on living as we have been living,

Many changes need to happen.

The Union Government of India has passed an ordinance that if you attack or in any way threaten a health worker,

A doctor or a nurse,

Or somebody who is fighting for maintaining or controlling this virus infections,

A new law where you could be arrested without bail,

You could go to prison for five to seven years,

Various stringent laws,

Because these attacks are also rising.

They don't want.

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Certain people don't believe they will be affected by this virus and they're attacking the medical personnel who go to treat them or to test them.

They don't want to be tested because they're afraid they will be forcefully taken to a hospital or put in a quarantine.

So,

All social issues are roiling up.

And obviously,

When this is going on,

Simply another lockdown and another lockdown will become difficult.

Relaxing the lockdown,

We don't know where it'll take us.

But that's where we are.

If we.

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If we do not pay attention to all sides,

We should pay a lot of attention to the virus.

We should pay attention to those who are saying this could kill the humanity.

We should pay attention to those people who say nothing will happen,

We can just go out and do what we want.

Let's get the economic engine rolling.

And a thousand other shades of people in between,

It's important to listen to all of them.

To make a reasonably right decision,

I don't think anybody can make a really perfect decision,

Because nobody has a full grasp of what this can do and how it can run through a human society.

At least a reasonably right kind of decision,

We need everything.

But there are many,

You know,

You've heard of kangaroo courts,

But that did not.

.

.

Kangaroo,

Though,

Limited itself to Australia,

The kangaroo courts did not remain in Australia alone,

They went all over the world.

That is,

You know,

Just jump to a judgment.

This happened.

At one time,

Shankaran Pillai became a judge in the local court.

He was not always on the other side.

So,

Then he got record number of judgments going.

So they wanted to give him an award,

Because he is clearing the maximum number of cases.

Then this award giving committee asked him,

How do you manage this,

You are delivering the maximum number of judgments.

He said,

I only listen to the plaintiff.

They said,

What you don't listen to the defendant?

No,

If I listen to both,

It just confuses me,

I just listen.

There are a lot of people like this,

They just want to listen to one thing and take a decision.

Let's see if it works.

No,

Too many lives are on the line,

We can't take a decision like that.

It's not just about you,

Because it concerns everybody's lives.

I think we need to listen to every little bit of information that is there and try to arrive at a reasonably correct kind of decision for each nation.

One thing that's happening in India is,

The fatalities are very low compared to the number of people infected.

And recovery is also getting very good.

People are recovering faster with medical attention.

So,

Is it leaving any damage in them?

What is the long term impact?

These things can be assessed later,

But you got them back on their feet.

That is important.

So that is a good sign.

Maybe we are a little more resistant and resilient in that sense.

But the number of deaths in United States is very worrying.

Why is it the fatalities are so high when medical attention happens quick and the best possible medical attention is largely available to most people?

Why the death rate is so high?

Many explanations,

Some of them are saying,

Because one thing is there is a very large geriatric population,

But that is not all right because when you look at the age group of people dying,

A whole lot of people between forty and sixty are dying.

Below forty also there are quite a few but lower percentage.

Another explanation is,

Too many of them are on some kind of addictions.

So those who have addictions,

Their immune systems are always very low.

And that could be the reason it is very much possible,

Because it's considered very normal to be addicted to something.

It is just that I am addicted to a little lesser evil than you,

So I'm better than you kind of attitude.

This could be playing havoc.

But this is something that needs to be looked at properly scientifically.

A proper study needs to be made why in one country,

The number of deaths are so heavy in a nation where maximum medical facilities are there.

And the quickest possible medical response is there.

In spite of that,

Why are so many people dying is something that needs to be looked at,

That could definitely give us a better understanding of how this virus functions and deals with us.

They're also categorizing three varieties of the same virus,

A,

B,

C right now.

I'm sure they will get some exotic names shortly.

So there is A variety,

B variety and C variety.

So is it the variety of virus,

Which is making the difference?

Or is it the state,

The physical status and the health status of individual people,

Which is making the difference is something that needs to be arrived at,

Which will give us a little better understanding of how to deal with ourselves.

Who should go out,

Who should not go out,

We should be able to determine this.

Who will be vulnerable,

Who will not be vulnerable,

Vulnerable.

I think this call and this understanding is very,

Very important.

And also,

All this joblessness that's going to happen.

We should definitely look at how to minimize that.

And everybody should learn to work with.

.

.

We are largely living on pumpkin,

Are we?

At least that's all that's what that's happening to me,

I hope it's happening to you also.

So,

How to minimize our lifestyles,

So that everybody can have some kind of a job in terms of lowered salaries,

So that instead of firing a whole lot of employees,

Everybody can go on fifty percent salary and everybody can have a job and redirect this huge human resource into other dimensions of many things that are neglected,

Ecological aspects,

Policy aspects,

Various aspects of governance and variety of things in the world,

Which have not been done.

Now,

When the markets are down,

When other activity is down,

I think this is the time to attend to it.

But it's easier said than done because reorganizing people,

Reorienting people,

Training them,

Getting them into activity is not going to be a easy thing.

But we must do the difficult things,

Otherwise,

This may end up being too cruel to a whole lot of people,

Whom virus did not even touch.

Questioner 1 This question is from Shashank.

Namaskaram Sadhguru.

You said that depending upon how compulsive we are and as per our karma,

We attract certain situations or life arranges itself accordingly.

But for an enlightened being who has no karma,

What determines the nature of situation he or she gets into or the way life pans out?

We have seen you face some of the most challenging situations.

What is the mechanics behind this?

Sadhguru The question should be about you.

So,

Whoever told you,

An enlightened being does not have karma.

An enlightened being has immense karma,

Much,

Much more than others.

Yes.

Because without karma,

If you're at a certain level of energy,

Without a certain weightage of karma,

You cannot remain grounded.

This is why ninety percent of the time enlightenment and leaving the body happens at the same time.

Because if you do not consciously ground yourself with substantial weighty kind of karma,

Then you cannot stick to the body.

First thing to understand is that karma is not some negative trash.

It's only because of karma,

You are who you are.

When we say karma,

We're talking about layers and layers of memory which makes you who you are.

There is evolutionary memory,

Which makes you a human being.

Suppose your body lost its evolutionary memory.

Well,

You may start crawling because you are a human being,

Not by knowledge,

By a huge amount of evolutionary memory invested in every cell in your body,

Which makes you be human.

You have seen,

When we do certain programs which are connected to getting into or putting our fingers into deep levels of karma like Samyama,

Certain people start crawling,

Certain people start doing things.

This is simply because we are sinking certain things deep inside.

It's touching their evolutionary karma and things are happening.

Well,

There is an immense amount of karma,

Starting from the evolutionary or even before the elemental karma is there,

We will not go into it,

It's too complex.

But you understand the evolutionary karma.

Let's say,

See right now the frogs are happy in the evening,

For whatever reasons,

They're doing quack,

Quack,

Quack.

I don't know who found the connection about kissing the frog and turning them into human beings.

All those things,

But suppose you lost your evolutionary karma,

And somewhere around amphibious life,

Somewhere around a frog,

You stopped.

After that what memory you had is gone.

Suddenly,

You may be a princess,

But you will turn into a frog.

Yes?

Because it's this memory which is so invested in every cell in your body,

Which gives you a human form and a sense of being human being.

So who you are,

Essentially,

The shape and form of you is just karma,

Because it's memory.

Like this,

There are many levels of it,

I will not go into all of it now.

There is a genetic karma,

Because of that you have a particular kind of nose,

A particular kind of,

You know,

Skin,

Particular behavioral aspects,

Certain amount of capabilities and incapabilities,

Genetic karma is there.

After that your own stuff is there,

Articulate,

Inarticulate and now conscious karma.

Now karma is not a negative thing,

If you know how to use it.

But if you do not become conscious enough to use it,

Then it runs like a software.

Let us say there is a software on the computer you use,

Or the phone that you use,

I think computers are gone.

Only a few people seem to be using computers,

Everybody is only this.

So phone is a computer in a way.

So whatever software that is on it,

Well,

Whatever work you're doing,

Let's say every eleven seconds,

I'm choosing that number intentionally.

Every eleven seconds you should do boom boom doom.

Every eleven seconds is good boom boom doom.

Believe me,

After a few months,

You yourself will start doing every eleven seconds boom boom doom.

Yes,

You will.

But the software is only in the phone.

But if it keeps on doing it every day.

See right now,

The chant is going on around the ashram,

Some of you,

Why is it going on all the time?

But slowly,

Unknowingly,

Yoga yoga.

It is,

It is.

We are programming you towards liberation.

Many people and you yourself may be programming yourself to bond age.

Because a whole lot of people are always trying to build bonds with something or the other.

Because they think only by tying themselves to something or somebody,

They will feel safe.

If you have a bond with age,

It becomes bond age.

No,

I'm just playing with you.

But all bonds unconsciously developed and unconsciously exists with you become bondages.

Well,

Bonds are like,

You know,

A sailor will throw an anchor in a place so that there,

In case there is a small storm,

The boat doesn't go away somewhere,

So you put an anchor.

It's a very good thing.

If you want to be safe in one place,

But you are in a damn boat,

Because you want to sail.

So if you keep on putting five,

Ten anchors,

Obviously you will be safe,

But you will never sail.

So you have to make up your mind,

You want to sail or you want to be safe.

So,

You have seen me go through all kinds of situations,

All kinds.

I don't know who's asking this question,

How does he know what all I go through?

Too many things,

All kinds of rubbish.

Lots of wonderful things also.

Lots of absolutely wonderful things,

But lots of trash also comes my way.

Well,

What's his name?

That's his real name?

Nishant?

Shashank.

So no,

Shashank has been very closely around me to see all the nonsense that comes my way.

Anyway,

If Shashank is well informed because he has access to somebody around me,

Or he's just reading it in the news,

All the nonsense.

Unfortunately,

In the news only the nonsense they're reporting,

All the wonderful things that happen to me,

They don't usually report.

That's their karma.

So,

Lots of absolutely wonderful things every day being thrown at me.

If nobody throws anything,

Anyway I sit very wonderful wherever I am,

But some trash also comes my way.

Well,

The trash is coming,

Not simply,

Simply because when you have nothing to lose and nothing to gain,

You can do whatever you want.

Either you can go sit in a mountain cave,

Simply blissed out,

Or you can get active in the world,

You can do many things.

You can be somewhat active,

Somewhat withdrawn or all out active,

Depends.

What's your choice?

My choice has been shaped by the needs in the world,

Not by my whim.

Till.

.

.

Till I consecrated Dhyanalinga,

There was only one intent.

Because I'm somebody's slave,

I don't want to tell you all those terrible things which have been beautiful to me.

A man who doesn't even want to touch me with his foot,

He touches me with a stick,

I served that man for three lifetimes.

So,

That's a terrible story,

But with fantastic results.

Because I'm result oriented,

I value the result,

I don't resent the touch with the stick.

Many of you have these issues,

That's why I'm telling you.

Shudhguru didn't even look my way.

He doesn't.

So,

Because my activity since Dhyanalinga,

Till then,

I was not bothered about anything else,

Just one thing.

I thought that's it and with that I will even end.

Because I had not created a intent in my mind as what I will do beyond that.

So,

Things collapse,

Things happen,

Whatever,

That's all history now,

Every one of you know it probably.

When the body begin to collapse very badly,

When my basic structure got very badly damaged and became almost like,

What to say,

Little crippled.

Then it became like a challenge,

Let's see if we can get back.

And there were also some absolutely wonderful and dedicated people around me,

Who are willing to give their life if necessary.

So,

For their sake and also as a challenge if we can really build back the system,

We took up certain things and started working,

Which is another kind of karma.

Well,

Those of you who have seen me since ninety-nine,

That is 1999,

Because a whole lot of millennials who do not know,

There was a twentieth century.

So in the year 1999,

If you had seen me,

And today you're seeing me,

Well,

In terms of physical well-being,

I'm leaps and bounds ahead of what I was twenty years ago.

In twenty years decline should have happened,

But in ten.

.

.

Twenty years I'm way better than what I was.

It's clearly visible in every way.

So,

Once we successfully built back the system,

Then the question was,

Okay,

What the hell do we do?

My long term dream,

You know,

That I will ride away across the world,

Not a care in the world,

Simply full tank,

Open road,

Gone.

That was the dream of that time.

Even if my stomach was empty,

Didn't matter.

Motorcycle tank was full,

Road was empty,

This virus time,

This lockdown time should be really nice to ride.

Almost every road is like a racetrack,

But I'm not allowed to ride,

So.

So,

That dream I thought,

Shall I revive,

But all the people around me,

Without them,

I wouldn't have had the intent to go through that enormous striving that it took of almost three years or three-and-a-half years to build back the system.

I wouldn't have had the intent without all these people looking hopefully at me.

If I didn't have that,

I wouldn't have had the intent to build it back.

So,

Then naturally got involved with people,

Their spiritual process.

Then when you went to teach spiritual process,

Then you saw people are hungry,

Somebody is sick.

Nothing happening for them.

So,

We got involved in the social process,

Then we saw,

Even if somebody is just about getting enlightened,

There is not even a tree in the village.

So,

We started planting trees to a point where people are calling me tree planter.

So,

All this karma.

But what do you think?

Look at me and tell me,

You think this karma is taking a toll on me?

Sometimes I might not have slept well,

I may look little,

But does it look like it's taking a toll on me?

Because I want you to understand,

All of you get this trait,

The simplest way to deal with all the humongous mountains of karma that you may have.

Because if you have a Himalayan sized karmic background,

It's very good.

That means you have a complex structure.

But if this complex structure tortures you,

And you will use your torture to torture everybody else around you,

Then it's a disaster.

But if you use this complexity,

Because complexity is needed to come out with very significant solutions.

If you have no complexity,

Usually you're called a simple fellow in England.

In India we call them simple ton.

People will have compassion for you,

But no passion for you.

Yes,

It's a sad way to live.

So now,

If you want to deal with your karma,

The simplest thing is,

You sit here,

Absolute dispassion for this one,

Total passion for everything else.

This is all.

Right now the problem is people have enormous passion for their life,

But they have dispassion for other people's well-being and suffering and whatever is happening.

This is why,

This is why right now,

The world is saluting the doctors and nurses who are sticking their life out there to work for somebody,

Because they are showing passion for other lives and dispassion for themselves.

This is a sure way of release.

So this is all you have to do.

You must reverse the equation,

Too much passion for yourself,

No passion for others,

No.

Absolute passion for every life around you,

Total dispassion towards yourself.

You don't worry about all this karmic nonsense,

You are gone,

You are free from this rubbish.

Sadhguru chants Yoga Yoga Yogeshwaraya Shiva Shiva Sarveshwaraya Shambho Shambho Mahadevaya