Death: A Yogi's Guide to Living, Dying and Beyond — Sadhguru

Well, he is a spiritual teacher, a global philanthropist, and the best-selling author who's known for challenging how we think about life. We have engineered the outside world in so many ways. But we have done nothing about this one. If you want to know well-being, in is the only way out. Ahead of his tour at Dolby Theater tonight, Sagguru here to talk with us about his latest book, Death, a yogi's guide to living, dying, and beyond. Welcome to you. Thank you so much for being with us. We're honored to have you. Yes. Um, interestingly enough, we were just talking about death. It was a story we were discussing earlier and we all had the same reaction to the thought of death which makes us feel uncomfortable and morbid and and it's interesting that your topic is about death. What inspired you to touch on this topic and why is it a topic that people should become more comfortable with? Have you found anybody who does not die? No. There are people who educate. There are people who don't educate. There are people who marry. There are people who don't marry. There are people who party and there people who don't party. Almost everything that you do in your life, some people may not be doing it. But have you found anybody who does not die? No. So this book this book is only for those who shall die. So the most fundamental aspect of our existence here is our mortality. Mhm. Everything that we are right now, every breath that we take, every experience that we go through is only valuable because we are on a limited lease of time. Yes. If you're here forever, what is the value of you and me sitting here and talking about something or anything for that matter? It's only because it's a limited lease of time. Life is a combination of time and energy and both are limited. Time rolls ruthlessly for all of us at the same pace. Whether you like it, you don't like it. Nobody has breaks on it. Look, you can't slow down your time or rewind your time. No such thing. It's rolling away. But energies are in our hands. If we bring it into our capabilities, then we can ride the cycles of time. If you ride the cycles of time, life will become like a beautiful dance. Otherwise, you'll be crushed by the same cycles of time. So, life and death are not two separate things. As we are here right now, I can say I'm living. But I'm also dying. I'm in time. Mhm. It's just that we're trying to kick the can a bit. Yeah. Hello. As as far as we can. As far as we can. We're only negotiating little more time. Nobody is negotiating life or death. We are only negotiating little more time. We want to see that it runs a full course. But death is right now happening to all of us. We can call this living or we can call this dying. It's the same thing. But this morbid fear that people have created towards it makes us so unrealistic in the way we handle our lives. If you knew that your time is limited every moment if you know you have a limited amount of time, would you do something that you don't care for? Wow. I would do everything differently when you think of it that way. We often say things like treat today as if it were your last day. But most of us don't do that because we're caught up in the everyday cycle and the grind of life. If you see these are you're trying to make a philosophy out of a fact. The fact is all of us die. Is this the last day? Hope it is not so. Hello. Sure. Hope it is not so. We don't want it to be so but it could be so. That is always there. So you try to make a philosophy. This will make you pacifist. Oh, if this is the last day, what do I do? What is the point of planning? What is the point of building? What is the point of working for this? What is the point of fighting for this? Nothing is worthwhile. Don't make a philosophy of it. It's a fact. We have a limited amount of time. If you are aware of this, if you're conscious of this, you will not do anything that does not truly matter to you. If you, me, and everybody here is doing what genuinely matters to us. We are beautiful and the world is beautiful. M you've spent over four decades helping people navigate mental health and you're hearing about mental health more and more for our city for Angelinos that are overwhelmed by stress burnout. You've been here the traffic can be intense every day too. Where can they begin with a small step to just take a little time out of their day to just take a beat? So first of all uh you think you must be stressed and then you must calm yourself. Mhm. What stress means is your internal mechanism both psychological and physiological doesn't have enough lubrication is friction. Internal friction is stress. Essentially whether you call it stress, anxiety, depression, this that there are 72 names for different kinds of mental struggles. Mhm. Essentially, you have turned your intelligence against yourself. If your intelligence was working for you, if your thoughts and emotions happen the way you want right now, would you keep yourself blissful or uh stressful? Blissful. Blissful. Of course. Why is that not happening? You're right. We have So, simply because you you have the most sophisticated gadget on the planet. Human mechanism is the most sophisticated instrument on the planet. Do you agree with me? Yeah, absolutely. Have you read the users manual? I wish there was one. Right. There is one. It's just that without understanding the fundamentals of how this works, we are trying to blunder through life and everything seems to be stressful. Tell me one thing that people are not stressed about. Ooh, not stressed. Not stressed. You said traffic question. Traffic stress. Traffic. Traffic means what? Most of you are driving your dream cars. So if you get to stay there for a little longer, what's your problem? You must be enjoying it. So it's just a point of view shifting your mind. It is not about a point of view. I'm just saying suppose your hand is out of control and these two fingers want to poke your eyeballs. Is it normal? No. No. So if your own thoughts and emotions continuously poke you from inside, is it normal? No. But you're making it normal. That's the biggest mistake. It's not normal to be anxious. It's not normal to be stressed. It is just that when majority of the people join in one gang. See, if all of us are smoking, it's normal to be smoking. She doesn't smoke, she's no good. Hello. Mhm. Yes or no? Yeah. So, everybody's stressing. So, that's normal. People ask me, sguru, what do you do to unwind yourself? I said, I don't wind myself up. I can see why you are very popular amongst the celebrities. And you know what's exciting is that your event at the Dolby, the home of the Oscars, which is very, you know, as an entertainment reporter, that's very exciting for me. But tell me about getting those celebrity endorsements as well. I mean, for every anyone, it's means a lot. But Tom Brady Matthew McConn Matthew look at this is a list. The what I'm saying is uh I don't categorize human beings as this and that. I spend a whole lot of time in rural India with tribal women who have no education who have no not even a cell phone. Mhm. Right. A lot of time 70% of our activities in rural spaces. And I I at one time I was doing this personally but now our teachers are doing our programs are mandatory in all the prisons in southern India and we also did in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and uh yes and Tennessee also a little bit why this is is this is called as enough pre freedom for imprisonment. People say sguru why are you spending so much time with these criminals when we are all waiting and we can't see you see I don't see any criminal I don't see any celebrity I don't see this and that I just see human beings in variety of sufferings some have created external situations which are unpleasant for themselves some are in war zones some are in famine zones some are in well-being and suffering those who are in war zones outside situations are threatening their life moment to moment famine, enormous suffering, children are dying in front of them. Mhm. People who are in well-being, people who had good breakfast and came, their suffering means it's their own doing, isn't it? So, see, if something is poking you from outside, we need to deal with it differently. If you are poking yourself from inside, uh you need to look at this because this is a very cruel joke on all the people who are not doing well. Hello. Yeah. Because to bring an individual person or uh a society from poverty to affluence is a humongous task takes generations of work and ecologically it's super expensive right but after doing all that you are miserable you are a crime so about celebrities I don't see them as something different they're human beings what everybody's aspiring some people have made it Right? So you value their success. Of course you should recognize their success. But the important thing is they have reach and they want to use that reach in a responsible manner to impact the world which is very important because we must understand many many great beings have come on this planet. Yes. You can name a few one that you all of you would be familiar with Jesus. How many people could he speak to in his time? 12 people out of that one of them freaks on him. All right. Right. His apostle. Yeah. And there you you go back and see Gautam Buddha. How many did he speak to? A few hundred. Mhm. You talk to talk about Krishna, a very glorious being. Only one person he spoke to. All right. This is the first time you can sit here and talk to the entire world. Mhm. When you have such a competence, such a capability, if you do not transform human societies, it simply means we don't have enough love in our hearts. I don't want to be that one. That's all. So last, I'm not saying this to brag, but I'm just telling you what is possible today. 2024, our video reach is 5.23 billion B. Wow. So this is not about me. This is the day. This is the times in which we are living. Wow. If a Buddha was here, he would have done the same thing. If a Jesus was here, probably would have reached more people. Only thing is their times were such if they speak, hardly 10 people heard them. Right? We are at a time when we can address the whole humanity. This is the time in this transformation of the individual human being. One of the most important thing is to address the mortal nature of who we are. Because if we do not understand and if we are not conscious we may understand but we are not conscious as we sit here the number of breaths that we are taking is not unlimited. It's going to get over. We can do exercise we can do yoga. We can improve this and push it a little bit but it's not for good. When we know this we would organize ourselves. We would become far more sensitive and tender to life around us. If, as I said earlier, if all of us were doing what truly matters, this would be a wonderful world. Let's make it happen. Yeah. Speaking of your reach, we're seeing the video of you talking to so many people and getting the word out there. You have also a a free meditation app for people to do that work for themselves. Yes. It took us over two two and a half years to put this meditation together, this app together rather. It's an intelligent app which does its own things. This is a 7 minute effort that you can do about yourself. 7 minutes a day. If you dedicate for your mental well-being, it will make a difference. There are already a few million people doing this uh just to uh just to inspire people. I'm saying in the first 15 hours over a million people downloaded this. So you know that much hunger is there. Yes. that much hunger is there because mental health is no more an individual problem. It is becoming a global issue. Yes. The number of people who are losing mental faculties or balance is a pandemic level. Actually the United Nations is describing it as a pandemic. Wow. So this effort is to see at least in the next 24 months we want to see at least 3 billion people invest 7 minutes. The fundamental goal of this is this. See in uh 1866 some survey shows over 50% of the American population did not have teeth by the time they crossed 45 years of age because they did not brush their teeth right okay in the wild west you think they were shooting guns but they were not brushing teeth all right so it took our mothers to tell us you must brush your teeth no brushing no breakfast whatever in their own way they insisted we must brush till we realize the significance of it. If nobody told us we would be in the same condition early on somebody told us. So similarly I want to see a simple aspect of meditation yogic processes should not be in the hands of a guru or an institution or an administration. It must be in families. It must pass on from generation to generation as brushing teeth happens just like that. Everybody should know some simple thing to address their own mental well-being. So this is the effort of miracle of mind to bring this to every family on the planet so that it is transmitted by them and if they're afraid they may do it wrongly. That is why the videos are there. The app is there. They can just use it. It's a free app. Resources. It uh it costes a lot of resource but we are offering it free because this is a commitment we have. We want to touch three billion people or three billion families which will transmit this by themselves for generations to come. It's very very important. Well download that app and also you can catch Sadguru at the Dolby Theater tonight at 7:30. And of course pick up the book Death A Yogi's Guide to Living Dying and Beyond uh at your favorite bookstore or we just found out it's on Audible as well. You can download it and listen to it. And it's your voice. It's your extra special. Um, thank you so much for coming. We really appreciate it. So much wisdom. Thank you for sharing that with us. And hey, Saturday is International Yoga Day, you guys. So, go out there. Work on that mental health and the body and the mind and the spirit. We'll be right back. Are we done? Almost. Almost.