Speaker 1: Welcome to Go ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio hi em Eli Wentworth,
Speaker 1: And you're listening to Go ask Ali for this season,
Speaker 1: I'm asking how do you grow a healthy relationship with
Speaker 1: a loved one with an aging parent? And yes, your
Speaker 1: yoga instructor counts to In this episode, we're going inward.
Speaker 1: That's a sentence I never thought I would here come
Speaker 1: out of my mouth, but we're going inward to explore
Speaker 1: spirituality and more specifically karma. My guest today is Yogi,
Speaker 1: mystic and internationally renowned speaker, Said Guru, named one of
Speaker 1: India's fifty most Influential People. Said Guru's work has touched
Speaker 1: the lives of millions worldwide through his transformational programs. Said
Speaker 1: grew was the author of the New York Times bestseller
Speaker 1: Inner Engineering, A Yogi's Guide to Joy. He has been
Speaker 1: an influential voice at leading educational institutions as well as
Speaker 1: major global forums, including the United Nations and the World
Speaker 1: Economic Forum, addressing issues as diverse as socio economic development, leadership,
Speaker 1: and spirituality. Saiguru's new book, Karma, Yogi's Guy to Crafting
Speaker 1: Her Destiny, is out now. So, first of all, said, Guru,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining me and your new book, Karma
Speaker 1: Yogi's Guide to Crafting Your Destiny is fascinating and dnse
Speaker 1: and for the sake of this podcast, I'd like to
Speaker 1: kind of focus on the basics of karma because you're
Speaker 1: going to find that when you're talking to me, I
Speaker 1: am like a baby when it comes to this. This
Speaker 1: is it's all new. I grew up in an Episcopalian house,
Speaker 1: so I was taught good and bad and God watches
Speaker 1: over you. So this is a whole, a whole new
Speaker 1: thing for me to explore with you. And I think,
Speaker 1: particularly now sort of towards the end of this pandemic,
Speaker 1: people really need to change their lives. They need to
Speaker 1: focus on self transformation. So I think this is incredibly
Speaker 1: pertinent for the time we're living in. So let's start
Speaker 1: with karma. Because when I received your book Karma, I thought, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I know what karma is. Karma is a moral structure.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard this a million times from people
Speaker 1: that karma, you know, most people think is oh, if
Speaker 1: you do something bad, you'll be punished for it. If
Speaker 1: I mean to this person, karma will be that somehow,
Speaker 1: that meanness will come back and get me. Isn't that
Speaker 1: what you hear over and over that people think karma
Speaker 1: is Yes, largely, particularly in this part of the world,
Speaker 1: people understand this as a reward and punishment system, because
Speaker 1: this whole psyche comes from the basis of bad people
Speaker 1: will be sent to hell, good people will go to heaven,
Speaker 1: and here good only pleasant things happened. They're only unpleasant
Speaker 1: things happen. But now that you know, let me address
Speaker 1: this pandemic first, because you brought that fourth right now.
Speaker 1: The world is really under that, particularly India is really
Speaker 1: being battered right now. Unfortunately we went through the first
Speaker 1: way pretty well, but the second one is really beyond
Speaker 1: what anybody estimated. And every day ten to twelve people
Speaker 1: that I know are dying every day. It's just like that.
Speaker 1: And why is that? Is it people not being vaccinated
Speaker 1: fast enough. We have vaccinated nearly hann't fifty million people,
Speaker 1: but we are one point four billion people. And in
Speaker 1: this there are campaigns running on social media who are
Speaker 1: anti wax, who say somebody is making money. Of course,
Speaker 1: somebody is making money. Whatever happens, somebody makes money. And
Speaker 1: that's why the world keeps running. I'm not for against that,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying, in this calamity that's happening to us,
Speaker 1: we are a calamity ourselves that we work against ourselves.
Speaker 1: We kind of put impediments all kinds of things. That
Speaker 1: are religious meetings, there are political meetings. There are people
Speaker 1: who want to have a party, no matter what you
Speaker 1: tell them. Probably it's more rigidly enforced in India than
Speaker 1: anywhere else, more forcefully enforced. In spite of that, But
Speaker 1: I think what we underestimated was this particular variant. Last
Speaker 1: time we handled it pretty well, so we thought, one
Speaker 1: more way, what's the problem. But this particular variant is
Speaker 1: like really taking life in a big way and anyway
Speaker 1: for coming to karma from that, the inner way, what
Speaker 1: we call its karma is just largely not only largely
Speaker 1: unconscious software that you write for yourself. Whatever you wrote unconsciously,
Speaker 1: if you're willing, you can write or rewrite consciously, isn't
Speaker 1: it From the childhood you said, a certain kind of upbringing.
Speaker 1: This is one thing that you hear largely only in
Speaker 1: the West, not in the East at all. If you
Speaker 1: talk to anybody, people will say I was raised this way,
Speaker 1: you should not raise a human being. You raise cattle,
Speaker 1: you raise sheep, You don't raise human beings. A human
Speaker 1: being has to be nurtured because each one is a
Speaker 1: different possibility. It's not a heard that you're raising. If
Speaker 1: you I heard that you have two children, you know
Speaker 1: how different they are, same genetics, same food, probably same school.
Speaker 1: But you know how different they are completely different, completely different.
Speaker 1: You cannot raise both of them in the same incubator.
Speaker 1: M hm it is I'm saying that they are individuals.
Speaker 1: You have to nurture them to their fullest possibilities that
Speaker 1: they are. So this is the nature of the human being.
Speaker 1: All this kerma business comes into an impactful play only
Speaker 1: because human life is not as structured as the life
Speaker 1: of other creatures. For example, if you look at all
Speaker 1: the other creatures on this planet, they're life of who
Speaker 1: they are is fixed by nature. Ten percent latitude to
Speaker 1: express their individual natures is available. But for the human being,
Speaker 1: only ten percent is fixed. Is left in your hands.
Speaker 1: This is karma. If you perform this karma consciously, you
Speaker 1: will craft your destiny. If you perform this karma unconsciously,
Speaker 1: then you will live accidentally and you think somebody is
Speaker 1: hitting you from the skies. For example, from the moment
Speaker 1: you woke up to your body has been doing activity,
Speaker 1: which is karma. Your mind is doing its own activity karma.
Speaker 1: Your emotions are doing their own stuff that is karma.
Speaker 1: Your life energies are doing its own thing that is
Speaker 1: also karma. Four dimensions of karma are happening to you
Speaker 1: every moment of your life, both in sleep and wakefulness.
Speaker 1: It's happening. But from in these last six seven hours
Speaker 1: of wakefulness, how much of that karma have you performed consciously?
Speaker 1: If you look at this, for almost every human being
Speaker 1: on the planet, it's well below one percent. What this
Speaker 1: means is it becomes accidental. Once life process becomes accidental,
Speaker 1: anxiety is normal, fear is normal. Graduating into terror is
Speaker 1: not far away. So this is how the world has become.
Speaker 1: And everybody is now writing philosophies how anxiety is normal,
Speaker 1: How fearfulness is normal? It is not normal. You're living accidentally,
Speaker 1: so it seems to be normal. When you live accidentally,
Speaker 1: everything will be fearful and anxious. Well, let me ask
Speaker 1: you a question. What if I'm writing a bike and
Speaker 1: my eyes are open and somebody crashes into me. How
Speaker 1: how is that my karma or their karma? That is
Speaker 1: the karma that is a bad karma of choosing to
Speaker 1: live in New York City. Well, then it's bad karma
Speaker 1: that I married my husband who has a job. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that. The first of all, karma is
Speaker 1: neither good nor bad. It is just the residual impact
Speaker 1: of the actions that we have performed. We must understand
Speaker 1: what happens to us in the world, whether somebody crashes
Speaker 1: into us, as somebody does wonderful things to us, it
Speaker 1: is not all ours. There is a social and global
Speaker 1: karma happening. Or in other words, what happens in your life,
Speaker 1: in the surroundings of your life is not yours, but
Speaker 1: how you experience it is yours. One should determine how
Speaker 1: you experience this totally in your hands. Then you will
Speaker 1: see your ability to determine what's happening around you is
Speaker 1: significantly enhanced. So explain you talk about it in your book.
Speaker 1: So basically, my karma is my complex domain, yes, meaning
Speaker 1: it's all consuming, it's all encompassing. When it comes to
Speaker 1: my life, karma means on one level, it is just memory.
Speaker 1: Let's say you buy a new computer which has all
Speaker 1: the mechanicals, you know, the hardware of it. Everything is there,
Speaker 1: but there is no software, so it is no good.
Speaker 1: It's just a stone tablet as good as that. So
Speaker 1: it's only by putting software it starts coming alive in
Speaker 1: so many different ways. It is able to do things
Speaker 1: that you cannot imagine. So how did this happen? Just
Speaker 1: accumulation of memory. That is the same truth with you. Also,
Speaker 1: it is accumulation of memory. When I say memory, there
Speaker 1: is evolutionary memory within you. There is genetic memory within you.
Speaker 1: There is karmic memory. There is articulate and inarticulate memory, conscious, unconscious,
Speaker 1: and subconscious levels of memories. Eight forms of memories rule
Speaker 1: from within you. So if all this is there, what
Speaker 1: has happened is you become like an automated machine. This
Speaker 1: is who I am. You call this your personality, but
Speaker 1: actually it's automation of the being that you are. That
Speaker 1: you can only think like this, you can only like this,
Speaker 1: you can only dislike this. You can only love these people.
Speaker 1: You cannot love these people. This is where I belong.
Speaker 1: This way I don't belong. This is automation of life.
Speaker 1: This is good to survive. If you want to just survive,
Speaker 1: this is quite fine because everything is automated. You don't
Speaker 1: have to think anything. There are many people who walk
Speaker 1: into the local breakfast place. They don't even order the
Speaker 1: hostess or whoever is there. They looks at them and
Speaker 1: they know what they eat everyday, same thing they will
Speaker 1: eat because it's determined, which makes your life simple. You
Speaker 1: are who you are only because of your karma. But
Speaker 1: the longing within the human being is always to be
Speaker 1: something more than who you are right now, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Wherever you are, you want to be something more. But
Speaker 1: that is crippled to what we're talking about right now
Speaker 1: is there is a whole lot of software that you
Speaker 1: call as myself. Right now, this is your personality. Your
Speaker 1: software should be like a stage upon which you stand
Speaker 1: and you can do your own dance. But right now
Speaker 1: this software is not firm enough that you sink into
Speaker 1: the stage. If you sink into the stage, then you're stuck.
Speaker 1: This is how most people are experiencing their life. Their
Speaker 1: past experiences of life is determining how they live today
Speaker 1: and how they will live tomorrow. What happened yesterday, whether
Speaker 1: it is beautiful or horrendous. It doesn't matter. Does it
Speaker 1: enrich your life or does it make you get stuck?
Speaker 1: This decides whether you're entangled with karma or you're using
Speaker 1: karma to transcend. Does previous experiences of life leave you
Speaker 1: wounded or wise? This is a choice that we have.
Speaker 1: This choice we can exercise right now. Whatever your karma,
Speaker 1: my karma in all these years, doesn't matter. But this moment,
Speaker 1: if we are willing, we can transcend that if we
Speaker 1: bring the necessary consciousness to it. Okay, Okay, I got
Speaker 1: some questions here. So so we look at the software
Speaker 1: and you're saying that any kind of trauma or genetic
Speaker 1: dispositions that we've inherited are already there, right, they're hardwired
Speaker 1: into who we are. But you're saying that we can
Speaker 1: actually change all that. Right, They don't use the hardwire
Speaker 1: because the hardware hardware doesn't have information. It's only the
Speaker 1: software which has information. But it may be it may
Speaker 1: be loaded on your hard disc. It is there in
Speaker 1: your DNA, it is there in your genetics. But very
Speaker 1: easily a human being can transcend this because what is
Speaker 1: fixed within new is only ten percent is left open
Speaker 1: to you. Okay, So what if you inherit physical issues, diseases,
Speaker 1: or what about addiction? What about things that you're not
Speaker 1: necessarily responsible for but are inherited or given to you? Ali,
Speaker 1: can you run as fast as Mr Bolt? Hussen Bolt?
Speaker 1: So are you handicapped? No? Compared to him, you are
Speaker 1: If you keep hussen Bolt as the standard of a
Speaker 1: human being, both you and me are seriously handicapped, aren't we? Yes?
Speaker 1: So shall we sit here and cry we can't run
Speaker 1: as fast to loose and Bolt. No, Now, we just
Speaker 1: enjoy watching him run. That's it. That's the same thing
Speaker 1: with every aspect of our life. There are so many
Speaker 1: things you can do I cannot do. There's so many
Speaker 1: things I can do that you cannot do. I don't
Speaker 1: have to look at you and cry. I'm not able
Speaker 1: to do that, nor do you have to look at
Speaker 1: me and cry. So somebody might have come with two legs,
Speaker 1: somebody might have come with one, somebody with none. But
Speaker 1: I'm saying what you can do in the world cannot
Speaker 1: do in the world is always subject to various realities.
Speaker 1: Even if you have all the four limbs and a
Speaker 1: big brain, till what you can do depends on the
Speaker 1: times in which you have landed in the geographist in
Speaker 1: which you have landed, in the kind of situations you
Speaker 1: have landed, all these things will determine. But how you
Speaker 1: experience your life is in your hands. If you don't
Speaker 1: have four limbs, you can still still sit here joyfully. Yes,
Speaker 1: what I can do is seriously impeded, but I can
Speaker 1: still sit here joyfully. If I sit here joyfully, my
Speaker 1: hands and legs may not function, my brain may function
Speaker 1: very wonderfully well. Unfolding of genius. Human genius will happen
Speaker 1: only when there is no fear of suffering, and no
Speaker 1: fear of suffering will happen to you only when you're
Speaker 1: joyful by your own nature. This is karma. What has
Speaker 1: happened in the past, what life has put you into,
Speaker 1: What life situations you've landed up into. This is not
Speaker 1: always our doing. Like you said, some of you are
Speaker 1: riding a bicycle, somebody comes and hits you, something else
Speaker 1: happens in the world. So many things happened. Okay, we
Speaker 1: didn't invite the pandemic. It's come. We've lost so many
Speaker 1: people who are dear to us. Yes, but now how
Speaker 1: we experience this, will we use this to become wiser
Speaker 1: or will we use this to become wounded. This choice
Speaker 1: we have exercising this choice is karma. It's interesting because
Speaker 1: when I hear you talk about this, I think this
Speaker 1: is what capitalism is built on, the opposite of what
Speaker 1: you're saying. You know, in in Western culture, you know,
Speaker 1: they rely on us to want. If I have this car,
Speaker 1: i'll be happy. If I look like her, I'll be happy.
Speaker 1: And it really though, it's it's all what capitalism is
Speaker 1: based on. There is more money and activity on yoga
Speaker 1: where than yoga. You know, I know, I actually own
Speaker 1: yoga pants and I don't do yoga, so that is
Speaker 1: very true. It's so comfortable though. Um talked to me
Speaker 1: about the predictability of karma, and you know, I love
Speaker 1: that story you tell about how before students come into
Speaker 1: a classroom, you can pretty much tell where everybody's going
Speaker 1: to set right, explain that. Do you have a pet
Speaker 1: at home, like a dog or something? Yes, I have
Speaker 1: a dog who's my second husband. Well, you see, you
Speaker 1: take him to a new place in your home, you
Speaker 1: may not be able to notice it. Take him to
Speaker 1: a new place, he will sniff around, he will look
Speaker 1: around here, there, there, and he will select a place
Speaker 1: and sit down only there. He will not just sit
Speaker 1: down wherever he will feel the place around where he
Speaker 1: is most comfortable, he will sit. So human beings may
Speaker 1: not sniff around, but they have their own way of
Speaker 1: figuring this out. So actually, when we create powerful meditation places,
Speaker 1: we just tell people spend some time before you settle down,
Speaker 1: choose a place where you will be most comfortable, and
Speaker 1: when they sit down, I will tell them that's not
Speaker 1: the place for you. You must sit in just the
Speaker 1: opposite place because you comfort comfort not for transformation. Transformation
Speaker 1: is never comfortable. It's liberating, but it's not about comfort.
Speaker 1: So I was just you know, somebody today morning sent
Speaker 1: me a motorcycle and they said, group, please to write
Speaker 1: something on my motor cycle and sign it because I
Speaker 1: wanted to sell it for a premium price. And did
Speaker 1: you do it? Yes? I I just wrote. I just
Speaker 1: wrote four wheels for comfort, two wheels for love of life.
Speaker 1: There's a lot more to come after this short break
Speaker 1: and we're back. You have a motorcycle, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I ride most of the time. Have you ever been
Speaker 1: in an accident? Just recently, I was writing in India
Speaker 1: and while tusker came on the road, I stopped. I
Speaker 1: know how to deal with this. I've been in the
Speaker 1: situations many times. So I'm just putting on the side
Speaker 1: stand to get down another motorcycle who was coming behind me.
Speaker 1: He seized the elephant and panics and comes and bangs
Speaker 1: into me. The elephant gets excited by this clash and
Speaker 1: starts charging us, and I'm right there within forty fiftet away,
Speaker 1: And fortunately some trucks and others honked their hands really loudly,
Speaker 1: and the elephant went away. So if I look at
Speaker 1: this story with you see the elephant, you put on
Speaker 1: your brakes, somebody hits you from behind. The loudness makes
Speaker 1: the elephant want to come charge you. Can you sort
Speaker 1: of explain the karma of that situation. I would say, Oh,
Speaker 1: you have good karma because you weren't hurt. Yes, I
Speaker 1: have very good karma because my left foot was stuck
Speaker 1: under the motorcycle and I'm trying to pull it out
Speaker 1: the motorcycle waste two or sis. I can't lift it.
Speaker 1: I tried it, I couldn't lift it. But the elephant
Speaker 1: is coming. Then I had the good karmas thing that
Speaker 1: all I have to do is rock the motorcycle from behind.
Speaker 1: So I put my weight on the rear end of
Speaker 1: the motorcycle and it lifted up, and I got my
Speaker 1: foot out and came back to a security get which
Speaker 1: was behind me. So that was my good karma. I
Speaker 1: have sense that I don't panic in any kind of
Speaker 1: situation right which you you write about which we should
Speaker 1: all pause before? Right we we were supposed to take
Speaker 1: a moment before we react. Oh, if you pause, the
Speaker 1: elephant will would have crushed me. We'll see. Now you
Speaker 1: know how confused I am about karma. Yes, in that moment,
Speaker 1: but in terms of making decisions, sort of life decisions,
Speaker 1: aren't we supposed to pause for a moment, take a
Speaker 1: breath before I think pause will happen to us in
Speaker 1: the end. Okay, what life will pause? Right now? It's on.
Speaker 1: There's no need to pause. All it needs these an
Speaker 1: equanimous mind. That is, you are not in a state
Speaker 1: of agitated reacting. Because human intelligence is capable of doing
Speaker 1: things which are most incredible. But people are doing these
Speaker 1: things once in a way, in sparks here and there.
Speaker 1: They have sparks of genius functioning. When we say genius,
Speaker 1: people think they must create something. They must make an
Speaker 1: art piece, or they must make music, or they must
Speaker 1: do this or that. No, you can have your genius
Speaker 1: functioning every moment of your life. How you drive that
Speaker 1: bicycle when you were riding that New Yorker who wants
Speaker 1: to come and crash into you, If you're riding in
Speaker 1: a certain way, you can easily dodge that guy. I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm saying this was this elephant situation. People thought this
Speaker 1: is the end of it because the elephant was about
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty hundred sixty feet away. By the time
Speaker 1: I got my foot out, it was just forty ft away.
Speaker 1: In another three seconds it would be upon me, you know.
Speaker 1: But I screamed, honked the horn, so they were all panicking,
Speaker 1: and somebody just put their hand down on the horn
Speaker 1: that noise to kind of put off the elephant, and
Speaker 1: it went backwards. So I'm saying it is just that
Speaker 1: you're alert situations. Whether you live or you die. The
Speaker 1: important thing is your require him us. If you're requare
Speaker 1: them us, you will do the best possible thing. There
Speaker 1: is no such thing as the best thing. The best
Speaker 1: possible thing that you can do in a given moment
Speaker 1: is really sparking of your genius. Every moment of your life,
Speaker 1: whether you're doing something significant, spectacular, or just mundane, you
Speaker 1: still can do it in a very fantastic way. I'm saying,
Speaker 1: m hm, why do some people suffer more than others? So?
Speaker 1: Can I tell you my problem? Alex? Please please? I'm
Speaker 1: a therapist, as welcome they When I was twenty five
Speaker 1: years of page, one day I suddenly realized I was
Speaker 1: just sitting on a hill and I just burst into
Speaker 1: a certain experience within myself where every cell in my
Speaker 1: body was dripping ecstasy. I stayed like this for a
Speaker 1: few hours. Then when I shook my head, what's happening
Speaker 1: to me? I thought, I'm going off my rocker. When
Speaker 1: I asked my closest friends, something like this is happening
Speaker 1: to me. When I shared this, I said, I come on,
Speaker 1: what did you drink? Worried you pop? Because this is
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, you know this is a kind of question.
Speaker 1: I knew that there was nobody around me who could
Speaker 1: tell me what's happening. All I knew was I with
Speaker 1: something fantastic and I don't want to miss that. Then
Speaker 1: I experimented with myself what is it? What is it?
Speaker 1: In one moment you're just so mundane, In another moment,
Speaker 1: you're so spectacular. What is this? Then I realized, if
Speaker 1: I don't just mess with my mind, if I simply
Speaker 1: sit here, life is spectacular. It's bursting on all levels.
Speaker 1: The problem is this mind is sitting like our rock
Speaker 1: upon your head, which just brings down everything. To just
Speaker 1: see a five six year old child, what a spectacular
Speaker 1: life it is. And how adults have become like this
Speaker 1: because they are not able to carry the weight of
Speaker 1: their own mind. This is karma. So I kept my
Speaker 1: mind down that day and have not put it on again,
Speaker 1: just to look substantial. And these days I'm wearing a turban,
Speaker 1: you know. Anyway, So on that day when this happened,
Speaker 1: when I realized every human being can live in an
Speaker 1: ecstatic manner if only they're willing. And I thought, why
Speaker 1: wouldn't anybody be willing? I was twenty five, and I thought,
Speaker 1: who would not be willing for something so spectacular within themselves?
Speaker 1: Then I sat down and made a plan. At that time,
Speaker 1: the world's population was five point six billion people. I
Speaker 1: sat down and made a plan geographically around the world.
Speaker 1: It will take me just two and a half years
Speaker 1: to make the whole world ecstatic. From that day, I
Speaker 1: closed down my business, everything that I was doing, I
Speaker 1: left the town where I was living and started wanting
Speaker 1: to share this. It's only then I slowly realized how
Speaker 1: deeply people are invested in their own miseries and suffering.
Speaker 1: You know, they're so invested even if you offer them
Speaker 1: the greatest thing, Karma won't let them go beyond that.
Speaker 1: They need to unglue themselves from their karmic structure, because
Speaker 1: karma is the only thing you have. See who you
Speaker 1: are right now, the kind of person that you are,
Speaker 1: your language, your emotion, your thought, everything that you are
Speaker 1: is only your karmic memory. If I wipe out this memory,
Speaker 1: you really have nothing that you can call myself. So
Speaker 1: that is the problem. People do not know how to
Speaker 1: stand on the stage of their karma and do their
Speaker 1: fresh dance. Their feet are sinking into the stage and
Speaker 1: they feel crippled. When you were a child five six
Speaker 1: years of age, such exuberant and spectacular life. By the
Speaker 1: time their thirty, their faces have become long. If at
Speaker 1: five years so joyful by the time you're thirty, you
Speaker 1: should have been ecstatic if you graduated, isn't it Yes?
Speaker 1: But but people would say, but that's but that's life.
Speaker 1: You know. I could be an ecstatic five year old girl,
Speaker 1: but then I grow up and there's money issues, and
Speaker 1: I have to work in a factory all day and
Speaker 1: marry somebody I do love, and my you know, my
Speaker 1: child was born with problems. And you know, life, as
Speaker 1: we say, has dealt me a bad hand. If you
Speaker 1: know all these things, well, you need not marry, you
Speaker 1: need not have a child, you need not do any
Speaker 1: of those things that couset trouble do. You want just
Speaker 1: live spectacular. But if you have nothing to do, if
Speaker 1: all these things that you complain about, your job, your family,
Speaker 1: your husband, your wife, your child, the things that you
Speaker 1: complain about, if we take them away today, you know
Speaker 1: how miserable you will be. I think very miserable. Right yes,
Speaker 1: so right now. See it seems some studies are saying
Speaker 1: the American people hate their jobs, not dislike, they hate
Speaker 1: their job. So if you get fired, will you work
Speaker 1: joyfully on the street? No? Right now, pandemic on people
Speaker 1: were complaining about going to work. Now, home, sweet home,
Speaker 1: stay home. Oh my god, what's suffering? So I'm saying
Speaker 1: the suffering is not in your arrangement. The suffering is
Speaker 1: in the way you're keeping your mind. Because whether it's
Speaker 1: joy or suffering, pain or pleasure, agoni or ecstasy only
Speaker 1: comes from within you. Human experience is manufactured within you.
Speaker 1: If you understand this, you can manufacture what you want.
Speaker 1: If you think it's happening to you, it will never
Speaker 1: be fixed, isn't it? Because never the world is going
Speaker 1: to happen the way you want it or I want. Okay,
Speaker 1: I stand before you today and I'm ready to plunge
Speaker 1: into my present to fix my destination. How do I
Speaker 1: do that? How do I how do I become as
Speaker 1: evolved and as ecstatic? Don't do the word evolved maybe ecstatic,
Speaker 1: because then I have to grow some horns or something.
Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. You're right, you look pretty human
Speaker 1: to me. So let's leave evolution ecstatic. Yes, now, let's
Speaker 1: make it very clear. Human experiences caused from within, isn't it?
Speaker 1: M hmm? If only they suppose you have no control
Speaker 1: over your hand. This hand keeps slapping on your face,
Speaker 1: can you live well? No, your hand is out of
Speaker 1: control and starts slapping you in the face. Not somebody
Speaker 1: else your hand. Yeah, I don't like that. That hurts,
Speaker 1: not just not just not like it. It will be
Speaker 1: the worst misery, isn't it. Well, the worst misery of
Speaker 1: both hands were slapping me in that face. Okay, maybe
Speaker 1: it's the fist. Yes, it's misery all right. What you
Speaker 1: call as human misery is essentially that, as this hand
Speaker 1: is out of control and causes misery, their thoughts and
Speaker 1: emotions are out of control and causing misery. If you
Speaker 1: could think the way you want right now, would you
Speaker 1: be miserable? If you can think and feel the way
Speaker 1: you want this moment, would you be miserable? Definitely not.
Speaker 1: But still, this doesn't mean everything in your life is
Speaker 1: happening perfectly as you wanted. It never happens to anybody.
Speaker 1: Only one who has not lived his life has such
Speaker 1: ideals that life should be perfect, everything all arrangements. That
Speaker 1: means you've not lived in this world. If you lived
Speaker 1: in this world, even if they're just two people in
Speaker 1: the family, if life happens your way, you have the
Speaker 1: controlling stake. You're doing great. If you expect d percent,
Speaker 1: nobody will be around you. Okay, this is a nature
Speaker 1: of life, So life around us need not happen exactly
Speaker 1: the way we think it should happen, but we should
Speaker 1: be able to think and feel the way we want
Speaker 1: to think and feel. Isn't it If you think and
Speaker 1: feel the way you want, you will naturally be blissful. Yes,
Speaker 1: as long as I'm not arrested or anything. Yes, even
Speaker 1: if you're arrested. There are people who lived in Nazi camps,
Speaker 1: knowing fully well tomorrow they're going to gas timber. But
Speaker 1: still they cheered up everybody. They lived joyfully even there.
Speaker 1: There have been people like this. There cannot be a
Speaker 1: worse situation than that. But even in that kind of situation,
Speaker 1: some human beings have exhibited their ability to live well
Speaker 1: even in the worst possible condition. Isn't this? You know?
Speaker 1: We we have a program called in a Prisoner in
Speaker 1: a Freedom for imprisoned. Our programs are now mandatory in
Speaker 1: most of the South Indian prisons, and even here. We
Speaker 1: work in Pennsylvania and Kentucky for some time, and now
Speaker 1: I can show you thousands of prisoners who are immensely
Speaker 1: suffering their incarceration because many of them have come for
Speaker 1: murder or more there for life. Life means twenty years
Speaker 1: fifty six years kind of imprisonment. That means they're going
Speaker 1: to live there always. When I went in and started,
Speaker 1: you know, doing some work with them, they started writing poems.
Speaker 1: One particular poem stuck in my mind. This guy had
Speaker 1: committed three murders in the courthouse, so he wrote a
Speaker 1: poem saying that every day in the evening, when the
Speaker 1: cell door closes, I thought, this is my grave. But
Speaker 1: now I close my eyes and this has become my
Speaker 1: body tree. Now. Officers sometime came and joke with me,
Speaker 1: you're making life so good for them in the prison.
Speaker 1: What is the point? I said. The point of the
Speaker 1: prison is not to enjoy somebody's suffering. The point of
Speaker 1: prison is to correct them. It is a correctional center.
Speaker 1: In many ways. The point of the prison is to
Speaker 1: transform a human being, not to condemn a human being. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we've always been thinking we have to condemn somebody. But
Speaker 1: in a way, if you look at it, all of
Speaker 1: other criminals, as far as other creatures are concerned on
Speaker 1: this planet. If you ask the ants to take a
Speaker 1: judgment on us, they will say we're the worst criminals.
Speaker 1: You take the buffalos in America, they will say, we're
Speaker 1: the worst criminals. You take other creatures everywhere in the world,
Speaker 1: all of them will declare us as we are the
Speaker 1: worst possible criminals and vandals on the planet, isn't it? Yes,
Speaker 1: But we are not in arcerated. We are incarcerated in
Speaker 1: our own minds. But this is karma. To liberate yourself
Speaker 1: from that incarceration is going beyond karma for this. You
Speaker 1: don't have to fix everything that's happened til now. You
Speaker 1: cannot fix it. Nobody can fix an es today. That
Speaker 1: is the meaning of past. What is past cannot be fixed,
Speaker 1: What is now can only be experienced. What is next
Speaker 1: can be created. May I ask how you were able
Speaker 1: to take a prisoner who, from the outside one would
Speaker 1: think would be incredibly depressed and maybe even suicidal based
Speaker 1: on his faith, and change that. One simple way of
Speaker 1: looking at it is this, this human mechanism. It is
Speaker 1: the most sophisticated and complex chemical factory on the planet.
Speaker 1: Do you agree with Yes, very much so so. Every
Speaker 1: human experience, whether pain or pleasure, has a chemical basis
Speaker 1: to it. Joy at misery has a chemical basis to it. Agonia,
Speaker 1: ecstasy has a chemical basis to it. Otherwise, all your
Speaker 1: medications would mean nothing. It's only you trying to change
Speaker 1: the chemistry by introducing some external medicine, isn't it. How
Speaker 1: did you know I was on medication? It's obvious. Come on.
Speaker 1: So now the important thing is are you a very
Speaker 1: good CEO of this complex chemical system? Or are you
Speaker 1: allowsy CEU. That's all the question is. So we can
Speaker 1: teach you simple things with which your chemistry will become
Speaker 1: blissful within four to six weeks of practice. Every day,
Speaker 1: millions of people when they close their eyes in the morning,
Speaker 1: tears of ecstasy are washing their cheeks. This is my
Speaker 1: greatest achievement in life. Rest is all other things. Can
Speaker 1: you explain the feeling of ecstasy? Can you tell me
Speaker 1: what what your mind is doing and your body is
Speaker 1: doing when you talk about this place of ecstasy. So
Speaker 1: it's like this. If your body becomes pleasant, we will
Speaker 1: say you're in good health. If it becomes very pleasant,
Speaker 1: we will say you're in pleasure. These things can be
Speaker 1: measured today we both with neurological impulses and chemical studies
Speaker 1: blood chemistry. Are you in a state of health or
Speaker 1: you in a state of pleasure? It can be done
Speaker 1: if your mind becomes pleasant, we call this peace. If
Speaker 1: it becomes very pleasant, we call this joy. If your
Speaker 1: emotions become pleasant, we call this love. If it becomes
Speaker 1: very pleasant, we call it compassion. If you're very life
Speaker 1: energies become pleasant, we call this blissfulness. If it becomes
Speaker 1: very pleasant, we call it ecstasy. So when you're very
Speaker 1: life energies reverberate in highest level of pleasantness that if
Speaker 1: you sit here here, you are just you know, totally on.
Speaker 1: When you're like this, what is the life situation around
Speaker 1: you does not affect you. This doesn't mean you can't
Speaker 1: fix it. You can. Actually your ability to fix this
Speaker 1: this much more simply because you're no more vested interests.
Speaker 1: You just fix it because it needs to be fixed.
Speaker 1: But it has no burden on you to whenever you
Speaker 1: are joyful, not even ecstatic. When you're joyful, whatever you're
Speaker 1: doing out of that as an expression of that is
Speaker 1: never ever burdened. Sound, isn't it? And is this the choice?
Speaker 1: Can you make a choice to be this? Yes, but
Speaker 1: you must also support it by creating the right kind
Speaker 1: of chemistry, because your chemical patterns right now maybe happening
Speaker 1: because of past impressions and the past impressions may be
Speaker 1: so strong that even if you change your attitude, it
Speaker 1: may not change. So you need to change the chemical process.
Speaker 1: So there are significant yogurt processes. When I say yoga,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about do you have Lululemon? What brand
Speaker 1: do you I have a few different brands. Don't tell me.
Speaker 1: Don't tell me, but I know what you mean. You're
Speaker 1: not talking about that kind of your Yes, not that
Speaker 1: kind of yoga. Let's take a quick break and then
Speaker 1: we'll be back with more. Go ask Ali, welcome back.
Speaker 1: The word yoga literally means union. You're right now an individual.
Speaker 1: This is my body, that's your body. This is my mind,
Speaker 1: that's your mind. No way this body will ever become
Speaker 1: like yours, No way that mind will ever become like mind.
Speaker 1: Trying to make it compatible is a foolish idea which
Speaker 1: the Western societies are trying very hard to do, and
Speaker 1: the disappointments are too many. But what we need to
Speaker 1: understand is in body and mind we will always be different,
Speaker 1: and that is the most wonderful thing in the world.
Speaker 1: If my body and your body exactly same, my mind
Speaker 1: and your mind exactly same, we will want to die.
Speaker 1: You have keptured a certain amount of life. I have
Speaker 1: keptured a certain amount. Now yoga means you are seeing
Speaker 1: how to enhance this life so that it becomes large
Speaker 1: enough and the distinction of body and mind is not
Speaker 1: an obstruction in my life, that I can be one
Speaker 1: with everything around me, because life has become so large
Speaker 1: within myself. So if you begin to experience everything as
Speaker 1: a part of you, in some sense, there is a
Speaker 1: glass of there is water in this This water is
Speaker 1: not me, but if I drink it, it becomes me.
Speaker 1: All that happened is that what was outside I took
Speaker 1: it inside. Yoga means to undo this boundary consciously, so
Speaker 1: that if you sit here, you're experiencing everything as yourself.
Speaker 1: So if you experience everything as yourself, even for one
Speaker 1: moment in your life, after that you will not need
Speaker 1: any moral teaching. Be good to people, don't harm them.
Speaker 1: All these teachings will be meaningless because whatever you see
Speaker 1: as myself, with that, there is no conflict, isn't it.
Speaker 1: So the experience is in the mental scape to take
Speaker 1: a place where you're not identified with the stuff that
Speaker 1: you carry. You use the stuff that you carry, but
Speaker 1: you're not identified with it. The moment you get identified.
Speaker 1: After that, you can't stop the NonStop flow of your mind.
Speaker 1: I call this mental diarrhea. People are having mental diarrhea.
Speaker 1: They don't understand why. If you eat bad food in
Speaker 1: just bad food into the stomach, then you will have
Speaker 1: physical diarrhea. It tires you. If you put bad food
Speaker 1: into your mind, you will have mental area and it
Speaker 1: tires you. People are always sapped out of energy, not
Speaker 1: because they're doing something significant, simply because they're having a
Speaker 1: diarrhea and it's very tiring. Just living has become so
Speaker 1: tiring the United States of America. Yesterday I was telling
Speaker 1: somebody they were talking about heaven and healthy. I said,
Speaker 1: you ask anybody in the world, especially the youth, do
Speaker 1: they want to go to heaven. They don't want to
Speaker 1: go to heaven. They want to go to the United
Speaker 1: States because in their mind they think that is heaven.
Speaker 1: But ask the people who are living in heaven. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, they're whining like nobody. Yeah, that's very true.
Speaker 1: So I'm saying the arrangements are better to such a point.
Speaker 1: Other people think it's heaven, But heavenly dwellers are all
Speaker 1: suffering immensely. They think it should be some other way.
Speaker 1: So I'm saying, whichever way you arranged, outside human beings
Speaker 1: are not going to settle. This needs to be engineered
Speaker 1: a little bit. I wanted to ask you about I
Speaker 1: have aging parents that I'm dealing with now, and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about the idea of memory loss and does that
Speaker 1: affect the software. For example, I think about my mother now,
Speaker 1: who's almost nine day because we as human beings, go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this is who I am. I live in New York
Speaker 1: and I am married to him, and I do this,
Speaker 1: and she's starting to lose all that. You know, it's
Speaker 1: almost like a rebirth, for a lack of a better word.
Speaker 1: And I know that you write about memory loss. Does
Speaker 1: it make it easier, you know, for someone who has
Speaker 1: Alzheimer's or dementia to sort of get into this ecstatic place? Do? Yeah?
Speaker 1: This once again depends on the nature and the quality
Speaker 1: of different layers of karma that one has. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: if I speak a little clinically. This is not to
Speaker 1: offend you because it's your mother, all right. Uh, you
Speaker 1: can't offend me because I'm in an ecstatic state. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are many layers of memory. The topmost layer of
Speaker 1: memory is what what has happened in the let's say
Speaker 1: last twenty five years of fifty years of one's life,
Speaker 1: the relationships, the engagements, the pleasant experiences, unpleasant experiences. This
Speaker 1: is the most surface part of their memory. But you
Speaker 1: will see people will be living in comfortable situations, but
Speaker 1: in many moments the way they behave you cannot understand
Speaker 1: why the hell are they doing this? Because they have
Speaker 1: deeper layers of memory which place up like once in
Speaker 1: a way, it just comes to the surface like that.
Speaker 1: You know. I know this well because I've been speaking
Speaker 1: to lots of doctors about this. They don't know whether
Speaker 1: their children are they're old. They don't know whether their
Speaker 1: teenagers or their really geriatric people. They don't understand they
Speaker 1: start saying things which they would have said when they
Speaker 1: were sixteen eighteen, because their structure of the memory is
Speaker 1: kind of become loose. In your memory ladder, you're climbing.
Speaker 1: You became a teenager, you became an adult, you got married,
Speaker 1: You've got children. Now you're a mother, Now you will
Speaker 1: be a grandmother. Now you will be this, you will
Speaker 1: be that. This is all the ladder of memory. When
Speaker 1: this ladder kind of loses his structure. The pieces are
Speaker 1: all there, but not in the order that you understand,
Speaker 1: not in the order that you can make sense out
Speaker 1: of it. So that is what would be happening. So
Speaker 1: how will this affect that person? Will they become wonderfully
Speaker 1: pleasant or unpleasant or how? This depends on the next
Speaker 1: layers of karma. How it is. If it is very
Speaker 1: very pleasant structure underneath, you will see lie they will
Speaker 1: become joyful like little children. If the deeper structure is
Speaker 1: not like that, it will come out in a different way.
Speaker 1: What can we do about I would say, once memory
Speaker 1: loss has started happening, the only thing you can work
Speaker 1: with them is to change their chemistry. This can be done,
Speaker 1: but maybe if you teach them a practice, they cannot
Speaker 1: even remember that practice every day. You have to sit
Speaker 1: with them and make them do it. If you do this,
Speaker 1: you can change the quality. That's a lot of work
Speaker 1: for anybody. A certain amount of dedication is needed to
Speaker 1: bring that effect by themselves. They may not be able
Speaker 1: to sustain any practice which will change their fundamental chemistry
Speaker 1: into your more pleasant atmosphere. But if the deeper layers
Speaker 1: are wonderful layers, nobody can determine that just even if
Speaker 1: you go to psychoanalysis whatever, you cannot because that is
Speaker 1: still just a surface layer, little bottom of the surface.
Speaker 1: What is deep inside in terms of evolutionary and genetic memory,
Speaker 1: what happened ten years ago still lives within you in
Speaker 1: some way. It's not gone. This is what KRMA means.
Speaker 1: So the best way is to distance yourself. You cannot
Speaker 1: transform that. You cannot transform what your great grandfather, great
Speaker 1: grandmother did generations ago. You cannot fix that. But the
Speaker 1: impact of that is still there. It is there in
Speaker 1: your body, It is there in your mind, it's there
Speaker 1: in your emotion. For all you know, your great great
Speaker 1: great great grandmother's nose is sitting on your face right now. Yes, see,
Speaker 1: the very the very epithing yourselves, the color and tone
Speaker 1: of our skin. For a million years, the body is
Speaker 1: still remembered, isn't it. Yes. The simple thing is too
Speaker 1: distance yourself in such a way that you can stand
Speaker 1: upon it, not sinking to it. M hm. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1: As we as we come to a close here, I
Speaker 1: have five quick questions for you. Usually people say one, no, five,
Speaker 1: I'm greedy that way. These are very quick though. First question,
Speaker 1: what is your favorite meal? Oh, what I get today
Speaker 1: is my favorite meal Because I'm I've been out for
Speaker 1: all these forty years traveling. Whatever meal arrives in front
Speaker 1: of me is always my favorite meal. I knew it
Speaker 1: would be something great like that, although I would have
Speaker 1: been excited if you said, at cheeseburger. Okay, No, definitely
Speaker 1: not cheeseburger. I am a very good cook, so I
Speaker 1: won't like cheeseburger. My daughter certifies that I make the
Speaker 1: best messala those in the world. Oh, I know what
Speaker 1: that is. I love that. Okay. Now the second question,
Speaker 1: where is the happiest place for you to sit on
Speaker 1: a mountain, on a beach, in your chair at your home. Ah.
Speaker 1: I have a bit of an addiction for a mountain.
Speaker 1: I can't live without mountains. I end up in the
Speaker 1: mountains all the time. I trek every year in him
Speaker 1: Alas and where we live in India, we're at the
Speaker 1: foothills of a absolutely spectacular mountain. From the age of nineteen,
Speaker 1: not a single area has passed in my life without
Speaker 1: trekking in the mountains. So beautiful. Uh. My third question
Speaker 1: is do you watch television generally news not so much
Speaker 1: in America, but in India. If I'm there. I have
Speaker 1: to be on top of the news. Okay. Number four,
Speaker 1: are you on social media? Social media? For works sake?
Speaker 1: Books are on social media, Daily courts are there on
Speaker 1: social media. All our talk to run social media. This
Speaker 1: year we have had video us of one point eight
Speaker 1: three billion beauty of views. It's a fantastic tool if
Speaker 1: it's used properly. Because I must say this, so many
Speaker 1: great beings have come in this world, but when they
Speaker 1: spoke hardly ten people could hear what they were saying,
Speaker 1: and those ten people would go and misinterpret in ten
Speaker 1: different ways. This is the first time in the history
Speaker 1: of humanity. This is the first time we can sit
Speaker 1: here and talk to the entire world when certain opportunity
Speaker 1: is there. If you do not transform this world, that
Speaker 1: means we just don't care. So I don't want to
Speaker 1: be written down as a man who did not care.
Speaker 1: So I'm doing everything possible and every kind of media,
Speaker 1: including social media, got it. And my very last question
Speaker 1: to you is is there anybody in the world that
Speaker 1: you have it, Matt, that you would like to meet. Oh,
Speaker 1: I would like to meet Ronaldinho? And why is that? Well,
Speaker 1: it's something This is a kind of unharnessed kind of genius.
Speaker 1: There are many other players who have done way better
Speaker 1: than him in terms of their scores and winning awards
Speaker 1: and everything. But here genius flowed without intent simply, which
Speaker 1: I think is always a greater joy to watch. Like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, here we have all these white tailed Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is jumping and hopping and running just for the
Speaker 1: fun of it, all right. I think he falls in
Speaker 1: that category that he just just for the joy of it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Sarch for such a wonderful hour with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. This has been really lovely. Thank you, Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Been wonderful talking. You know, I've always
Speaker 1: been very intimidated by words like guru, and so said Guru.
Speaker 1: When I was going to interview him, I was a
Speaker 1: little bit nervous, but it was such a pleasure. I
Speaker 1: read his book, which is amazing, Karma Yogi's Guide to
Speaker 1: Crafting Your Destiny, and I was actually excited to talk
Speaker 1: to him because one of the perks of having a
Speaker 1: podcast is that you can read someone's book and if
Speaker 1: you have questions, you actually get to ask them firsthand.
Speaker 1: Um at the end of the book, said Guru uses
Speaker 1: questions that he gets either a lot or particularly with
Speaker 1: the idea of karma that people have sent him or
Speaker 1: asked him so if you have further questions, the back
Speaker 1: of his book is a great resource. And of course,
Speaker 1: my favorite thing about Sakuru was his wonderful sense of humor.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening, and hopefully this will help all
Speaker 1: of us to pivot a little bit and to become
Speaker 1: more spiritual and become more ecstatic in our own lives.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to go ask Alli join me
Speaker 1: next week when we address our golden years and how
Speaker 1: to set ourselves up for better aging. Dr Frank Lippman
Speaker 1: is a vocal pioneer of integrative and functional medicine. He's
Speaker 1: also the best selling author of seven books, including The
Speaker 1: New Rules of Aging. Listen. He shares crucial insights, and
Speaker 1: some of them are just as simple as getting a
Speaker 1: little sunlight in the morning. Be sure to subscribe, rate
Speaker 1: and review the podcast, and follow me on social media
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Ali e Wentworth and on Instagram at
Speaker 1: the Real Ali Wentworth. And if you have questions or
Speaker 1: guest suggestions, I'd love to hear from you. Call or
Speaker 1: text me at three two three four six three five
Speaker 1: six or email Go Ask Aali podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Ye Go Ask Gali is a production of Shondaland Audio
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