Pod Insights The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett Sadhguru (World’s No.1 Guru) PREDICTS: "There Is A Mental Health Pandemic Coming! & We Are On The Brink Of Extinction!" About this episode If you enjoy hearing about the spiritual aspects of life, I recommend you check out my conversation with Deepak Chopra, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_pZ2D_nlD0
There is no meaning to life and there is no ‘you’, but knowing this is how you take control of your life both inside and out.
In this new episode Steven sits down with world famous yogi, Sadhguru.
Sadhguru is an Indian spiritual teacher who has been teaching yoga since 1982. He the founder and head of the non-profit spiritual organisation, the Isha Foundation, and has been named one of India’s 50 most influential people. He is the bestselling author of the books, ‘Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy’, ‘Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny’ and ‘Death; An Inside Story’
In this conversation Sadhguru and Steven discuss topics, such as:
Why we are wealthier than any other generation but are still unhappy
The need for humanity to become conscious
How to fight the mental health pandemic
The coming suicide pandemic
The price we pay for comfort
How to raise human consciousness
What he learned from his enlightenment
Why people are miserable
Human nature of being greedy and wanting to expand
The technology we can use to expand consciousness
What is the real 'you'
How to never suffer again
Why heaven is here and now
What life really is
Why compulsion is the main problem in life
The need for a instruction manual for life
Why people aren't thinking enough
How to control everything inside you
Why your emotions are in your hands
Leaving his mother on her deathbed
The ways that competition is a sickness
Why trauma is an excuse
How we only use one dimension of our intelligence
The ways logic is ruining your life
Why you should stop trying to be a good person
How having a purpose is wrong
Why there is no meaning to life
You can purchase Sadhguru’s most recent book, ‘Karma: A Yogi's Guide to Creating Your Own Destiny: A Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny’, here: https://bit.ly/3ZZySVr
Follow Sadhguru:
Instagram: https://bit.ly/46vt340
Twitter: https://bit.ly/3RSjGYo
Follow me:
https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript 11,622 words · 3 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 World Health Organization made a prediction, there will be a mental health pandemic. But this is not something that has to happen. If you want to fix this, you need to
0:09 Speaker 01 Sadhguru, one of the most viewed gurus in the world. His mission is to raise every human being to the peak of their potential, who has built one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the world.
0:20 Speaker 00 We have more than any other generation ever had in terms of comforts and technologies. Yet, we are miserable people. You want to be something more, all the time. That's why you suffer. Just tell me, is there one thing that human beings are not suffering? Somebody is poor, they suffer their poverty. Somebody becomes rich, they suffer the taxes. If they're not married, they suffer get married. I don't have to say anything. You're making up a purpose to bring some meaning to your life. But if you try to enhance your activity, without enhancing yourself, you'll only die of stress. What about trauma? You're finding an excuse for the way you are, which you yourself don't like. If something unpleasant happened to you,
1:05 Speaker 00 you have two choices. Either you can become wise, or you can become wounded. Your experience of life is determined by you. If your happiness depends on what happens on the outside, you being happy is a remote possibility. I want to be happy. What's step one? There is a simple practice, which only take 21 minutes. And this is when human beings can do something absolutely fantastic. First thing is...
1:39 Speaker 00 What is the...
1:42 Speaker 00 ...the mission that you're on? Well, today, you know, a few months ago, the WHO, or the World Health Organization, made a prediction that there is going to be a mental health pandemic.
1:58 Speaker 00 At least five years ago, none of us knew what is a pandemic. Today, we all know what is a pandemic. And they've gone further and they said the next stage is there will be a suicide pandemic. Just to put it in perspective. In 2020, when the pandemic was in full swing all over the world, in Japan, more people died of suicide than of the pandemic. So we don't really need the virus, that's all I'm saying. Because the virus has gotten into our head. Because once survival is taken care of, if you do not become conscious, the way you sit, stand, breathe, think, emote, and function within yourself,
2:42 Speaker 00 if it does not become conscious, you will naturally head downhill. This is just September 23rd. I completed 40 years of this work. So 40 years ago, I was a young man. One afternoon, when I had nothing much to do, somehow an hour and a half gap was there for me in the work. I was working like morning, 5:30 in the morning, 11:00 in the night, building various kinds of businesses around me. So when I got a break, there's a small hill. This hill is a place where we go and for the youth. When I was a kid, I cycled up this hill. We camped on this hill. We potted on this hill.
3:25 Speaker 00 If you want to test our motorcycles, we went up the hill. Just about anything you want to do, the youth, go to Chamundi Hill. This is the thing. I just walked up and sat on a rock. My eyes were still open. I thought it's just 10, 15, or 20 minutes. Suddenly, I started feeling every cell in my body literally dripping ecstasy.
3:52 Speaker 00 I thought this lasted fifteen, twenty minutes, but when I came back to my normal senses, four and a half hours had passed. For the first time in my adult life, tears, me and tears were simply impossible. Tears to a point, my shirt is all wet. Then I shake my skeptical mind and ask, “What the hell is happening to me?” All I knew was, I had hit a goldmine, and there was no context. Nobody around me could tell me what was happening with me. Nor did I know what was happening with me. This is something that most people will experience in their lives. On a certain day, when they are very happy, twenty-four hours feels like ten minutes. Another day, when you’re depressed,
4:35 Speaker 00 ten minutes will feel like twenty-four hours. Time is a very relative experience. When you’re so blissed out, what is two minutes, it’s eight hours, ten hours, just gone like that. So in about six to eight weeks, I came to some kind of stabilization within myself and started experimenting as to what is happening to me. Then I realized, if I keep a little distance from my physiological and psychological activity that’s going on, if I just remove myself a little bit, then within a few seconds or within a couple of minutes, every cell in my body is bursting with ecstasy.
5:19 Speaker 00 Now, this is not just my experience. Today, we have it measured out in Howard Medical School, how there is endocannabinoids are bursting out in people simply because they do a simple practice. So I made a plan, in two and a half years’ time, I will make the whole world blissed out. I knew the methodology. If you just keep a distance, it’ll happen. Forty years now.
5:48 Speaker 00 Today, people are saying we are touching over two billion people. Last year, our video views have been 3.5 billion. So, people think that's great. But no, that is less than half the population as far as I'm concerned. Because I started thinking I'll make the whole world blissed out. But people are committed to their miseries. Either because of their beliefs, or their ideologies, or their compulsive behavior within themselves. So, it needs to happen to the whole world. This is, I don't see this as a mission. I just see this as an expression of my humanity. Suppose you hear a good joke. Will you tell somebody who's dear to you? Or will you cover yourself with a blanket and tell yourself?
6:33 Steven Bartlett? Of course, I'd tell everybody.
6:34 Speaker 00 Yeah.
6:35 Steven Bartlett? Pretend it was mine.
6:35 Speaker 00 That's all I'm trying to do. No mission. My experience, I'm trying to just rub it off on people.
6:42 Steven Bartlett? Some stats for you that support what you said earlier. Someone dies by suicide in the UK every 90 minutes. Seventy-six percent of them are male. The single biggest cause of death for men under the age of 45 here in the UK is by suicide. You said you spent a lot, a lot of time around business people and they appear to be the most unhappy and least blissful people.
7:05 Speaker 00 No, I wouldn't say unhappy, stressed out.
7:07 Steven Bartlett? Stressed out. What is it that we're doing to them? Because I, I see myself, I must be in that category to some regard because I've focused most of my time on, you know, building businesses and, you know, I guess, to some extent, material things and success. So I must be part of that.
7:23 Speaker 00 See, that is a diversionary tactic, in the sense. See, you can think that survival means two meals a day. Or you can think survival means Bentley. So it'll keep you busy a little longer. Still survival process. As long as the survival, there's an instinct of survival and there is a longing to expand within the human being. So, for most human beings, these two things are mixed up. It is their instinct of survival which is finding expression as their longing to expand. See, it doesn't matter who you are, where you are, anybody. You want to be something more.
8:06 Speaker 00 If that something more happens, you want to be something more.
8:11 Speaker 00 You can go on like this, how much more? Whatever you want, if I make it true for you right now. Next moment, you will be thinking, what more? Suppose I make you the king of, not England, the planet. Don't look at me hopefully, I will not come with such a blunder. Suppose we make you the king of this planet, will you be fulfilled? No, you will look at the moon, you look at other planets, you look at the other galaxies. If I give you one galaxy, you will say, what about the other galaxy? Because there is something within a human being, which wants to expand limitlessly. Is that not a good thing? Is that not the reason why? I didn't say it's not good.
8:55 Speaker 00 I'm just saying, you have constipated that longing to expand, that's why you suffer. When I say constipated, right now, you want to expand limitlessly. Can you expand this body limitlessly? No. Please don't. Don't try. In the gym, I've tried. So, physical expansion is a limited expansion, and your longing is to expand limitlessly, because there is something within you which doesn't like boundaries. The moment, see, if I imprison you in a 5 by 5 cubicle, you will feel terribly imprisoned. Then tomorrow, I will announce your liberation, and release you into 10 by 10 cubicle.
9:38 Speaker 00 You will feel wonderful, for two days. Then you will feel horribly imprisoned. Then we will release you into 100 by 100 cubicle. You will be fine for a week, after that, you will feel miserable. Doesn't matter where I set the boundary. Once you feel the boundary, you want to break it. So, there is something intrinsic within you, which doesn't like boundaries. This is a consequence of the evolution that you've gone through. Once your cerebral cortex flowered, now you don't like boundaries. But, you're trying to expand in an infinite way, by counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
10:19 Speaker 00 Can you ever count one, two, three, four, five and one day say infinity?
10:23 Steven Bartlett? No.
10:24 Speaker 00 You'll only get into endless counting. That's all that's happening. That's why I said, your longing to expand is a limitless process. But right now, you're constipated. You're going one little step at a time. Constipation means just this, it happens little by little.
10:42 Steven Bartlett? So is it a case of trying to find a balance between your ambition to expand and to grow and be successful?
10:47 Speaker 00 No, no, no, no.
10:48 Steven Bartlett? And peace?
10:48 Speaker 00 Why should you find balance? You must expand.
10:52 Steven Bartlett? Okay, so that's what I'm doing?
10:53 Speaker 00 Yes, no. What is the means to become a boundless expansion? If you look at that, then we say consciousness. This is what raising human consciousness means. Because you realize, physical expansion is not a realistic thing. We can make physical arrangements as we want, as we need for our convenience and comfort. But that is not the way to expand. Expansion needs to happen in a way that is not physical in nature. Then, you can also own the universe. I can also own the universe.
11:27 Steven Bartlett? When I look at the way we're living our lives in the Western world, you talked about the WHO, they describe stress as an epidemic sometimes. And they say it's a major contributor to the diseases that we're undergoing.
11:40 Steven Bartlett? Where, I'm trying to figure out in my life where I'm going, if there's anywhere I'm going wrong. Because I'm building these businesses and I'm, you know, and I sometimes ask myself, to what end, you know?
11:53 Speaker 00 When you say, where am I going wrong? The wrong is this, the fundamental wrong is this. What is not you, if you think it's you, then you're trapped in that. If you think that I am this chair, because we sat on this chair for a period of time. If you think you are this chair, now this chair will go with you, stuck to your backside wherever you go. That's a very ugly thing to do, isn't it? It's the same thing right now. Your thought, you think it's you. Your emotion, you think it's you. Your physiological stuff, you think it's you. It's pretty ugly. Just because everybody's got this chair stuck to the backside, it looks like it's normal. After all, it's convenient.
12:38 Speaker 00 Wherever you go, you don't have to look for a chair. You've got a chair fixed.
12:41 Steven Bartlett? If I identify with all these things, if I identify with this chair, you're saying that that becomes a way to...
12:47 Speaker 00 That's all. The thing is, your identity, whatever you're identified with, that becomes a part of you.
12:53 Steven Bartlett? And is that what's causing us a lot of our despair?
12:55 Speaker 00 Yes. If you sit here just as life, what is your problem?
13:03 Steven Bartlett? I have no problem.
13:03 Speaker 00 As long as you're alive, everything is fine.
13:06 Steven Bartlett? Yeah.
13:08 Speaker 00 So the only problem is, you're identified with things that you're not. So a whole lot of confusion about everything. So if you're successful, you suffer. If you're failure, you suffer. If you're... See, look at the thing. Is there one thing that human beings are not suffering? Just tell me. Somebody is poor, they suffer their poverty. Somebody becomes rich, they suffer the taxes. No children, they suffer that. Give them children, everyday, pain, something or the other. So it looks like whole life is suffering. So somebody makes a philosophy, "Whole life is suffering. You must go to heaven." If you know that much, why are you not gone? You are not gone because you don't know a damn thing.
13:52 Speaker 00 Whether there is a place better than this somewhere or not, you don't know. You're just claiming these things to somehow fix your psychological sloshing that's happening inside. You're making up things to somehow believe something so that your psychology won't just splash all over the place and go crazy. You're trying to hold yourself in place, telling yourself fairy tales, all right? So what I'm saying is, do you believe that if you want to navigate your life through this time that we have in a sensible manner, the most important thing is to see life as is?
14:37 Speaker 00 As it is. If I don't see in this room, things as they are, I will walk into this table, I will bump into somebody, I will do crazy things every day. If I see very clearly, navigating myself through all these cables and tripods is not a big problem. Hello? But if I don't see, if there's no clarity of vision, if I'm not seeing things as they are, then what a mess it is, every little thing, that's all the problem. Problem is, not that what you're doing is wrong, the way you're seeing it is wrong.
15:15 Steven Bartlett? How do I, how do I know the way I'm seeing it is wrong? What is the evidence of that or the symptoms of that?
15:21 Speaker 00 Oh, as you're giving me the evidence from statistics, that's the evidence. So I am not like that. Obviously, you're here, I'm here, so both of us didn't commit suicide, so we are not in the statistic. That's not the point. You think those people who committed suicide, everything was wrong with their life? No. Not everything was wrong with their life. I have a few things, as it goes wrong in your life, my life, everybody's life, some things don't work. All right? In everybody's life, something doesn't work in the outside world. If everything is working for you, obviously, you're living a very petty life. In my life, ninety-five percent of the things that I want doesn't happen, only five percent happens.
16:06 Speaker 00 Because I'm trying to fix everything in the world, most of the things don't happen. So if anybody wants to die of frustration, it must be me, but I will not. Because no matter what, I will die blissed out. I live blissed out, I die blissed out. Because what I do, what the situation is around me and how I am are never connected. I am the way I am, I'll do my best.
16:33 Steven Bartlett? Has, has it required you to train yourself to sort of disattach from?
16:36 Speaker 00 It is, no, no, no. See, this is all because, see, the problem is, too much spiritual jargon is going all over the world because every idiot who's read two books can write a next book. If you read two books, there was a time when people read ten books and then wrote one book, that was called plagiarism. Now they read two books and they write the third book. See, your background is full of books. I hope you have not read all of them.
17:08 Steven Bartlett? I've only read two, and I'm writing one.
17:13 Speaker 00 Because just about everybody is writing. It's all right. It's freedom of expression. They can write what they want. But these are two things. There is expression and there is perception. Which should you invest in more?
17:31 Steven Bartlett? Perception.
17:33 Speaker 00 If you perceive well, your expression will be valuable. Right now, everybody's on an expression binge without perceiving a damn thing.
17:47 Steven Bartlett? There will be so many people that are going through stress at work, in their relationships, in their household, listening to this going, "How do I live blissed out like he does?" Like, what's step one in that staircase?
18:01 Speaker 00 I'll tell you. See, whatever you call it, you call it by whatever name you want, stress, anxiety, tension, depression, bipolar, this one, that one, many things. I was talking to some of the top psychiatrists in UK, and they told me there are 72 varieties of psychological ailments. I thought there may be half a dozen. But they said there are 72 varieties of psychological ailments. I was really surprised, 72, that's like a golf game, you know? Then I asked, "What are these?" They told me quite a few things.
18:43 Speaker 00 One of the things they told was compulsive nose picking. Even if they're bleeding in the nose, they can't stop it. That explains everything in a way. Compulsive nose picking. Leave the nose picking. It's compulsiveness. You're compulsive in your thought, compulsive in your emotion, compulsive in your actions. That's all the problem is. How do you fix compulsiveness? If this room is dark, how do you fix it? Let's do one thing. Both of us fight with this darkness and push it out of the window. There's no such thing. If you turn on the light, it's gone. So, there is no substitute for consciousness.
19:26 Speaker 00 If you become conscious, compulsive behavior is gone. Suppose you are in thought, emotion, action and energy, you are not compulsive, that you can create whatever thought you want, whatever emotion you want. Would you keep yourself blissed out or miserable? What's your choice? Blissed out. For yourself, every human being, for themselves, they want the highest level of pleasantness, so the intent is already there. You don't, I don't have to inspire them, be blissed out, there's no such philosophy. Every human being wants the highest level of pleasantness for themselves. Those who think it's hopeless here, they are the ones who created heaven. They said, "There is a place which is always pleasant."
20:12 Speaker 00 But they don't have any proof that we are all, we are not already in heaven and making a mess out of that. Hello, do you? Do you think this is heaven?
20:22 Speaker 00 This is planet Earth and it's a fantastic place, and it's the most fantastic place we have seen in the known universe. Do you think there's heaven though? Do you think there's somewhere else we go to, that is, another world after this one? Everybody who thinks there is one, they must go today.
20:38 Speaker 00 Hello? If they, if they have better accommodation somewhere than London, shouldn't they not go? Did people not rush to America at one time?
20:50 Speaker 00 Why are they not going? No, they want you to go. This is not good. It's true. See, whatever kind of mental ailment you talk about, essentially, when your intelligence turn against you, there is no power in the universe which can help you. But why is my intelligence turning, turning against me? Somewhere, we have not learned how to handle it, isn't it? Your education systems, your society, nowhere is there anything to teach a child how to handle their own intelligence, their own emotions, their own thoughts. There is no such thing. All fixing, mechanic shop, you know, repair jobs everywhere. Leave the repair jobs.
21:35 Speaker 00 The simple thing is this.
21:39 Speaker 00 The reason why people are struggling with this is they have,
21:44 Speaker 00 pardon my words, but otherwise people won't get it. They have a mental diarrhea. This doesn't create anything except distress.
21:54 Speaker 00 Anything that runs loose without your control is called diarrhea.
21:59 Speaker 00 Why has it happened? Even today, even if somebody gets physical diarrhea, immediately somebody will pop a pill. But traditionally, what did we do? Somebody has diarrhea, first thing is, we understood we have eaten something wrong. First thing we did was, just don't eat, just drink water and wait. And next, identify what did I eat yesterday or today morning? What happened to me? What is it that I consumed which caused this? And avoid that. But now, we will plug it in. No, if you plug it in, it'll all rise within yourself. This is all that's happening. Right now, our way of doing life is very forceful.
22:38 Steven Bartlett? When I had mental diarrhea last time, the last time I had mental diarrhea, that kind of overthinking causes anxiety, all those things.
22:45 Speaker 00 No, no, no, let me correct this. There is no overthinking. I am saying, people are not thinking enough. This is a serious problem. But they think they are overthinking. They are not overthinking. It's a diarrhea, it's happening. Why is it happening? Something wrong food has gone in. What is the wrong food? This is all it is. The moment you identify yourself with something that you are not, your mind, you cannot stop. Do what you want. Do whatever you want, it will not stop.
23:19 Steven Bartlett? So that anxiety that people experience, where they start remunerating about the future or something that's happened, that is because that they've...
23:27 Speaker 00 No, let me put it this way. This question, I understand what you're saying.
23:32 Speaker 00 See, what is it that human beings are suffering? What happened ten years ago, they're still suffering. What may happen day after tomorrow, they're already suffering. This is what you're saying. What happened ten years ago, is it here now? Does it exist? No. What may happen day after tomorrow, does it exist here? No. So if you're suffering something that does not exist, what does it mean? Tell me bluntly, if you're suffering something that doesn't exist here...
24:05 Steven Bartlett? Well, it's like insanity, but it feels like it exists.
24:07 Speaker 00 It is insanity. It is insanity. That's why I'm saying, once you start doing this, how far you go? When will you graduate? When will you end up in a doctor's place? When will you end up in asylum? It's a question of time. But now, world bodies are predicting it's going to happen large scale very soon.
24:27 Steven Bartlett? Let me give you an example. So if someone has a sick child or they just lost their job and they're thinking over and over again about, you know, "Oh my God, my child's gonna die. I'm gonna lose my job and then I can't feed myself. I'm gonna lose my house, then I'm gonna be on the street." That kind of remuneration and stress, that anxiety they experience on a day-to-day basis because they're scared of losing something which might, you know, they believe will end them up on the street or lose their job or they won't be able to feed their family, that kind of torment.
24:58 Speaker 00 Uh huh. I wouldn't want to put those two things in the same level, losing a child and losing a job. All right? Losing a child is a different thing. It's a completely different thing. Obviously, there will be a certain amount of pain in any human being. That's different. So let us say such a terrible thing we had to face, that we may lose our child.
25:25 Steven Bartlett? Uh huh.
25:26 Speaker 00 Tell me, can you do the best for the child if you are in your sanity? Or is it good to go into insanity?
25:37 Steven Bartlett? I feel like it takes a tremendous discipline.
25:40 Speaker 00 Now, what it takes, we'll see later, but I'm just asking a fundamental question.
25:44 Steven Bartlett? Okay, well, it makes more sense not to go into insanity.
25:46 Speaker 00 Yes, sanity will make a difference. Maybe we can save the child, maybe we cannot, because all aspects of life, we don't determine. Our experience, we can determine. See, what happens in the world around you, even if you're just two people in the family, never will it happen hundred percent your way. If you try, nobody will be around you. It's as simple as that.
26:16 Steven Bartlett? I've read your story, so I know that there's moments in your life where you've lost people that you loved.
26:22 Speaker 00 Lot of people, not one or two, because my family is so large, almost every other day, I am burying somebody who's very dear to me.
26:31 Steven Bartlett? Which one of those moments impacted you the most? And did any of them drive you into the insanity that we're talking about?
26:39 Speaker 00 No, I don't let anything drive me into insanity. This is a brief amount of time that you have as life. Here, we create many things. You're creating businesses, I have large movements where millions of people are involved, there are relationships. You cannot take these things lightly, because other lives are involved. But you cannot prevent anybody from dying. You can attend to them. If, if something is going to happen to them, you can make attempts to save them, but you cannot prevent anybody from absolutely dying, including yourself. This is a fact.
27:23 Speaker 00 So, the only two things that we have is a certain amount of time and a certain amount of energy. This is all that you call as life. What do you want to make out of it? You want to make a mess out of it. See, the thing is, first of all, they are living an emotionally constipated life. They only loved their child. I saw everybody as mine. Everything that happened hurts, but that's part of it. If you walk in a forest, there are thorns in your feet, but this doesn't mean you don't enjoy the forest, all right?
27:52 Steven Bartlett? You have moments of sadness.
27:56 Speaker 00 See, you're asking a very question which is hard for me to say because I have done this to myself, that nothing happens within me the way I don't want it. If that was your situation, nothing happens within you unconsciously. Everything that happens, happens the way you want, within yourself. What is the experience that you want to have right now is always determined by you. What would be your choice, grief and misery, is it?
28:30 Steven Bartlett? No.
28:31 Speaker 00 See, you are the only creature who can decide your way of being, no matter what is the surrounding. Every other creature is an instinctive reaction to what's happening around them because they are only fired by their survival instinct. They don't have any other aspiration. Once their stomach is full, their life is settled. For a human being, stomach empty, there's only one problem. Stomach full, 100 problems. Because life doesn't settle with survival. You want to be something else all the time. The problem is, you're a being, you're supposed to know how to be.
29:13 Speaker 00 How far away have human beings gone from the definition or that aspiration?
29:18 Steven Bartlett? So is that an incorrect question to ask then? Because I asked you if you've, you experienced sadness.
29:26 Speaker 00 If I want, do I do?
29:27 Steven Bartlett? If you want, you do, okay.
29:29 Speaker 00 I said it doesn't happen as, it doesn't happen by itself. If I want, I can be loving. If I want, I can be joyful. If I want, I can be sad. Yes, when somebody dear to you is no more, you allow yourself that. But do you stop doing anything? No.
29:51 Steven Bartlett? That sense of purpose you have, the most popular question that young people ask me is about passion and purpose. They've been indoctrinated by society to think that they have this one purpose, and their big issue is they can't seem to find it. So like an Easter egg, they're going in hunt of what's my purpose? How do I know once I've reached my purpose? For people that are working now in jobs, listening to this on their way on the tube to work, what is this subject of purpose and passion? What do I commit my life to? How do we go about answering that?
30:22 Speaker 00 See, if you get absolutely committed to your purpose, you will be called a fanatic. If you are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that, you will be called a terrorist.
30:36 Speaker 00 So there is no purpose to life. If you are not a vested interest, and you can be not a vested interest, only when you're joyful by your own nature, that how you are is determined by you. So this is the fundamental you have to set, that your experience of life is determined by you. When I say experience of life, people are always thinking experiences happen because of external stimuli. No, if you dream of a tiger, you can experience fear, isn't it? You can dream of somebody beautiful and experience love. Yes or no? So I'm saying all experiences come from within you.
31:20 Speaker 00 Human experience happens from within you, never from outside of you. There may be a stimuli. Now, this stimuli means just like this. You know, you're too young to know these things. There used to be wax all cars in this country. They always used to park it in a slope like this, because morning, you need two people to push that car in the morning, in 50s and 60s, I'm saying.
31:46 Speaker 00 Later on, they had crank start. You need one person to do that. Otherwise, you can't get your car started. Today, all cars are self-start. I'm asking you. Your peace, your joy, your love, your blissfulness, would you want to keep it on self-start or push-start?
32:07 Steven Bartlett? Self-start. I wouldn't want it to rely on anyone else.
32:09 Speaker 00 This is the question you're asking repeatedly. You want push-start. Don't be on push-start. Inner experiences are always in self-start. Outside world will never happen 100% our way. Little bit your way, little bit my way, little bit somebody else's way. And that's how it should be. Because if everything happened your way, where the hell do I go? It doesn't happen your way or my way. It's fine. It is only fine if you're joyful by your own nature. But if your happiness depends on what happens on the outside, then you being happy is a remote possibility.
32:48 Steven Bartlett? I want to be happy on my own nature. I hear what you've said. However, I'm gonna walk out of this room and I don't know, something's gonna annoy me. Maybe my words are even wrong, but then I'll immediately snap back into the sort of unconscious, I don't know, dismay or despair. How does one go about like the first step in becoming happy by our own nature?
33:15 Speaker 00 Do you think your life is worthwhile? Your life is worth investing about 32 hours of focused time upon it? Your life?
33:24 Steven Bartlett? Yes.
33:25 Speaker 00 If you think so, you should do that. This is what the process that I've called it as inner engineering. 32 hours of focused time. Book is just a large brochure, you know? Because there is a practice involved. When I say a practice, a simple practice, which only 21 minutes of practice. To teach this 21-minute practice, we take 32 hours of orientation. Because without that, it won't happen. You need to understand how the mechanism of your own thoughts, why are they hitting? If your hand is punching you in the face, why is it doing that? You need to understand. Otherwise, just holding it down is not the answer. This is the most sophisticated machine on the planet.
34:10 Speaker 00 Have you read the user's manual?
34:12 Steven Bartlett? The user's manual for my body?
34:14 Speaker 00 For yourself, as a life.
34:17 Steven Bartlett? No, I didn't know there was one.
34:19 Speaker 00 So, when do you want to do it? Towards the end of the life is when people think they should do it. It's like you got yourself your iPad. Should you read the user's manual in the first three days? Or after three years when you're getting rid of the machine?
34:32 Steven Bartlett? When I first get it.
34:33 Speaker 00 Yes.
34:34 Steven Bartlett? But nobody gives me the user's manual for myself.
34:36 Speaker 00 No, no, the thing is, it's inbuilt, you have to just pay attention.
34:40 Steven Bartlett? How do I do that?
34:41 Speaker 00 Say, we'll do one thing, right now, shall we do a simple experiment with you?
34:43 Steven Bartlett? Yes.
34:44 Speaker 00 You'll have to do this with your eyes closed.
34:46 Steven Bartlett? Okay.
34:47 Speaker 00 But right now, look at me.
34:48 Steven Bartlett? Okay.
34:49 Speaker 00 Afterwards, you can do. You, you place your palms like this, facing down, upon your thigh, gently placed. So, you will start breathing slightly deeper, ten, fifteen percent deeper than normal. Don't do it yet, hello. And as you're doing it, I will say, "Switch." Then you turn your hands around gently, upon your thigh, like this. And again, when I say, "Switch," get back this way.
35:12 Steven Bartlett? Okay.
35:12 Speaker 00 In these two conditions, something about your breath will change. I will also give you a clue what could be changing. Where the air is filling up in your lungs, how it fills up, something about it will change. Or let me put it this way, the maximum expansion and contraction, in which part of the chest is it happening? This way, which way, this way, which way, just notice that. Just hold your palms facing down, close your eyes.
35:37 Steven Bartlett? Okay, and when you say, "Switch," turn my hands over, right?
35:39 Speaker 00 Yes. Breathe slightly deeper, not very forcefully, just ten, fifteen percent more. Notice where the maximum expansion and contraction is happening. Switch. Switch again.
36:06 Speaker 00 Please open your eyes. There's some difference?
36:10 Steven Bartlett? Yeah.
36:11 Speaker 00 What is it?
36:14 Steven Bartlett? In what part? I feel, how I feel?
36:17 Speaker 00 No.
36:17 Steven Bartlett? Or my breathing?
36:17 Speaker 00 Where is the maximum expansion and contraction when you're holding two different postures?
36:23 Steven Bartlett? I felt like my chest and my belly were expanding more when I was switching. I felt like I was just getting more air into my body.
36:33 Speaker 00 Let me tell you what's happening. You can experiment by yourself and see. When you have your hands facing together, facing down with all fingers together, maximum expansion contraction is happening in the lower lobe of the lung.
36:45 Steven Bartlett? Yeah, yeah.
36:47 Speaker 00 If you turn it around, it shifts to the middle lobe of the lung. A middle lobe being much larger, you feel more, but actually it's the shift. So I'm saying, just by turning your hands around like this, the very way you breathe is altering itself. It's not just the breath. The very way your life energies function is altering itself. How many times in a day unconsciously are you...
37:15 Speaker 00 Now you're setting your energies into turmoil and hoping to be peaceful. It will not work and I'm happy it doesn't work because if it works for you by doing wild things and still everything is peaceful and wonderful within you, then what is the use of my life? Spending a whole lifetime paying attention to every little thing that's happening here? I'm saying, if you can drive blind on the London streets and not hit anything, a good driver will feel insulted, isn't it?
37:46 Speaker 00 That's all I'm saying.
37:48 Steven Bartlett? But how do we learn the user manual for ourselves though? So, you know, it's not something we go and read in a book.
37:54 Speaker 00 The problem is this, all your sense organs are outward bound.
38:02 Speaker 00 Because they are survival instruments. Your sense organs, your ability to see, hear, smell, taste and touch are essentially your survival instruments. Life cannot be enhanced by them. You can only survive better. If you see better than me, you can survive better than me. If you hear better than me, you can survive better than me. But this life will not feel enhanced by perceiving more through the five sense organs. And they are all outward bound. You can see me. Can you roll your eyeballs inward and scan yourself? No. You can hear that? So much happening in the body, can you hear that? No.
38:45 Speaker 00 So, all your sense organs are only to perceive what's happening around you, not to perceive what's within you. So, to perceive within you, you need to turn inward. That needs a little... Because it's not survival. Something has to be done. You know how to write English language? Yeah. Yes. To learn the damned 26 alphabets, it took some effort, isn't it? Hello? Yeah, it did. It took some effort. And it took some guidance. Because anything that's beyond survival needs striving. That striving is missing in the society. There was a time, there was a time where in the civilization that we refer to as Hindustan
39:27 Speaker 00 or Bharat or today being the political country is being called as India, in this culture, 70% of the people were invested in inward well-being. Because of that, they became super enhanced. Because of that enhancement, they became so wealthy in everything. Rich in mathematics, rich in astronomy, rich in business, rich in trade, rich in industry. It was the richest nation on the planet, just 300 years ago. See, everybody from here, whether it's English or French or Portuguese, everybody went to India. You think in search of poverty? In search of wealth, isn't it?
40:09 Speaker 00 It became like that effortlessly, without conquering anybody, without having large armies, because people invested in enhancing themselves. I am telling you, if you try to enhance your activity without enhancing yourself, you’ll only die of stress. This is what is happening to unfortunately, whole lot of CEOs. I am concerned about this, because a CEO means you gave something that is important, that needs to happen in the world, into his hands, his or her hands. And if they are stressed out, what misery will they create for the rest of the world? It’s very important.
40:48 Steven Bartlett? That journey to taking care of ourselves, like I had to learn how to read a book or to learn language.
40:55 Speaker 00 No, I am saying anything that’s not survival.
40:57 Steven Bartlett? Yeah.
40:58 Speaker 00 Will not come naturally, you have to strive. The society has to create that longing. Being peaceful and joyful is more important for a human being’s experience of life than me being better than you. That’s that orientation the society has to create, isn’t it?
41:16 Steven Bartlett? Hmm, I agree. I agree. It’s just seems... Seems like there’s such a powerful narrative coming from social media, magazines, TV, movies that are...
41:31 Speaker 00 Yes, yes, I am not denying that.
41:32 Steven Bartlett? Making us individualistic and...
41:34 Speaker 00 It’s not even individualistic. It’s always about me being better than you. It started from the kindergarten school. There itself, they told you, “I am first rank, you are third rank.” From there it started, “I am better than you.” So, the whole life is about being better than somebody means, essentially what it means is, “I enjoy your failures.” Does it sound like joy to you or sickness to you?
42:03 Steven Bartlett? It sounds like a sickness.
42:04 Speaker 00 It is a sickness. We’re building into our children right from day one.
42:09 Steven Bartlett? What about trauma? I was thinking about early trauma and how that drives us to be...
42:18 Steven Bartlett? Drives us away from a life of contemptment. It drives us towards, you know, a life where we might end up in prison or we might be dysfunctional in other ways because of something early that happened when we were seven years old. You know, it could be a small thing or a big trauma that has orientated us to be greedy or to be selfish or to be, in the worst case, maybe to hurt others.
42:39 Speaker 00 Essentially, you're finding an excuse for the way you are, which you yourself don't like. See, if something unpleasant happened to you, you have two choices. Either you can become wise or you can become wounded. Choose. More unpleasant things happen to you than anybody else. You must be the wisest man soonest. No, you choose to be wounded because you carry this wound like a badge and so that you can cause the same wound to others. What's the point? When you know the pain of it, how do you do the same thing to me?
43:22 Steven Bartlett? But it becomes a survival technique to somebody.
43:25 Speaker 00 No, see, there is no excuse. The thing is just this. Instead of intelligently, consciously responding to life, you are reacting like any other creature. That's all.
43:40 Steven Bartlett? So something bad happens to me when I'm seven years old and these neurons fire in my brain that make me react badly.
43:48 Speaker 00 This is all WhatsApp neurology. Whoever told you these things. Right now, we have a research center in Harvard Medical School in Beth Israel Hospital, okay? Right now, in October this month, on 17th to 21st, we have an international conference there. In these five, six years of its existence, they have done a lot of study. One thing they found was, I can't go into all the scientific things, I'm not a scientist, but one important thing is.
44:19 Speaker 00 This simple 21-minute practice I am talking about, people who did this for over six to eight weeks, the endocannabinoids in their system is 70% higher than what is considered to be normal. What is normal for a happy person, it's 70% higher than that. You know what's endocannabinoid? No. You know what's cannabis? Yeah. Yes. Every human being has cannabis receptors. This doesn't mean that this body was created to smoke cannabis. You're supposed to produce it. When you don't produce it, you try to substitute from outside. That's a different matter. Let me not go into that aspect. But 70% higher, what this means is,
45:02 Speaker 00 it is about 23% higher than what happens in sexual orgasm or extreme exercise. Simplicity in here. So if you felt like that every moment of your life, do I have to tell you, "Don't rob, don't kill, don't do this"? No, no. That's all you need to... We've not fixed that one thing. See, when you were a child, when you were five years of age, you was just bubbling with joy by your own nature, isn't it? Uh huh. Somebody had to work hard to make you unhappy at that time. But now, somebody has to work hard to make you happy. What happened to the equation?
45:45 Speaker 00 If you had really grown up, five years if you're that happy, by the time you're 31, you should have been ecstatic. Isn't it?
46:01 Steven Bartlett? People typically do feel more miserable as they age. They feel more stressed and more stubborn and more bitter.
46:06 Speaker 00 No, they're carrying more baggage, that's all.
46:09 Steven Bartlett? You said something earlier about, um, humans are the most intelligent species on Earth.
46:12 Speaker 00 Aren't we? You have a doubt about that?
46:15 Steven Bartlett? For now. Artificial intelligence, I wanted to ask you about this.
46:19 Speaker 00 No, artificial intelligence, we'll come to that. First, establish this. Artificial intelligence is created by human beings, isn't it?
46:29 Steven Bartlett? Yes.
46:29 Speaker 00 Then how did it become more intelligent than me?
46:34 Speaker 00 Read more books? No. See, everything, everything that's man-made here in this world came out of human intelligence. And it's still not a full expression of our intelligence. Still, there are many, many more things we can do. You are thinking, mind means, intelligence means just intellectual process. Because of that, you think the phone is smarter than you, because it has better memory and it has better computing process. So, all those who are on one-dimensional intelligence, which is intellect, which is a European problem, if you ask me. You are exited, but still you're European, you know?
47:17 Speaker 00 In culture. I know you've brexited, but...
47:22 Speaker 00 So, it's in Europe that suddenly human thought became very elogized. Why it became like this is, the dogmatic religious beliefs, which did not allow people to think for themselves. If you thought anything other than what's written in the book, you're dead. They made this for few centuries, so suddenly, when they broke away from that and started thinking for themselves, they suddenly thought, "This is liberation," and they elogized human thought, and we crafted the whole education system on the planet based on that. Today, you're just using one dimension of your intelligence, which is intellect.
48:02 Speaker 00 Thought process is thought to be everything. Where one of them went to the extent of saying, "I think, so I exist." What are the other dimensions of human intellect? Well, come, well come. I'm asking you, do you exist because you think, or because you exist, you think? Because I exist, I think. Yeah. You may think if you want, or you may not think. It's up to you. So, because you exist, your existence is important. Your existence, is it because you're seeing me that you exist? Even if you close your eyes, you still exist, isn't it? Yeah. If you don't hear anything, you still exist. So, your existence is fundamental. These are all activities of seeing, hearing, smelling, thinking, emoting. These are all activities of your existence, the life that you are.
48:48 Speaker 00 But we got it all upside down, and how do you expect it to work?
48:53 Speaker 00 Because, another aspect is, if I ask you a simple question, would you want your intellect to be sharp or blunt? What's your answer? Sharp. Sharp.
49:03 Speaker 00 If I give you a sharp instrument, let's say we give you a very sharp knife.
49:09 Speaker 00 Now, you must be very conscious, how you move your hand. If you are little la la la la kind, la la la la la, if you do intestines will come out. Yes or no?
49:19 Steven Bartlett? Yes.
49:21 Speaker 00 We don't give a knife to a child's hand only because of this, because his hand is not steady. Not because knife is dangerous. Never in the history has it ever happened, a knife jumped up and stabbed somebody. It never happened, believe me. I've been following the news.
49:39 Speaker 00 It is only the hand that wails it. It can cut a vegetable and make your meal, or it can do surgery and save somebody's life, or stab somebody and take their life. All these things the hand can do, not the knife. So right now, your intellect is a sharp instrument. Once you have a sharp instrument, you must know how to hold it. This is simply not there. Everybody's cutting themselves up and they think something is wrong with life. You can call this stress, anxiety, misery, whatever you want. Essentially, you have a sharp instrument and you're unconscious, so you're cutting yourself up.
50:17 Steven Bartlett? Well, that instrument, that sharp instrument, in a world where we're building machines that have the intelligence of a million people, and those machines can make decisions. So theoretically, the machine can now decide to send a missile at a country on its own because of...
50:36 Speaker 00 But if we had the intelligence, we wouldn't make a missile.
50:40 Steven Bartlett? Yeah, but we have. And this is what I'm concerned about, is I've sat here with all these AI experts and they're talking about the issue, they're telling me they're not going to be able to contain this artificial intelligence.
50:49 Speaker 00 Uh, see, let me tell you an example.
50:55 Speaker 00 I've spoken about this before, I don't know if I should repeat that, but let me say this to you. I remember this very clearly, it was 1972.
51:05 Speaker 00 You didn't exist.
51:08 Speaker 00 And for the first time, they installed a gantry in the port in Mumbai called the Mazagon docks. In the docks, they put up a gantry. Till then, as it was done everywhere in the world, maybe a little further back, there were labor who were going up into the ships and getting the sacks out and unloading. Those days, the largest vessels were about 125,000 to 150,000 tons. They would take 24 to 28 days to unload one vessel. So they installed a gantry. So all of them went on strike, a big strike, which paralyzed Mumbai city.
51:52 Speaker 00 At that time, it was Bombay. It got completely paralyzed because all the labor went on strike. I'm sure many such labor strikes have happened here. Every time a new machine was installed, people went on strike. Because their argument was, if you put this machine, this is going to unload a ship in one day. What are we supposed to do with our muscles? We got this muscle. Now what are we supposed to do? They went on strike. This is what now the professors, academics, all the intellectual people who only invested in their intellect are now saying, what are we supposed to do? The machine will do everything. It's fantastic, isn't it? All the machines are doing all the hard work for you.
52:32 Steven Bartlett? But when the machines can think, the machines could make a decision that they want to do things that aren't good.
52:41 Speaker 00 Only machines think.
52:42 Steven Bartlett? Do only machines think?
52:47 Speaker 00 Only machines think. Only if you've reduced yourself to become a mechanical thing, you're only thinking about life. Otherwise, there's a way of opening yourself up to life and experience the magic of life. Right now, you're trapped in the logic of life. When I say the logic of life, logic is the foundation. It's very, very important. But suppose in this building, we make you live in the foundations. Today, it's called basement, but it's actually a dungeon. We used to lock up people there, or animals, or something. If you want somebody to have a horrible life, you put them in the foundations. That's all I'm saying. If you live with the foundations of your life, which is your logic,
53:32 Speaker 00 you will live a bad life no matter where you are. Even if I put you up in a palace, you still suffer.
53:38 Steven Bartlett? Are you scared at all? Are you concerned at all? Humans have made nuclear bombs. Now, they've made this thing called artificial intelligence, which is accelerating. Are you concerned at all that it will get into the wrong hands and people who are stressed?
53:50 Speaker 00 No, artificial intelligence means at least the human error will be taken out. I'm happy about that.
53:56 Steven Bartlett? The human error?
53:57 Speaker 00 Yeah, there are so many idiots who can do anything. Half-brain people get to the top of the nation. They could do anything. At least artificial intelligence means there'll be a proper process before we launch anything.
54:10 Steven Bartlett? So you're happy about artificial intelligence?
54:12 Speaker 00 I'm happy about any development. Because essentially, how I see is, let me tell you my experience, first experience of an intelligent machine. I was probably 12, 13 years old. I was in my ninth standard. And I went to school only when I had to. Most of the time, I got lost on the way. But when I went, I thought, this was just an unnecessary nonsense in my life. So I spent most of the time in the library and barely went to the classroom.
54:40 Steven Bartlett? Like me.
54:43 Speaker 00 So, one day, somebody brought a flatbed calculator. Maybe you've not even seen one like that. You're all doing on the phone on iPad. Flatbed calculator is, most of it is flat, one little screen like this. We've never seen anything like this. So you say, you know, 185 into 365, tuk, answer is right there.
55:06 Speaker 00 I looked at it and I felt really insulted. Why the hell are they tormenting me in a mathematics class? When this machine is there, why can't they make one machine for chemistry? One machine for physics, one machine for every damn thing? I enjoyed swimming in the lakes. I've enjoyed sitting on the trees. I enjoyed loitering around all over the countryside. I learned my life like that. But this nonsense, why am I going through this when this silly machine can do this? At last, my dream is coming true. I'm very happy.
55:39 Speaker 00 Everything that human beings can do. See, this silly mentality, what will happen to our jobs? Why do you need a job? All you need is food to survive. Suppose everybody on the planet is fed. I know those guys, idiots, will become drunkards and drug addicts. That's a different matter. But if everybody is fed and you don't have to worry about your living, this is when human beings can do something absolutely fantastic. Right now, they're spending their life just to earn a living. When will they make a life out of themselves?
56:17 Steven Bartlett? What you said sounds almost identical to what the founder and the CEO of OpenAI, who made ChatGPT, which is leading the way at the moment, said literally yesterday in an interview he did. He said, if we can get people to a point where they don't have to worry about tedious jobs, then they can live these blissful lives.
56:38 Speaker 00 We'll do one thing. We'll remove all the earth-moving machines and everything. Give everybody a pickaxe and a crowbar and a spade. Let them all go back to the mines and construction everywhere. Let them start doing physically. Will they protest or no?
56:51 Steven Bartlett? They will protest.
56:52 Speaker 00 Ah, that's what will happen in 50 years' time. If you ask them to multiply, they'll protest. That's what I said the first moment I saw the calculator. I said, what? This is nonsense. Why am I doing all this when I can do tuk, tuk, tuk here?
57:08 Steven Bartlett? The counterargument to that is that people need a sense of like purpose, something to strive for.
57:14 Speaker 00 You need a false purpose to live because you have not even made an attempt to understand what this life is about, what its potential is about. You need a false purpose. You go and dig in the mine and it's your purpose. And then you produce two children. Putting bread on the table is a big purpose to your life. Silliest way to live for a human being.
57:34 Steven Bartlett? That's how most people live.
57:36 Speaker 00 Unfortunately, that's the kind of world we have created.
57:40 Steven Bartlett? And the world that if you could wave a one now and create a different world, which I know you're trying to do. In fact, you're you're building a a city in America, right? You're part of a project. This is why I find it so fascinating because I look at the way we've designed society and we're so it's so stubborn in the way we've designed it. I often wonder if we're going to have to go back to a blank canvas and redesign it again from the ground up.
58:07 Speaker 00 That's never going to happen. Where is a blank canvas? How do you create a blank canvas? That's never going to happen.
58:12 Steven Bartlett? The desert somewhere.
58:13 Speaker 00 You have to slowly see. The thing is, this happened. Can I tell you a joke?
58:18 Steven Bartlett? Please.
58:21 Speaker 00 One day, a cardiologist, a famous cardiologist, a doctor, went because he was driving an Aston Martin. It gives trouble, you know.
58:32 Speaker 00 He went to the garage. And the mechanic said, yes, doctor, leave the car here. Evening, I'll have it ready.
58:43 Speaker 00 The doctor took the taxi and went to the hospital and came back in the evening. The mechanic had not even touched it. Then I said, hey, why is it not ready? Oh, no, doc, this is this that. Tomorrow morning, I'll have it ready.
58:57 Speaker 00 Tomorrow morning, he came, car was not ready. Said, hey, what are you trying to do? Why is it that you're not? Then the mechanic said, huh. See, I fixed your engine. You pay me five hundred pounds.
59:14 Speaker 00 But you fix somebody's heart and they pay you fifty thousand pounds. Why is that? You fixing an engine, I'm fixing an engine.
59:23 Speaker 00 Doctor said, try to fix it when it's running.
59:28 Speaker 00 If you could demolish everything and rebuild, it's very easy. The thing is, you have to rebuild it when it's on. That is the whole challenge, isn't it? That goes for individual human being, that goes for the society, that goes for the world. We have to rebuild it when it's still functioning. After you demolish means, are you inviting a nuclear holocaust so that rayed tron, we can rebuild it?
59:52 Steven Bartlett? It's not a good idea.
59:54 Speaker 00 No, that's not what we want.
59:58 Steven Bartlett? And that's why the practice that you described matters?
1:00:01 Speaker 00 It doesn't matter, even if you're manning a nuclear bomb. Let's say it's your job to press the button, you are waiting there. If you are miserable, frustrated, depressed, even without a command you may press if it was in your hand. Sometimes it may happen. But if you're joyful, blissful, naturally you look at... See, this is something people don't understand. People think love brings them happiness. It's not true. If you're very joyful, you will look upon everything in a loving manner. Because what you call as joy, love, let me put it this way. If your body becomes pleasant, we call this health. You want it?
1:00:41 Steven Bartlett? Yes.
1:00:43 Speaker 00 If it becomes very pleasant, we call it pleasure. You want it?
1:00:47 Steven Bartlett? Yes.
1:00:49 Speaker 00 If your mind becomes pleasant, we call this peace. You want it? Only to create pleasantness in your surroundings, do you need the cooperation of various people and many forces around you. But to create pleasantness in your body, mind, emotion and energy is 100% your business. If you were the only person on this planet, would you know whether you're good or bad?
1:01:16 Steven Bartlett? I wouldn't know.
1:01:17 Speaker 00 So it is only by comparison that you know that you're good. But if you are the only person on this planet, if you were joyful, would you know you're joyful?
1:01:25 Steven Bartlett? Yes.
1:01:26 Speaker 00 That's important.
1:01:28 Steven Bartlett? So you're saying focus on joy and how we feel versus good or bad?
1:01:31 Speaker 00 No, I'm not saying focus on joy. I'm just saying, you understand this. Your interiority can happen 100% your way if you're willing.
1:01:43 Speaker 00 External things will not happen hundred percent our way. We have to strive. Some things happen our way. Many things don't happen our way. But internally, if you're happening your way, you will keep yourself very pleasant. When you're pleasant, we can expect pleasant things from you. When you're unpleasant, I expect pleasant things from you. Where is it going to happen? People, in the name of religion, in the name of love, in the name of caring, they have done terrible things, isn't it? Most horrendous things have been done.
1:02:21 Steven Bartlett? A question I've often asked myself is, am I... You talked about like fake purpose a second ago. How do I know if the... Because when you interview people and you say like, "What's your purpose or what's your mission?" They'll sit here and they'll give me lots of things, right? Some of them might be, "I want to help people..."
1:02:38 Speaker 00 No, I'm just fooling around. I have no mission.
1:02:41 Steven Bartlett? No, not you. I'm saying, you ask a kid on the street, "What's your mission?" Younger kids these days will say they want to save the world or they want to be a public speaker or they want to be a YouTuber. Do you view those as fake ambitions from confused people?
1:02:56 Speaker 00 I did not say fake ambitions. The thing is, you're making up a purpose to bring some meaning to your life.
1:03:05 Steven Bartlett? Yeah.
1:03:06 Speaker 00 What you need to understand is, life is a phenomena beyond all meanings. Meanings is an element of your mind. Only human mind needs meanings. Sun comes up in the morning, doesn't need a meaning. Full moon, out there, doesn't need a meaning. Tide, doesn't need a meaning. Only place where you need a meaning is your head. Your mind needs a meaning. Why? Have you seen this? You've been at some point, at least for moments, you've been very joyful, blissed out. You've been... At that time, do you ask what is the meaning of life?
1:03:46 Steven Bartlett? No.
1:03:46 Speaker 00 No, only when you're miserable, it's important. So you create one problem, and then you create another problem and another problem, and you think it's a solution? No, meaning is a serious problem. Meaning has become meaningful for somebody only because they're in some way distressed. The process of life and the experience of life has become burdensome. Why am I carrying this? I want a meaning for the burden that I'm bearing. If life was a blissful process, why would you care what is the meaning?
1:04:18 Steven Bartlett? So when people, people must ask you all the time, what's the meaning of life? And you must then, does that suggest that they are absent of bliss?
1:04:28 Speaker 00 See, this meaning problem is a very Western problem. In the Eastern world, we don't ask for meaning. We are always looking for profoundness of life.
1:04:38 Steven Bartlett? What's the difference?
1:04:39 Speaker 00 The difference is digging deeper into yourself and creating something around your head are two different things.
1:04:47 Steven Bartlett? Meaning is, so meaning is looking outside for a reason?
1:04:51 Speaker 00 Outside or inside, doesn't matter. But you're trying to build a psychological solution to an existential reality.
1:04:59 Steven Bartlett? And you have to accept that existential reality?
1:05:03 Speaker 00 The existential reality is you don't know where the hell you came from.
1:05:08 Steven Bartlett? And I don't know where I'm going.
1:05:09 Speaker 00 And you don't know where you're going. You're just here for a brief amount of time. And you think you are the center of the world. That means you must be very religious, because it's the religious people who went on propagating that this planet is the center of the universe. Though in India, for over 6,000 years, people have known planet is round and it goes around the sun. Clearly, there are drawings and there are books, there are documents which clearly say that. But people who are following dogmatic religious processes, they propagated that this is the center of the universe. Now, will they say, we said what is wrong and apologize for that?
1:05:51 Speaker 00 No, because when I think I am the center of the universe, I will be doing so many idiotic things.
1:06:00 Speaker 00 You must apologize if you are the one who taught me that nonsense.
1:06:05 Speaker 00 So life doesn't have a birth given meaning? This happened, there was a bishop in Istanbul, at that time it was Constantinople. You know, I'm, I mean, I'm not trying to insult any community, but this actually happened, so I'm quoting the thing. In 1924, this bishop was part of the Greek Orthodox Church, very Orthodox Church, and he's a bishop. So all his life, he's a man of cloth, he was there. But being in Istanbul, you know, all these exotic stories come wafting across the Bosphorus from India about the mystics, about the yogis, about many, many things.
1:06:49 Speaker 00 India is full of stories like this. And for ages, these things have been coming and excited people to travel to the east, all this stuff. So he always wanted to go to India and meet a real yogi or a mystic. But being a man of cloth, he couldn't decide where he goes and doesn't go. When he was over sixty years of age, he got an opportunity to go to India. He went to southern India and found a good guide who could guide him. And the guide took him and said, “See, on this particular mountain, if you go this way, this way, this way,” he gave all the landmarks, “if you go there, there is a cave, there there is a yogi, that is the man you're looking for.” So our bishop went all the way up.
1:07:33 Speaker 00 Mountains are not kind to people who lived in churches or indoors, you know? They don't care who you are, they trouble you. So with great difficulty, he went up. When he went to that place, just outside the cave, a yogi was sitting totally blissed out with his eyes closed. So the bishop had heard that if you see a yogi, you must prostrate before him. So he went down, and he was not fit for those kind of postures, but with great difficulty he went down, huffing, puffing, he stood up again. Hearing all the commotion, the yogi opened his eyes and smiled. Then the bishop asked, “Can I ask you a question?” This is the first introduction. The yogi laughed and said, “Well, by all means, you can ask a question.”
1:08:20 Speaker 00 Then the bishop asked, “What is life?” See, as a human being, you have the intelligence to ask this question when you are eight years of age. Well, in your childishness, you missed it. At least when you are 16, you should have asked. Definitely, you have the intelligence to ask that question. But now you are well over 60. Now you are asking, “What is life?” But it’s okay, it’s better late than never, you know? So, when he said that, Yogi went into raptures. “Ah, ah, life, life is like the fragrance of jasmine, you know, upon the gentle spring breeze.”
1:09:05 Speaker 00 The bishop said, “What? Fragrance of jasmine upon gentle spring breeze? My teacher told me, ‘Life is like a thorn. Once it gets into you, if you sit, it hurts; if you stand, it hurts; if you lie down, it hurts.’ And you are saying, ‘It is like the fragrance of jasmine upon gentle spring breeze.’ Then the yogi laughed and said, “Well, that’s his life. You must understand, your experience of life is determined by you. It’s your choice.”
1:09:41 Steven Bartlett? The last thing I wanted to ask you about is a campaign you’ve recently been putting a lot of effort into, which is the Save Soil campaign. I want to know why you are doing that and why that message and campaign is so important for all of us.
1:09:54 Speaker 00 One important element of why human beings will become mentally ill, in the next 15 to 20 years, lot of people are estimating there may not be a single family left without one mentally ill person at least. That’s what they are saying. So, this mental illness, why?
1:10:15 Speaker 00 See, one thing is, in the last hundred years of industrial level of agriculture, one thing that's happened is, we are only seeing soil as a resource. Soil is not a resource, it's your source. It is the source of your life. It is the largest living substance or system on the planet. If you take a handful of soil, it has eight to ten billion organisms in it. It is the most intense life and the largest living system, not just on the planet, in the known universe. It is the largest living system. But still, over eighty percent of the nations are treating soil as a resource, which they think they can fix it by adding a chemical or take away a chemical. Let me come to this very quickly. What is the problem?
1:11:00 Speaker 00 See, if today, all the insects disappear from this planet, in another two and a half to four years, all life on this planet, including you and me and plant life, everything will be gone. Insects go away. If all the worms go away today, in the next one and a half to two years or two and a half years, all life on this planet will be extinct. If all the microbes go away, we, both of us disappear within the next few seconds. This is the reality. They are the foundational life. We are the cherry on the cake. Right now, average loss of microbial life is like this.
1:11:42 Speaker 00 Twenty-seven thousand species of organisms are going extinct per year. Twenty-seven thousand species are going extinct per year. At this rate, it's estimated, in the next twenty-five to forty years, we will come to a place where it will be very difficult for human beings to find basic nourishment on the planet. First thing that will collapse is your software. That's what you're seeing in terms of psychological ailments. That's not the only reason. All those things are there, but the most important thing is, lack of nourishment. Just to give you a perspective... Some studies have been done in California. What they are saying is, in 1920, if you ate one orange,
1:12:26 Speaker 00 what nutrients you got from that? If you want that today, you need to eat eight oranges. Has there been a day when you ate eight oranges in a day? No, this goes for everything else. You are eating empty food, which doesn't have richness. Just look at the Google map. Don't go by what I say. Just look at the Google map of the world. How many green patches? How many brown patches?
1:12:52 Speaker 00 It is terrifying.
1:12:56 Steven Bartlett? We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're going to leave the question for.
1:13:02 Speaker 00 Who was that guy?
1:13:03 Steven Bartlett? I can't tell you.
1:13:06 Steven Bartlett? That question to you, not knowing who it was for, they didn't know it was for you, is, what in your heart of hearts matters to you?
1:13:18 Speaker 00 I have only one heart. That also I gave away a long time ago.
1:13:24 Speaker 00 Heart of hearts. I don't have all those things. I broke my heart into a million pieces and threw it away in the world.
1:13:33 Speaker 00 I live not because of my values. I live not because of my morality. I live not because of some commandments from somewhere. I live out of my humanity.
1:13:45 Steven Bartlett? Thank you.
Previous Jada Pinkett Smith (EXCLUSIVE): “I just wanted to stay ALIVE until 4pm!”, “Me & Will Are NOT Together”, “Tupac Kissed Me TWICE!” Next Moment 132: Triple Your Life Expectancy With These 3 Health Hacks! (Verified By Dana White): Gary Brecka Page updated October 7, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
