Speaker 1: I've never been to trouble of my life. I didn't
Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, and you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I was brought up like cops are the good guys.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
Speaker 1: do know that everything was stacked against me. Everything like everything,
Speaker 1: this isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I
Speaker 1: know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with this. How is this possible? I grew up trusting
Speaker 1: the systems. I grew up believing that every human thing
Speaker 1: should do the right thing. And that's why, even though
Speaker 1: I was dealing with corros people, I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: brave anyone to get me out of prison because I
Speaker 1: wouldn't live with the fact that I braved my way
Speaker 1: out of my wife's death. I'm not innocent to proven guilty.
Speaker 1: I'm guilty until I proved my innocence. And that's absolutely
Speaker 1: what happened to me. Our system. Since I've been out
Speaker 1: ten years, it's coming little ways, but it's still broken,
Speaker 1: a totally little trust in humanity after what happened to me.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. With
Speaker 1: Jason Flam Today I have that's me, But today I
Speaker 1: have an extraordinary treat for me and for you the audience. UM,
Speaker 1: my guest today is soad Garu. And sad Garu is
Speaker 1: in internationally renowned yogi and mystic teacher of meditation, a
Speaker 1: New York Times bestselling author, and a man who has
Speaker 1: done fantastic work in prisons all over the world, teaching
Speaker 1: meditation and enlightenment to people, um who most needed. I
Speaker 1: think you could say, so soth Guru, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me here. So this is so
Speaker 1: exciting because the idea of being able to explore this
Speaker 1: aspect of the mind and the you know, the mind
Speaker 1: inside the prison and how to transcend these most terrible
Speaker 1: circumstances which I've heard you talk about in videos, It's
Speaker 1: something that I think can help people both on the
Speaker 1: inside and the outside. Family members as well, but everybody.
Speaker 1: So I'm really interested in knowing how you how you
Speaker 1: got started first of all, on this journey, and even
Speaker 1: more so, how you became interested and involved in taking
Speaker 1: this practice inside the prison walls. So this is almost
Speaker 1: eight years ago, I think twenty eight years ago, there
Speaker 1: was a ladies club in climate or city where we
Speaker 1: are located now, and they invited me to speak in
Speaker 1: that ladies club. This is, you know, a group of
Speaker 1: maybe two hundred very elite women of the town. So
Speaker 1: I was talking to them and just outside their club
Speaker 1: building there's a nice tree. We were sitting under the
Speaker 1: tree and I was speaking to them. Then I saw
Speaker 1: this big wall which is nearly twenty feet tall wall.
Speaker 1: I looked at the wall and said, why it's such
Speaker 1: a big wall here, And the fantastic thing is none
Speaker 1: of them new. Then I just inquired with the volunteers
Speaker 1: that were around me. They said, this is the prison.
Speaker 1: It is in the heart of the city and there's
Speaker 1: a prison. These ladies that club, the you know, one
Speaker 1: part of their club is touching the wall and they
Speaker 1: don't know it's a prison. And then I discovered the road,
Speaker 1: the main road in the city is called Jail Road.
Speaker 1: Jail Yes. Then I said, I would like to meet
Speaker 1: those people who are on the other side of the wall.
Speaker 1: I would like to do something with them. I would
Speaker 1: like to see who are they. Then we discovered the
Speaker 1: superintendent of the prison, where somebody was known to me.
Speaker 1: Then I tried to put an application saying that I
Speaker 1: would like to come and do something. So you're breaking
Speaker 1: into the prison. Yes, breaking into the prison is not easy.
Speaker 1: It took me over two years to get inside. I
Speaker 1: did not have the qualifications. And what was your application
Speaker 1: when you were saying that I want to go inside?
Speaker 1: Because because I said I would like to do something
Speaker 1: with this prisoners and see who they are? Then I
Speaker 1: discovered there were over users inside. I said, fourteen hundred people.
Speaker 1: What are there for? It doesn't matter. My work is
Speaker 1: with human beings. It doesn't matter where they are, So
Speaker 1: let's go. So when I went inside or and I
Speaker 1: tried to get inside, they put me through some three interviews,
Speaker 1: but that I am fit enough to go to the
Speaker 1: prison or not. And they've said that the said group.
Speaker 1: Don't waste your time here these guys. You just can't
Speaker 1: do anything with them. Every Sunday some Christian priest comes.
Speaker 1: All they do is mischief, and Friday some Islamic guys
Speaker 1: are coming. No good and another festival days and other things.
Speaker 1: The Hindu people are coming. It's no good nothing. You
Speaker 1: can't teach them anything, you can't do anything with them.
Speaker 1: All they understand is there's beating punishment. This all you
Speaker 1: don't waste your time here. Well, let me ask you
Speaker 1: this prison was this considered a maximum security prison where
Speaker 1: it is, and so the people there are mostly in
Speaker 1: for murder or nearly nearly probably six hundred seven hundred
Speaker 1: them of them out for murder, but largely long term prisoners.
Speaker 1: Long term means in India, anything over eight years is
Speaker 1: considered long term prison. So I said, give me a chance,
Speaker 1: let me just talk to them. It took me a
Speaker 1: little over two years to convince them that they should
Speaker 1: let me in. So when we went in, there were
Speaker 1: twelve wards. You know, in each ward there is something
Speaker 1: like So we picked a ward which had over two prisoners,
Speaker 1: the largest ward, and this is uh, everybody has come
Speaker 1: there for life imprisonment. This means they have done either
Speaker 1: murder or more. So I said, let me do this.
Speaker 1: So they put full security armed police. Said take them out.
Speaker 1: They're not going to harm me anything. Just take them out.
Speaker 1: It's not a problem. They said, no, we cannot do that. Anyway,
Speaker 1: There were some policemen. Then I asked him together outside
Speaker 1: they all came looking at me, Okay, what is this
Speaker 1: guy going to do with us? So we just arranged
Speaker 1: a small game and started playing the aim with them. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's you, yes, two d H fifteen criminals harder
Speaker 1: and softened. I don't know all of them are there
Speaker 1: for murder or more. So we started playing a game
Speaker 1: and they got so involved like little children. They screamed
Speaker 1: and yelled, and they played the game full on for
Speaker 1: about an hour. Then I stopped and then for about
Speaker 1: half an hour because they gave me only two hours.
Speaker 1: Next aboum two hours, you have to leave the prison.
Speaker 1: So then I spoke to them for half an hour
Speaker 1: and told them, see, this is what I wish to do.
Speaker 1: All of you guys should write to the authority, to
Speaker 1: the superintendent that you want this program for you. You
Speaker 1: won't believe when I had to leave at the end
Speaker 1: of two hours, at least sixty percent of them we're
Speaker 1: all in tears. They're saying, you don't go, you stay
Speaker 1: with us. So seeing this, then they allowed me to
Speaker 1: conduct a program am The first program I did, it
Speaker 1: was a ten day thing, two hours every day, ten days.
Speaker 1: So I sought permission to stay inside the prison. I said,
Speaker 1: let me stay there ten days with them, so that
Speaker 1: they feel I'm They're really wanting to do something with them,
Speaker 1: not just for cosmetic purposes. I couldn't get that permission
Speaker 1: because there were some militants in India they called terrorists,
Speaker 1: So some of the terrorists were imprisoned in that prison.
Speaker 1: They said, no, we can't let you stay there. But
Speaker 1: every day I went there. My thing was only for
Speaker 1: two hours, but I went there, served mail to them,
Speaker 1: participated with them in their break times. I was there.
Speaker 1: We participated in all activity in the prison. In that
Speaker 1: ward where these prisoners were there, weld. I want to
Speaker 1: back up a second. So you would go in and
Speaker 1: even the first time you said you play a game,
Speaker 1: What kind of a game. We just played simple games.
Speaker 1: We have certain homes like dodgeball and that kind of stuff. People. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fun we had. So every day in the two hour
Speaker 1: program ten days we had about half an hour or
Speaker 1: forty five minutes was just games. Then we taught them
Speaker 1: some simple process of yoga and spoke to them on
Speaker 1: a variety of things. The kind of transformation it brought
Speaker 1: about there. This prison on that day had a six
Speaker 1: years of history. It was during the British era that
Speaker 1: it was set up as a maximum security prison. In
Speaker 1: this one thirty six years. Every day, literally every day,
Speaker 1: someone was always in the solitary. The solitary in that
Speaker 1: prison is like a four by four box four ft
Speaker 1: by four ft steel box. There you can only sit,
Speaker 1: you can't stand up. Jesus so in that they put
Speaker 1: you for a week ten days like this. But after
Speaker 1: we did the program, after we did three programs, I
Speaker 1: think nobody went into the solitary for more than two year.
Speaker 1: Is not a single person entered the solitary. That's a
Speaker 1: kind of difference it made. And they burst forth into poetry.
Speaker 1: Most of them are school dropouts or many of them illiterate,
Speaker 1: but they all burst out into poetry, writing poems. We
Speaker 1: have over three to four thousand poems which is being
Speaker 1: released in India as a part of this. This program
Speaker 1: be called as in a Freedom for the imprisoned. In
Speaker 1: Freedom for the imprison I munna tell you this. There
Speaker 1: was one guy, his name was Sham I think he's
Speaker 1: been executed now. He was there for three murders which
Speaker 1: he committed in the courtroom. He killed three people in
Speaker 1: the courtroom. Wow. So that is a kind of crime.
Speaker 1: You can't get away in the courtroom. When you do it,
Speaker 1: it's considered the worst thing. Well, and it's pretty hard
Speaker 1: to Yeah, I mean it's of the judge, your judges,
Speaker 1: the eye witness. So yeah, pretty much done there. So
Speaker 1: he wrote a poem which you know, brought the entire
Speaker 1: prison into tears and just about anybody who reads the poem.
Speaker 1: He just said he he's been in the on the
Speaker 1: death row for about seven years. By then, every time
Speaker 1: in the evening, see, daytime is quite okay in the prison.
Speaker 1: From morning six to evening six, it's fine. Sunset, everybody
Speaker 1: goes into the cells and the cell door closes. Normally
Speaker 1: in India it's eight by five cell three people will
Speaker 1: be there. That is when all all kinds of horrors begin.
Speaker 1: One thing the prison psychologists told us is every day
Speaker 1: in the night, in their sleep, people are howling like animals.
Speaker 1: One simple thing that happened with the simple meditation process
Speaker 1: we brought is people first sharing is they're sleeping peacefully.
Speaker 1: All these sounds and yellings stopped. And this guy a poem.
Speaker 1: Every day when the cell door closes, I thought this
Speaker 1: was my grave, but now this has become my bodhi tree.
Speaker 1: If the cell door closes, you know the bodhi tree
Speaker 1: where Buddha God enlightened. When the cell door closes, I
Speaker 1: closed my eyes and I am in a different world altogether.
Speaker 1: This has become my Bodhi tree. He wrote this poem
Speaker 1: in Tamil in the local language. So like this there
Speaker 1: we've seen many, many fantastic transformational stories. See, the law
Speaker 1: has its ways. I mean, it's not for me to
Speaker 1: suddenly ask for a change in law or something, because
Speaker 1: you have to maintain law and order in a country.
Speaker 1: There are many issues, but no matter where a human
Speaker 1: being is. Actually everywhere they call it a correction center,
Speaker 1: but there is no room for correction. In fact, people
Speaker 1: who go to prison for short stints and come they
Speaker 1: become really hardcore criminals when they come out, at least
Speaker 1: that's true in India. So when they go in they
Speaker 1: may be just partic criminals, when they come out they
Speaker 1: become serious level of crime. Right, that's a generalization here.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say that, but it does happen because it's logical.
Speaker 1: And also when we people here come out, they come
Speaker 1: out with a stigma having been in cars rated. It's
Speaker 1: harder to get a job and it's harder, you know.
Speaker 1: They if they had also come out with skills. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they may learn criminal skills. But I want to say
Speaker 1: to just not to direct your flow here, but today
Speaker 1: is it is it particularly uh interesting day for you
Speaker 1: to be here because as we were discussing before, today
Speaker 1: is the day when Washington State abolished the death penalty,
Speaker 1: becoming the twentieth state in America to to do so.
Speaker 1: And hopefully we'll get all fifty because it's preposterous that
Speaker 1: we said it's it's disgusting that we as a country
Speaker 1: still execute people. It's also the eve of and you
Speaker 1: brought this up. You know, we call it correctional as
Speaker 1: you said, but it's just punitive. All all we do
Speaker 1: is punish people. I mean, there are some little programs
Speaker 1: here and there, but they've been cut back and cut
Speaker 1: back and cut back, um, which of course is crazy too,
Speaker 1: because the more we invest inside the prisons and helping
Speaker 1: people to better themselves and to advance themselves spiritually as
Speaker 1: you do, or educationally or whatever it is, um, the
Speaker 1: better chance they have of not reoffending and becoming productive
Speaker 1: citizens and paying taxes and and not causing problems on
Speaker 1: the outside. And to that end, today tomorrow group is
Speaker 1: going m about thirty correction officials. My friend Dan Sleptian
Speaker 1: is going with them UH to tour prisons in Scandinavia
Speaker 1: and parts of Europe to see how they do it there,
Speaker 1: because there they focus on rehabilitation and they do it right.
Speaker 1: So by and large, so hopefully that those some of
Speaker 1: those practices will be brought back here. But I think
Speaker 1: it's it's exciting that there is some progress and some momentum,
Speaker 1: more than any time since I've started working on this
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago. For for this type of change.
Speaker 1: Of all the things, the most important thing is that
Speaker 1: one who is imprisoned learns to handless condition in a
Speaker 1: healthy manner within himself or herself. Please explain my work
Speaker 1: is Essentially, it doesn't matter where you are, whether you
Speaker 1: are in New York City or in India or in Africa.
Speaker 1: You're a prisoner, you're a politician, you're a musician, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter who you are. Essentially, every human being has
Speaker 1: the right to be joyful and peaceful outside conditions in
Speaker 1: our lives. What the world throws at us is not
Speaker 1: always determined by us, but what we make out of
Speaker 1: it within ourselves is entirely ours dent. So to empower
Speaker 1: people like this whether they are inside the prison outside
Speaker 1: the prison, because those who are outside the prison doesn't
Speaker 1: mean they're living joyfully. Many of them suffer more than
Speaker 1: the prisoners. When I went into the prison in the
Speaker 1: climate or where I personally worked. After that, we trained
Speaker 1: teachers and now in the last twenty three years it's
Speaker 1: become a mandatory program in southern Indian prisons. What I
Speaker 1: saw was see when you go into the prison, it's
Speaker 1: a pretty organized place. Your food comes on the dot,
Speaker 1: your your door open, somebody opens doors for you, should
Speaker 1: sit for you. I'm saying, it's a very organized place.
Speaker 1: A lot of people aspire for that in their lives
Speaker 1: and it never happens. The only problem is I've never
Speaker 1: been into these prisons, either in India or in the
Speaker 1: United States and come out without tears in my eyes,
Speaker 1: simply because there is pain in the air. This is
Speaker 1: how important freedom is for a human being. There's nothing else.
Speaker 1: Food is on time. In fact, people who are living
Speaker 1: in prison are far fitter than those people who are
Speaker 1: living outside. They're very physically fit, they're well fed everything.
Speaker 1: The only thing is there's no freedom, and how much
Speaker 1: it hurts a human being is unbelievable. There's simply pain
Speaker 1: in the air. If you just breathe that air, you've
Speaker 1: you know, tears well up in your eyes. Not because
Speaker 1: I think of something emotional about them, simply the very
Speaker 1: atmosphere is full of pain. This is how significant freedom
Speaker 1: means for a human being. If you just take away
Speaker 1: that one thing, how much pain and how much damage
Speaker 1: it does to a human being in a very profound
Speaker 1: way is unbelievable. Well, and I do want to say
Speaker 1: in America, of course, we have you know, conditions in
Speaker 1: the prisons, in many prisons that are really terrible. And
Speaker 1: that does extend to the food. Yes, you get three
Speaker 1: meals a day, but the food is can be rotten,
Speaker 1: it can be it's certainly not nutritious. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: it is something that I think there's there's disease prone, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, because of the quality and the and the
Speaker 1: substance that they're being fed. So I don't want to
Speaker 1: sugarcoat that, but you are absolutely correct it is. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying they're getting the best food. I'm saying regular food.
Speaker 1: Regular they're never hungry. Food is given to them and
Speaker 1: they're healthy because they fit. They kept themselves fit inside
Speaker 1: the prison I'm not trying to illogize a prison. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm trying to point out just because freedom is taken away,
Speaker 1: how much it hurts a human. I think that's that's
Speaker 1: a very good point, and it's interesting too. I'm reading
Speaker 1: a book now. I'm almost finished with this book by
Speaker 1: Anthony ray Hinton called The Sun Does Shine UM, and
Speaker 1: it's his story of spending thirty years on death row
Speaker 1: in Alabama for a crime he didn't commit, and how
Speaker 1: he was able to escape from his uh, you know,
Speaker 1: taking is his own mind and using it to escape
Speaker 1: from this five by eight UH cell that he was
Speaker 1: trapped in. UM. It's quite extraordinary, and I think that he,
Speaker 1: like a lot of people, found some variation of the
Speaker 1: principles that you teach UM on his own because it
Speaker 1: was the only way that he could survive this unbelievable ordeal.
Speaker 1: Seeing so many of the people around him executed, UH,
Speaker 1: smelling that smell of death and all the other deprivations
Speaker 1: of death row. It's it's quite remarkable. And to me,
Speaker 1: I get so much UM inspiration and and UM gratitude
Speaker 1: from being around UH these extraordinary individuals who have persevered
Speaker 1: through these impossible conditions. And found, like I said, through
Speaker 1: you know, necessity or despiration or inspiration or some combination
Speaker 1: thereof again some variation of the very things that you
Speaker 1: are able to bring inside. And I want to turn
Speaker 1: to that too, because you've done work in prisons in
Speaker 1: America as well. And how did that happen? Um, When
Speaker 1: I came to Nashville, because we kind of centered around Nashville,
Speaker 1: I visited this old prison from the kind of colonial times,
Speaker 1: and they took me into this place where where the
Speaker 1: executions happened. Just the just the energy that the stones
Speaker 1: around the stone walls have absorbed and still exceued is
Speaker 1: so terrible. So right there, I decided we need to
Speaker 1: go to the prisons and do something. But we didn't
Speaker 1: get permission in Tennessee, so we went to Kentucky and
Speaker 1: then we came to Pennsylvania. These are two which allowed.
Speaker 1: But then I found that there was a lot of
Speaker 1: resistance from religious groups and others for any yoga or
Speaker 1: anything to come in there openly or goued with me,
Speaker 1: we will put them in prisons because we want them
Speaker 1: to suffer. We don't want you to have them blissed out.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of resistance and struggle. So we
Speaker 1: have not done much in the last few years in America,
Speaker 1: but in India it continues. Yes, it's it's I'm glad
Speaker 1: you brought that up too, because I am trying to remember.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine who I met acquaintance several years ago,
Speaker 1: had been teaching UH yoga and meditation in prisons in
Speaker 1: America and was so successful, um in terms of the
Speaker 1: results being like what you described in India, where the violence,
Speaker 1: the rates of violence inside the prisons plummeted, right, the
Speaker 1: infractions of the prisoners, every aspect of it just was
Speaker 1: so much better. Inmate on inmate violence, inmate inmate to guard,
Speaker 1: vice versa. Everything just was so much better. Of course,
Speaker 1: so they canceled the program, right, and it's really remarkable,
Speaker 1: you know. We there's a case that I'm involved with now,
Speaker 1: and this is how crazy our system is in America
Speaker 1: in South Dakota where and you brought this to mind.
Speaker 1: A guy his last name is rhymes uh. He was
Speaker 1: sentenced to death by a jury who said that they
Speaker 1: senced him to death instead of life because he's gay
Speaker 1: and they felt that sensing him to life in prison
Speaker 1: would entitle him to a life of enjoyment because he
Speaker 1: would enjoy being in there and amongst the presence of
Speaker 1: other men because he's gay. Um. Now, this is such
Speaker 1: an outrageous and terrible thing for anyone to say, and
Speaker 1: the idea that it's allowed to stand in this country.
Speaker 1: It's almost like the jury was committing a hate crime. Um.
Speaker 1: So many of us are working now, including people at
Speaker 1: the this this project on trying to get clemency from
Speaker 1: the governor, because it's it's it's it's an extreme version
Speaker 1: of what you were talking about. The idea that we
Speaker 1: sit there and say, well, we don't want there to
Speaker 1: be any joy of any kind or any and you
Speaker 1: contrast it with places like Norway, right where in Norway
Speaker 1: the guards are trained for two years. My understanding is
Speaker 1: that only ten of the ones who apply actually are accepted.
Speaker 1: They're trained in psychology, they're trained in conflict resolution, they're
Speaker 1: trained in all types of different protocols. And when people
Speaker 1: are brought to the prison, the warden gives a speech
Speaker 1: where he says something along the lines just first of all,
Speaker 1: the guards sing a song and then and some people
Speaker 1: listen are gonna say, well, this is outrage this is
Speaker 1: too much. We can't do that. It's too nice or
Speaker 1: whatever whatever, but this is the way they do it
Speaker 1: over there, and the warden says it, makes a speech
Speaker 1: and says something like, well, I recognize that your people,
Speaker 1: your human beings, like me, and when you come out
Speaker 1: you might be my neighbor. Therefore, I want to treat
Speaker 1: you as my equal and treat you, as you know,
Speaker 1: with dignity, so that when you are done with your
Speaker 1: sentinels in the intention of correction is very alive. That's
Speaker 1: what it means. Yes, over there, it's a very very
Speaker 1: den in Germany. It's true to where they have that
Speaker 1: the cells have locks, but they locked from the inside.
Speaker 1: You know, how how different is that? Right? What a
Speaker 1: simple change. They locked from the inside, so you could
Speaker 1: have that's a home. When you lock from inside, it's
Speaker 1: a home. I mean, you don't want to be there, right,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be there. You don't want to
Speaker 1: be there, No, no right minded person wants to be there.
Speaker 1: But at least again, it provides a certain level of
Speaker 1: dignity that allows for It's quite opposite. For that way
Speaker 1: the poem that he wrote about every time the cell
Speaker 1: door closed it felt like my grave, in that he
Speaker 1: describes the clang of the boat when the damned door
Speaker 1: and plan crack. They look it. He he always started
Speaker 1: his death knell, you know, when he heard the soun
Speaker 1: that life is over every day. It's it's just the
Speaker 1: way somebody locks the door from outside, if you could
Speaker 1: lock it from inside. It's a world of difference. It's
Speaker 1: a world of difference. And again, the recidivism rates in
Speaker 1: these countries are so much lower than ours because partially
Speaker 1: because of the fact that these people are treated as
Speaker 1: human beings when they go there and you know here,
Speaker 1: and of course I do want to touch on this too,
Speaker 1: and I'm interested in your take on this because in America,
Speaker 1: we treat people with mental illness as pariah's um and
Speaker 1: we lock them up instead of treating them for the
Speaker 1: syndromes that they suffer from. Now, I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: if someone is mentally ill and they go and kill
Speaker 1: you know, people, that they shouldn't be punished in some way.
Speaker 1: Um but uh. And I, like you, believe in a
Speaker 1: system of law and order. I do think we need
Speaker 1: a justice system. We need to be free society, but
Speaker 1: we also everyone is entitled to be safe. Um So,
Speaker 1: But it is incredible that we lock people with mental
Speaker 1: illness up in these prisons at the numbers that we do,
Speaker 1: the the estimates of the number of people who suffer
Speaker 1: from a diagnosable medical uh you know, uh, recognizable mental
Speaker 1: illness that are incarcerated in this country. I think it's
Speaker 1: something like thirty of the inmates in this country have
Speaker 1: this and so. And those people are damned to an
Speaker 1: even more dire faith because of the fact that they
Speaker 1: can't obey the rules, right, So they're constantly being punished
Speaker 1: on top of their punishment because they're not mentally able
Speaker 1: to sometimes understand or go along with due to whatever
Speaker 1: it might be, schizophrenia or whatever they have. And so
Speaker 1: they end up in the whole or they end up
Speaker 1: in these you know, the shore or even worse can auditions,
Speaker 1: and of course all that does is exacerbate their mental illness.
Speaker 1: So what is your I mean, do you have any
Speaker 1: insight into this? Say? Um? The thing is in the
Speaker 1: different system of when people want to lawyers want to
Speaker 1: defend their clients of very terrible crimes that have been committed,
Speaker 1: the first step that they take is mental disorder because
Speaker 1: it's the easiest way to get away. So I think
Speaker 1: even those who make judgments, either a judge or jury
Speaker 1: system in America, it's very hard for them to really
Speaker 1: design for sure which is real mental illnolence, which is not.
Speaker 1: Because every one of us, if we are willing, if
Speaker 1: you push ourselves a little bit, we can cross the
Speaker 1: line of sanity and behave in a certain way. A
Speaker 1: lot of people do under our influence of alcohol or
Speaker 1: a drug. They are crazy today, but tomorrow morning they
Speaker 1: may be fine. Having said that, when somebody's diagno with
Speaker 1: an illness, treating him as a normal person and punishing
Speaker 1: him for those things is inhuman. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: the system might not have evolved to a place to
Speaker 1: handle such people. Well, there may be no systemic in
Speaker 1: a country like America, you should be able to do it.
Speaker 1: In India, I am saying we don't have a systemic
Speaker 1: arrangement to be able to handle such people. But in
Speaker 1: being in all these prisons, being in a community, no
Speaker 1: communication with various prison authorities, I've not heard of mental
Speaker 1: illness patients being there because usually they will be sent
Speaker 1: to a mental institution rather than keeping them in prison,
Speaker 1: because prison is simply not equipped to handle those things.
Speaker 1: But we do not know how many people are there
Speaker 1: who have nailment but who are not being properly diagnosed
Speaker 1: as such and being treated as normal with punishments and stuff.
Speaker 1: It must be happening, I'm sure. Yeah. In New York City,
Speaker 1: we don't have facilities for people in those conditions. We
Speaker 1: don't have the type of treatment centers that you would
Speaker 1: associate with what many people think is the greatest and
Speaker 1: one of the greatest cities in the world. I do.
Speaker 1: I grew up here. I love my city. But it's
Speaker 1: crazy that we have, uh, we have no ability to
Speaker 1: to house these people in a secure but safe environment
Speaker 1: where they can be treated and and hopefully get the
Speaker 1: help that they need in order to overcome or or
Speaker 1: or or get you know, some progress on these conditions
Speaker 1: that are afflicting them. And so we put them into
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system where they are you know, they're
Speaker 1: going to be abused in ways that even that are
Speaker 1: even worse than people who are mentally fit for these situations.
Speaker 1: For these individual sufferings and dividual also systemic situation. One
Speaker 1: significant aspect these we made a huge difference. The reason
Speaker 1: why it's mandatory now in southern areas because the difference
Speaker 1: it made to the people and how their behavior has changed.
Speaker 1: And many of them who are known to be little
Speaker 1: crazy and doing wild things inside the prison, all of
Speaker 1: them leveled out. Just taking yoga into the prisons can
Speaker 1: be a big thing. But when I say yoga, not
Speaker 1: the kind of yoga you're doing in the studios in
Speaker 1: New York City. There is another dimension of yoga. If
Speaker 1: we take this dimension of yoga into prisons, if the
Speaker 1: right kind of people take it in with at most care,
Speaker 1: concern and compassion for the people inside, it can make
Speaker 1: a phenomenal difference. It has made a big, big difference
Speaker 1: in India. We're doing largely in southern India. There are
Speaker 1: other people who are doing in northern part of the India.
Speaker 1: And without doubt, every prison has reported significant changes in
Speaker 1: the behavioral patterns and the amount of violence was there
Speaker 1: in the prison because everything is settled. You know, hands
Speaker 1: are the first things which move in these people. And
Speaker 1: how does this how long does this particular? How many
Speaker 1: minutes a day do people need to devote to the practice.
Speaker 1: They just have to devote twenty one minutes a day,
Speaker 1: twenty one minutes and uh seven days a week. And
Speaker 1: the changes six days a week, just every day, every
Speaker 1: day that you can't carry seven there's too much of
Speaker 1: a burden to Kenny, I agree. When I heard myself
Speaker 1: say that, I said, well, it sounds like a lot
Speaker 1: that you said every day. I was like, well that
Speaker 1: I could do. It's like it's like one day at
Speaker 1: a time, right, So, um, never days come in bunches
Speaker 1: at you. It only comes one at a time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's isn't it such a wonderful grace that the creation
Speaker 1: never throws bunches of days at you. Suppose it came
Speaker 1: like a bunch of grapes, twenty five days came at
Speaker 1: you at a time. What would you do, Especially if
Speaker 1: it was like Wednesday, Thursday, and Monday at the same time,
Speaker 1: or Sunday and Tuesday and Friday. It would be like
Speaker 1: so confusing, you know what I mean, Nobody would know
Speaker 1: what to do that. We have a metaphysical problem as well.
Speaker 1: So how can we full time in America? Now? Not
Speaker 1: most of the time. No, I have teams of people here, volunteers.
Speaker 1: So we need to figure out a way to work
Speaker 1: together to bring this UM teaching inside more prisons here
Speaker 1: and see if we can. You know, I think this
Speaker 1: would work much better on East coast and west coast,
Speaker 1: But most of the work that we tried to do
Speaker 1: we did it in the Midwest, and the levels of
Speaker 1: resistance see the I think when we attempted this also
Speaker 1: about eight ten years ago. From then to now, I
Speaker 1: think the opinion of what yoga is has changed dramatically.
Speaker 1: In America, people thought this is some religious practice from India.
Speaker 1: Now they understand it is the science of well being.
Speaker 1: So I think that understanding has sipped into the society
Speaker 1: quite well now. So it should be much easier to
Speaker 1: do it now than when we attempted to do it here.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, I would love to see if
Speaker 1: we can work on it in New York State. You
Speaker 1: know there are But the good news is there are.
Speaker 1: As much as there's a lot of people in positions
Speaker 1: of power who are maybe closed minded, there are also
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are open minded and who
Speaker 1: want to improve the conditions. And it's better for everyone
Speaker 1: when we're able to do that. It's better for I
Speaker 1: think everyone in that ecosystem of the prison, not just
Speaker 1: the inmates, right, even the closed minded people when they're
Speaker 1: very happy, they opened the minds a little bit so
Speaker 1: that is my thing. People. They were amazed, How is
Speaker 1: it these criminals, they're all behaving so well with you,
Speaker 1: they're so happy with you. I said, this is all
Speaker 1: it is. If you keep a human being happy, he's
Speaker 1: a wonderful guy always. If you're unhappy, he could be heading.
Speaker 1: That's different. That's true with everybody, isn't it. So twenty
Speaker 1: one minutes a day not bad. Um, it's a way
Speaker 1: of to put it, very simply, to put it technically,
Speaker 1: It's like this. So all human experience has a chemical
Speaker 1: basis to it. What you call a stress, what do
Speaker 1: you call its anxiety? What you call its tranquility, misery, joy, agony, ecstasy,
Speaker 1: Everything has a chemical basis to it within the system.
Speaker 1: Now don't think about other chemicals in New York City.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the chemistry in the body. So every
Speaker 1: human experience has a chemical basis to it. Now, if
Speaker 1: you create a chemistry of blissfulness, you are blissful by
Speaker 1: your own nature. This is like a chemical soup. You
Speaker 1: are a chemical soup, actually a very complex chemical soup.
Speaker 1: The question it only are you a great super a
Speaker 1: lousy soup? So this is just about teaching people how
Speaker 1: to make a great super out of yourself that it
Speaker 1: tastes really wonderful from within. And when you're feeling wonderful,
Speaker 1: you're naturally wonderful to everything around you. And how can people?
Speaker 1: So people are listening now, right, I'm sure they're wondering,
Speaker 1: how can I get involved with this? How can I myself?
Speaker 1: I'm not in prison, I'm out bad about doing whatever
Speaker 1: I'm doing. A lot of people listening in their cars,
Speaker 1: those who are imprisoned not by the government but by
Speaker 1: their own nature. But but this practice, this magical twenty
Speaker 1: this is like a tease to people. Right, They're listening
Speaker 1: to the other, going where is this twenty one minute?
Speaker 1: How do I find these twenty What do I do?
Speaker 1: It's called aner engineering. They must look it up under
Speaker 1: engineering inner engineering. And there's YouTube videos and things so
Speaker 1: I can learn because I want to learn myself. Now.
Speaker 1: You know, there's even a propriatory online program. Uh huh.
Speaker 1: And you can just pull it up and just start
Speaker 1: doing it right now. Yes, they can. I can envision
Speaker 1: people now driving to work and pulling over on the
Speaker 1: side of the roads. Of people across the world have
Speaker 1: done it. We had an organization which is completely run
Speaker 1: by volunteers. We have about four thousand, uh full time
Speaker 1: volunteers and over nine million part time volunteers. It's all
Speaker 1: done by them. Well, I mean, you might have nine
Speaker 1: million and one by the time we finished with this podcast,
Speaker 1: because right so it's www Dot Inner Engineering dot com.
Speaker 1: Www Dot inner Engineering dot com. And I want to
Speaker 1: also say, I mean, I've I've had the privilege of
Speaker 1: getting to know so many people who are either still
Speaker 1: on inside prison like Yan Serring, who is those those
Speaker 1: people that you have helped to come out, those who
Speaker 1: are wrongly incarcerated, and now you help them to come out.
Speaker 1: We would be privileged to conduct a special program for
Speaker 1: them if they're in one place somewhere. Okay, fantastic, We're
Speaker 1: gonna you know what we're gonna do. We will will
Speaker 1: organize that for the next Innocence Network conference, where we're
Speaker 1: going to have approximately two hundred people who are wrongfully
Speaker 1: convicted all gathering together. We will do the program we
Speaker 1: love for the program at our cost. We will whatever
Speaker 1: is needed for those people that would be wonderful and
Speaker 1: much appreciate, and we're gonna make that happen. Um. But
Speaker 1: I was gonna say too that I've had the privilege
Speaker 1: of getting to know some extraordinary people like Sonny Jacobs,
Speaker 1: who I was talking to you about before, who was
Speaker 1: sentenced to death, who taught herself these practices from things
Speaker 1: she remembered seeing on TV. And this was in the
Speaker 1: seventies when she was convicted, late seventies, early eighties, um,
Speaker 1: and who got her you know, who managed to maintain
Speaker 1: her sanity in her years in isolation on death row
Speaker 1: by by using some similar, you know, techniques, practices. And
Speaker 1: then there's a guy who I always think about, Nimen Sering,
Speaker 1: who's still in after thirty one years in Virginia, who
Speaker 1: is a meditation practitioner and a Thai Chi master, and
Speaker 1: I know he's teaching others in the in the prison
Speaker 1: that he's in in Virginia some of these practices and
Speaker 1: writing books about it and other things like that. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's out there and it's already percolating,
Speaker 1: and you know it's helping people, but it needs to
Speaker 1: be done on a much more organized and organized Scalely
Speaker 1: scale is important if you want to see the difference.
Speaker 1: That's the word I was looking for, a scale. So
Speaker 1: I would love to see if we can start. I mean,
Speaker 1: for instance, I think New York State is a good
Speaker 1: place to start. UM. We have um some very good
Speaker 1: people and positions of great authority inside the correction system
Speaker 1: who I think would be very open minded to this UM.
Speaker 1: And I have a prison in mind right now. Or
Speaker 1: my friend J. J. Velasquez, John Age of last Quas
Speaker 1: has been on the show, is still locked up in
Speaker 1: sing Sing and I think we're gonna let's explore and
Speaker 1: see if we can bring this practice inside there. They
Speaker 1: do a lot of wonderful things their voices from within
Speaker 1: and other programs that are that are progressive, I would say,
Speaker 1: but this would be I mean, there's so many good
Speaker 1: things that can come out of you being here. And
Speaker 1: I was starting this this process now. Now it's interesting
Speaker 1: because you're such a such an interesting and inspirational man,
Speaker 1: and yet you are a victim of the same affliction
Speaker 1: as I am, which is called golf. So why why
Speaker 1: do you suffer? I don't suffer that as an infliction.
Speaker 1: It's just that I used to play a variety of games.
Speaker 1: I played a lot of field hockey when I was young.
Speaker 1: I played soccer, being in India, played cricket. I was
Speaker 1: When I was in school, I was in some twelve
Speaker 1: disciplines of games. That's all. I did, just bot most
Speaker 1: of the time. But about seven eight years ago, I
Speaker 1: was playing soccer with the kids and I tore my
Speaker 1: a c L and my left knee cartilage. So after
Speaker 1: that injury, I was just sitting. I had an event
Speaker 1: and I was sitting at a dinner table and somebody
Speaker 1: brought one brand new tailor made golf it and they said,
Speaker 1: it's time you play golf. You're too old for the
Speaker 1: other games. You're time. It's time you understand this. The
Speaker 1: next day I all packed up my knee. I went
Speaker 1: to the golf course, straight onto the course. I've never
Speaker 1: been to a driving range till now. I just went straight,
Speaker 1: straight on the course and I hit the ball. It
Speaker 1: went straight there was It's amazing. I said, what's a
Speaker 1: big problem. It's a bloody sitting ball, not moving. He's
Speaker 1: not moving. It's a sitting ball. Any other game I played,
Speaker 1: the ball was coming at me at different angles, different velocities,
Speaker 1: different spins. Here it's sitting. What's a big deal about
Speaker 1: hitting it? So I never took a lesson. I've never
Speaker 1: been on a range now I'm playing for a handicap
Speaker 1: of not bad. Pretty amazing. Um, you'd like gonna be
Speaker 1: the successor to Tiger Woods or something like that. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get you on the tour. It's gonna be amazing,
Speaker 1: self taught and everything else. Um So, and I think
Speaker 1: we may we may have to go out and hit
Speaker 1: some balls together tomorrow. Um. I think the weather is
Speaker 1: going to cooperate. So that's the plan and I'm excited
Speaker 1: about that. Will with the ball will sit there and
Speaker 1: wait for us, and we will go out there and
Speaker 1: address it problems anybody. It sits and yeah, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't know who we are either until we hit it.
Speaker 1: And it is amazing because when people ask me about
Speaker 1: golf and they say, um, we're getting way off topic here.
Speaker 1: But people who don't play golf, they ask me, why
Speaker 1: why do you do? This is a waste of time
Speaker 1: four hours just at the other what. First of all,
Speaker 1: you're out there in nature. It's beautiful. It's grass and
Speaker 1: water and trees and birds and air and whatever. It's
Speaker 1: very nice, you know, nice day whatever. You're with friends
Speaker 1: and social. But moreover, on those rare occasions when you
Speaker 1: actually hit a golf ball, properly, and you can. The
Speaker 1: physics are the same in golf as other sports with balls.
Speaker 1: Right when you hit one side of the ball, it
Speaker 1: compresses and then that energy has to go somewhere, so
Speaker 1: it explodes out the other side of the ball and
Speaker 1: then the ball flies. And on that rare occasion when
Speaker 1: I have had the privilege of hitting it properly, you
Speaker 1: can actually feel that compression and it goes through the
Speaker 1: ball to the club, into your hands and throw your body,
Speaker 1: into your soul and connects you to the center of
Speaker 1: the universe in a way. That is that's my that's
Speaker 1: my definition. I don't know it does. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it happens maybe once every few rounds, but that shot
Speaker 1: is what I live for when I'm out there. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just such a great amazing thing. And then unlike
Speaker 1: other sports, you don't have to run, Nobody tackles you, nobody,
Speaker 1: nobody's saying to take your ball. You just go and
Speaker 1: walk and look and catch catch up with the ball
Speaker 1: and think a little bit, what kind of shot. And
Speaker 1: it's a very nice little breeze. That's nice, nice, nice.
Speaker 1: So hopefully tomorrow will have that experience. I can't guarantee it,
Speaker 1: but we'll see what It freaks people, mainly because they
Speaker 1: got nobody to blame, but the ball that went into
Speaker 1: the lake they annoy. It's them. That's what you see
Speaker 1: people freaking because they know if it's any other game,
Speaker 1: you can say the other guy did it. Here there
Speaker 1: is nobody else when the ball lands in the lake,
Speaker 1: you know it's just you. That's what makes them make
Speaker 1: people go totally crazy. So there's a strong element of
Speaker 1: personal responsibilities, which is pretty hint thing out there which
Speaker 1: I can see that so UM grew before we close, UM,
Speaker 1: I wanted to do the same thing I do when
Speaker 1: I'm every more or less every episode, which is to
Speaker 1: ask my guests if if I can just turn the
Speaker 1: microphone my microphone off, UM and and thank you again
Speaker 1: for being here and sharing your your thoughts and your
Speaker 1: experience and your wisdom with with me and with the audience,
Speaker 1: and then just turn it over to you for any
Speaker 1: other ideas that you would like to share. So this
Speaker 1: is something everyone should understand that everybody is some kind
Speaker 1: of a prisoner of their own making, some unfortunately by
Speaker 1: the state, but rest by themselves. When I said prisoner,
Speaker 1: people have limited themselves in some way, they've drawn their
Speaker 1: own by boundaries, the boundaries maybe of gender, race, or religion,
Speaker 1: or ethnicity or nationality. We've drawn boundaries that we cannot
Speaker 1: cross in our own minds, which is the basis of
Speaker 1: so much of suffering that's happening within human beings. So
Speaker 1: we need to understand this as there is a science
Speaker 1: and technology for external well being. When I say science
Speaker 1: and technology for external well being, if you just look
Speaker 1: back and see what is the level of comfort and
Speaker 1: convenience that people enjoyed a hundred years ago and what
Speaker 1: is the level of comfort and convenience who are enjoying today,
Speaker 1: it's just unbelievable. No generation ever knew these kind of
Speaker 1: comforts and conveniences, so we should be the most joyful generation.
Speaker 1: But such a thing has not happened simply because we've
Speaker 1: fixed the outside too much, done nothing about our interiority.
Speaker 1: So as there is a science and technology for external
Speaker 1: well being, there is a whole science and technology for
Speaker 1: inner well being. You don't have to believe anything, you
Speaker 1: don't have to belong to any group, if you just
Speaker 1: learn a few things about how to manage your body,
Speaker 1: how to manage your thought, process, your emotion, and your energies.
Speaker 1: If these four dimensions your body, mind, emotion, and energy
Speaker 1: take instructions from you, you will live healthy, you will
Speaker 1: live blessed out, and you will live a powerfully intense life.
Speaker 1: This is possible for every human being when it comes
Speaker 1: to the outside action. Not to human beings are equal.
Speaker 1: What we can do with our body, what we can
Speaker 1: do with our mind, not to human beings are equal.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to the inner dimension, all of
Speaker 1: us are equally capable. Such a thing has not happened
Speaker 1: to most people simply because they never paid attention to
Speaker 1: what is within. They thought by fixing the outside, everything
Speaker 1: will be okay. You see the hammer banging, because they
Speaker 1: think by fixing the outside, everything is gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: We have more comfort and convenience in any generation ever
Speaker 1: had in the history of humanity. We are the most
Speaker 1: comfortable generation ever. But we are almost complaining like neurotic
Speaker 1: complaint level, simply because we have not done anything about
Speaker 1: the inner nature of who we are. So what we
Speaker 1: are referring to us in engineering is this possibility. This
Speaker 1: is not only for people who are in some state
Speaker 1: of suffering or imprisoned or whatever. First and foremost thing
Speaker 1: is people in positions of responsibility and power must get
Speaker 1: this because if they don't break their limitations within themselves,
Speaker 1: if though they don't erase the boundaries of their individuality you,
Speaker 1: they cannot change the situation. They cannot bring about a
Speaker 1: new possibility. You have heard the word yoga. Of course,
Speaker 1: the word yoga means union. The yoga, the word yoga
Speaker 1: does not mean twisting and turning. Yoga means union. Union
Speaker 1: means there is you and the universe. Right now. If
Speaker 1: you look at individual human beings, their life is like
Speaker 1: it is you versus the universe. You versus universe is
Speaker 1: a stupid competition to get into the Yoga means consciously
Speaker 1: you raise the boundaries of your individuality. Where there is
Speaker 1: no you and the universe, You are a part of
Speaker 1: the universe in your living experience, not as an idea,
Speaker 1: not as an intellectual process, not as an emotional process,
Speaker 1: but as a living experience. Like you experience the ten
Speaker 1: fingers of your hand, you experience all life around you.
Speaker 1: If if a human being is touched by this experience,
Speaker 1: even for a moment, the very way you perceive, experience,
Speaker 1: and express your life alters dramatically, and that is what
Speaker 1: needs to happen. We are just doing uh cosmetic changes
Speaker 1: to human beings by teaching them morality, ethics, small changes
Speaker 1: in attitudes. This is not good enough. Only when you
Speaker 1: experience the other as myself, everything about you changes. This
Speaker 1: is what yoga means, this is what in engineering means.
Speaker 1: In a way. On that note, um, I want to
Speaker 1: thank you again for media in whatever way we can
Speaker 1: be useful for these people who have been unjustly punished
Speaker 1: by a society. We will do our best. Please call
Speaker 1: upon us whenever we needed. Thank you, I will be
Speaker 1: doing so. And thank you for that very kind and
Speaker 1: generous offer. And also get ready to be beaten in
Speaker 1: the golf game tomorrow. Oh boy, I thought we are
Speaker 1: one and one is the two and the other one
Speaker 1: is together and we're gonna I'm gonna be on with
Speaker 1: the universe. So okay, Well, it's good to know that
Speaker 1: that doesn't that doesn't extend all the way to the
Speaker 1: golf course. It stops at the entrance to the club.
Speaker 1: So anyway, well, this has been a real treat for me.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fair tastic review. Wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. It really helps, and I'm a
Speaker 1: proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope
Speaker 1: you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and
Speaker 1: helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project
Speaker 1: dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wardis. The music on the show is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal
Speaker 1: Company Number one