Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't
Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 3: Everything like everything.
Speaker 4: This isn't supposed to happen this way.
Speaker 2: I'm innocent. I know I'm innocent. I know I had
Speaker 2: nothing to do with this.
Speaker 1: How is this possible?
Speaker 3: I grew up trusting the systems. I grew up believing
Speaker 3: that every human being should do the right thing. And
Speaker 3: that's why, even though I knew I was dealing with
Speaker 3: corerough people, I wasn't going to break anyone to get
Speaker 3: me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the
Speaker 3: fact that I break my way out of my wife's death.
Speaker 3: I'm not innocent, too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I
Speaker 3: prove my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me.
Speaker 2: Our system.
Speaker 1: Since I've been out ten years, it's come a little ways,
Speaker 1: but it's still broken.
Speaker 3: I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.
Speaker 2: This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to wrongful conviction with Jason Flamm. Today I
Speaker 4: have that's me, But today I have an extraordinary treat
Speaker 4: for me and for you the audience.
Speaker 2: My guest today is sad Guru. And sad Garu is.
Speaker 4: An internationally renowned yogi and mystic teacher of meditation, a
Speaker 4: New York Times bestselling author, and a man who has
Speaker 4: done fantastic work in prisons all over the world, teaching
Speaker 4: meditation and enlightenment to people.
Speaker 2: Who most needed. I think you could say so, sod Guru,
Speaker 2: welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me here.
Speaker 4: So this is so exciting because the idea of being
Speaker 4: able to explore this aspect of the mind and the
Speaker 4: you know, the mind inside the prison and how to
Speaker 4: transcend these most terrible circumstances, which I've heard you talk
Speaker 4: about in videos, It's something that I think can help
Speaker 4: people both on the inside and the outside. Family members
Speaker 4: as well, but everybody. So I'm really interested in knowing
Speaker 4: how you how you got started first of all, on
Speaker 4: this journey, and even more so, how you became interested
Speaker 4: and involved in taking this practice inside the prison walls.
Speaker 1: So this is almost twenty seven, twenty eight years ago,
Speaker 1: I think twenty eight years ago, there was a ladies
Speaker 1: club in cormetor city where we are located now. They
Speaker 1: invited me to speak in that ladies club. This is,
Speaker 1: you know, a group of maybe two hundred very elite
Speaker 1: women of the town. So I was talking to them
Speaker 1: and just outside their club building there's a nice tree.
Speaker 1: We were sitting under the tree and I was speaking
Speaker 1: to them. Then I saw this big wall which is
Speaker 1: nearly twenty feet tall wall. I looked at the wall
Speaker 1: and said, why such a big wall here? And the
Speaker 1: fantastic thing is none of them knew. Then I just
Speaker 1: enquired with the volunteers that were around me. They said,
Speaker 1: this is the prison. It is in the heart of
Speaker 1: the city and there's a prison. These ladies that club,
Speaker 1: the you know, one part of their club is touching
Speaker 1: the wall and they don't know it's a prison. And
Speaker 1: then I discovered the road, the main road in the
Speaker 1: city is called jail Road. Yes, then I said, I
Speaker 1: would like to meet those people who are on the
Speaker 1: other side of the wall. I would like to do
Speaker 1: something with them. I would like to see who are they.
Speaker 1: Then we discovered the superintendent of the prison was somebody
Speaker 1: who was known to me. Then I tried to put
Speaker 1: an application saying that I would like to come and
Speaker 1: do something.
Speaker 2: So you're breaking into the prison.
Speaker 1: Yes, breaking into the prison is not easy. It took
Speaker 1: me over two years to get inside. I did not
Speaker 1: have the qualifications.
Speaker 4: And what was your application when you were saying that
Speaker 4: I want to go inside?
Speaker 1: Because because I said I would like to do something
Speaker 1: with his prisoners and see who they are. Then I
Speaker 1: discovered there were over fourteen hundred prisoners inside. I said,
Speaker 1: fourteen hundred people, what are they for? It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: My work is with human beings. It doesn't matter where
Speaker 1: they are, So let's go. So when I went inside
Speaker 1: or and I tried to get inside, they put me
Speaker 1: through some three interviews that I'm fit enough to go
Speaker 1: to the prison or not. And they've said Seth Grew,
Speaker 1: don't waste your time here these guys. You just can't
Speaker 1: do anything with them. Every Sunday some Christian priests 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 just beating punishment? This all you
Speaker 1: don't waste your time here.
Speaker 4: Well, let me ask you this prison. Was this considered
Speaker 4: a maximum security prison. It is, and so the people
Speaker 4: there are mostly in for murder or silent crimes.
Speaker 1: Nearly nearly, probably six hundred to seven hundred them of
Speaker 1: them are for murder, but largely long term prisoners. Long
Speaker 1: term means in India anything over eight years is considered
Speaker 1: long term prison. So my 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 words. You know, in each word there is something
Speaker 1: like one hundred and thirty two hundred and forty. So
Speaker 1: we picked a ward which had over two hundred prisoners,
Speaker 1: the largest ward, and this is everybody has come there
Speaker 1: for life imprisonment. This means they have done either murder
Speaker 1: or more. So I said, let me do this. So
Speaker 1: they put full security armed police. I 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 them 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 game with them.
Speaker 2: So, okay, so it's you and two hundred.
Speaker 1: Yes, and fifteen criminals hardened and softened. I don't know
Speaker 1: all of them are there for murder or more. So
Speaker 1: we started playing a game and they got so involved
Speaker 1: like little children. They screamed and yelled, and they played
Speaker 1: the game full on for about an hour. Then I
Speaker 1: stopped and then for about half an hour because they
Speaker 1: gave me only two hours maximum two hours you have
Speaker 1: to leave the prison. So then I spoke to them
Speaker 1: for half an hour and told them, see, this is
Speaker 1: what I wish to do. All of you guys should
Speaker 1: write to the authority, to the superintendent that you want
Speaker 1: this program for you. You won't believe when I had
Speaker 1: to leave at the end of two hours, at least
Speaker 1: sixty percent of them were all in tears. They're saying,
Speaker 1: you don't go, you stay with us. So seeing this,
Speaker 1: then they allowed me to conduct a program. The first
Speaker 1: program I did it was a ten day thing, two
Speaker 1: hours every day, ten days. So I sought permission to
Speaker 1: stay inside the prison. I said, let me stay there
Speaker 1: ten days with them, so that they feel I'm there
Speaker 1: really wanting to do something with them, not just for
Speaker 1: cosmetic purposes. I couldn't get that permission because there were
Speaker 1: some militants in India they called terrorists, so some of
Speaker 1: the terrorists were in prison in that prison. They said, no,
Speaker 1: we can't let you stay there. But every day I
Speaker 1: went there. My thing was only for two hours, but
Speaker 1: I went there, served mail to them, participated with them
Speaker 1: in their break times. I was there. We participated in
Speaker 1: all activity in the prison, in that ward where these
Speaker 1: prisoners were there.
Speaker 4: I want to back up a second. So you would
Speaker 4: go in and even the first time you said you'd
Speaker 4: play a game, what kind of a game.
Speaker 1: We just played simple games. We have certain games like
Speaker 1: dodgeball and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Two hundred people. Yeah, that sounds.
Speaker 1: Insane, rolicking fun we had. So every day in the
Speaker 1: two hour program ten days, we had about half an
Speaker 1: hour to forty five minutes was just games. Then we
Speaker 1: thought them some simple process of yoga and spoke to
Speaker 1: them a variety of things. The kind of transformation it
Speaker 1: brought about there. This prison on that day had one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty six years of history. It was during
Speaker 1: the British era that it was set up as a
Speaker 1: maximum security prison. In these one thirty six years, every day,
Speaker 1: literally every day, someone was always in the solitary. The
Speaker 1: solitary in that prison is like a four by four box,
Speaker 1: four feet by four feet steel box. You can only sit,
Speaker 1: you can't stand up, so in that they put you
Speaker 1: for a week ten days like this. But after we
Speaker 1: did the program, after we did three programs, I think
Speaker 1: nobody went into the solitary for more than two years.
Speaker 1: Not a single person entered the solitary. That's the kind
Speaker 1: 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 program. Be
Speaker 1: called as in a Freedom for the imprisoned.
Speaker 2: In her freedom for the impression, I must tell you this.
Speaker 1: There was one guy's name is Shanmogum. 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.
Speaker 4: Well, and it's pretty hard too, yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 4: that of the judge, I mean.
Speaker 1: Your judges, the eyewitness.
Speaker 4: So yeah, you're pretty much done there.
Speaker 1: So he wrote a poem which you brought the entire
Speaker 1: prison into tears and just about anybody who reads the poem.
Speaker 1: He just said he's been in the on the death
Speaker 1: row for about seven years. By then, every time in
Speaker 1: 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 a eight by five cell. Three people
Speaker 1: will be there. That is when 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 their sleeping peacefully.
Speaker 1: All these sounds and ailings stopped. And this guy poem.
Speaker 1: Every day when the cell door closes, I thought this
Speaker 1: was my grave but now this has become my body tree.
Speaker 1: If the cell door closes, you know, the Bodhi tree
Speaker 1: were Buddha, God enlightened. When the cell door closes, I
Speaker 1: close my eyes and I'm in a different world altogether.
Speaker 1: This has become my body 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 pretty criminals, when they come out they
Speaker 1: become serious level of crime.
Speaker 4: Right, that's a generalization here. I shouldn't say that, but
Speaker 4: it does happen because it's logical. And also when we
Speaker 4: people here come out, they come out with a stigma
Speaker 4: having been incarcerated. It's harder to get a job, and
Speaker 4: it's harder, you know, they.
Speaker 2: If they had what else come out of it?
Speaker 4: Skills, they may learn criminal skills. But I want to
Speaker 4: say too, just not to direct your flow here, but
Speaker 4: today is it particularly an interesting day for you to
Speaker 4: be here, because as we were discussing before, today is
Speaker 4: the day when Washington State abolished the death penalty, becoming
Speaker 4: it's wonderful the twentieth state in America to do so,
Speaker 4: and hopefully we'll get all fifty because it's preposterous that
Speaker 4: we send it's disgusting that we as a country still
Speaker 4: execute people. It's also the eve of and you brought
Speaker 4: this up. You know, we call it correctional, as you said,
Speaker 4: but it's just punitive. All we do is punish people.
Speaker 4: I mean, there are some little programs here and there,
Speaker 4: but they've been cut back and cut back and back,
Speaker 4: which of course is crazy too, because the more we
Speaker 4: invest inside the prisons in helping people to better themselves
Speaker 4: and to advance themselves spiritually as you do, or educationally
Speaker 4: or whatever it is, the better chance they have of
Speaker 4: not reoffending, it to becoming productive citizens and paying taxes
Speaker 4: and not causing problems on the outside and to that
Speaker 4: end Today tomorrow group is going of about thirty correction officials.
Speaker 4: My friend Dan Slepion is going with them to tour
Speaker 4: prisons in Scandinavia and parts of Europe to see how
Speaker 4: they do it there, because there they focus on rehabilitation
Speaker 4: and they do it right. So by and large, so
Speaker 4: hopefully that some of those practices will be brought back here.
Speaker 4: But I think it's exciting that there is some progress
Speaker 4: and some momentum, more than any time since I've started
Speaker 4: working on this twenty five years ago for this type
Speaker 4: of change.
Speaker 1: See, of all the things, the most important thing is
Speaker 1: that one who is imprisoned learns to handle this condition
Speaker 1: in a healthy manner within himself or herself.
Speaker 2: Please explain.
Speaker 1: My work is Essentially, see, it doesn't matter where you are,
Speaker 1: whether you're in New York City or in India or
Speaker 1: in Africa. You're a prisoner, you're a politician, you're a musician,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter who you are. Essentially, every human being
Speaker 1: has the right to be joyful and peaceful outside conditions.
Speaker 1: In our lives. What the world throws at us is
Speaker 1: not always determined by us, but what we make out
Speaker 1: of it within ourselves is entirely ours one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: So to empower people like this, whether they're inside the prison,
Speaker 1: outside the prison, because those who are outside the prison
Speaker 1: doesn't mean they're living joyfully. Many of them suffer more
Speaker 1: than the prisoners. When I went into the prison in
Speaker 1: an Aquimeto where I personally worked, after that we trained teachers,
Speaker 1: and now in the last twenty three years it's become
Speaker 1: a mandatory program in southern Indian prisons. What I saw
Speaker 1: was see when you go into the prison, it's a
Speaker 1: pretty organized place. Your food comes on the dot, your
Speaker 1: door open, somebody who opens doors for you, she'd said
Speaker 1: for you. I'm saying it's a very organized place. A
Speaker 1: lot of people aspire for that in their lives, and
Speaker 1: it never happens. The only problem is I've never been
Speaker 1: into these prisons, either in India or in the United States,
Speaker 1: and come out without tears in my eyes, simply because
Speaker 1: there is pain in the air. This is how important
Speaker 1: freedom is for a human being. There's nothing else. Food
Speaker 1: is on time. In fact, people who are living in
Speaker 1: prison are far fitter than those people who are living outside.
Speaker 1: They're very physically fit, they're well fed. Everything only thing
Speaker 1: is there's no freedom, and how much it hurts a
Speaker 1: human being is unbelievable. There's simply pain in the air.
Speaker 1: If you just breathe that air, you know, tears well
Speaker 1: up in your eyes, not because I think of something
Speaker 1: emotional about them, simply the very atmosphere is full of pain.
Speaker 1: This is how significant freedom mets for a human being.
Speaker 1: If you just take away that one thing, how much
Speaker 1: pain and how much damage it does to a human
Speaker 1: being in a very profound way is unbelievable.
Speaker 4: Well, and I do want to say in America, of course,
Speaker 4: we have you know, conditions in the prisons, in many
Speaker 4: prisons that are really terrible. And that does extend to
Speaker 4: the food. Yes, you get three meals a day, but
Speaker 4: the food is could be rotten, it can be it's
Speaker 4: certainly not nutritious, and you know, it is something that
Speaker 4: I think there's disease prone, you know, because of the
Speaker 4: quality and the substance that they're being fed. So I
Speaker 4: don't want to sugarcoat that, but you are absolutely correct
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying they're getting the best food. I'm saying
Speaker 1: regular food. Regular they're never hungry. Food is given to them,
Speaker 1: and they're healthy because they're fit. They kept themselves fit
Speaker 1: inside the prison. I am not trying to elogize a prison.
Speaker 1: I am trying to point out just because freedom is
Speaker 1: taken away, how much it hurts a human day.
Speaker 4: I think that's a very good point and it's interesting too.
Speaker 4: I'm reading a book now. I'm almost finished with this
Speaker 4: book by Anthony ray Hinton called The Sun Does Shine,
Speaker 4: and it's his story of spending thirty years on death
Speaker 4: row in Alabama for a crime he didn't commit, and
Speaker 4: how he was able to escape from his you know,
Speaker 4: taking is his own mind and using it to escape
Speaker 4: from this five y eight.
Speaker 2: Cell that he was trapped in.
Speaker 4: It's quite extraordinary, and I think that he, like a
Speaker 4: lot of people, found some variation of the principles that
Speaker 4: you teach on his own because it was the only
Speaker 4: way that he could survive this unbelievable ordeal seeing so
Speaker 4: many of the people around him executed, smelling that smell
Speaker 4: of death and all the other deprivations of death throw
Speaker 4: It's quite remarkable, and to me, I get so much
Speaker 4: inspiration and gratitude from being around these extraordinary individuals who
Speaker 4: have persevered through these impossible conditions and found, like I
Speaker 4: said through necessity or despiration or inspiration or some combination
Speaker 4: thereof again some variation of the very things that you
Speaker 4: are able to bring inside. And I want to turn
Speaker 4: to that too, because you've done work in prisons in
Speaker 4: America as well.
Speaker 2: And how did that happen?
Speaker 1: When I came to Nashville, because we kind of centered
Speaker 1: around Nashville, I visited this old prison from the kind
Speaker 1: of colonial times, and they took me into this place
Speaker 1: where where the executions happen.
Speaker 2: Just the.
Speaker 1: Energy that the stones around the stone walls have absorbed
Speaker 1: and still exchued is so terrible. So right there I
Speaker 1: decided we need to go in to the prisons and
Speaker 1: do something. But we didn't get permission in Tennessee, so
Speaker 1: we went to Kentucky and then we came to Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: These are two which allowed. But then I found that
Speaker 1: there was a lot of resistance from religious groups and
Speaker 1: others for any yoga or anything to come. And they
Speaker 1: openly argued with me, we will put them in prisons
Speaker 1: because we want them to suffer. We don't want you
Speaker 1: to have them blissed out. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: resistance and struggle. So we have not done much in
Speaker 1: the last few years in America, but in India it continues.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm glad you brought that up too, because I
Speaker 4: am trying to remember a friend of mine who I
Speaker 4: met acquaintance several years ago, had been teaching yoga and
Speaker 4: meditation in prisons in America and was so successful in
Speaker 4: terms of the results being like what you described in India,
Speaker 4: where the violence, the rates of violence inside the prisons plummeted, right,
Speaker 4: the infractions of the prisoners, every aspect of it just
Speaker 4: was so much better. The inmate on inmate violence, inmate
Speaker 4: inmate to guard, vice versa. Everything just was so much better.
Speaker 4: Of course, so they canceled the program, right, and it's
Speaker 4: really remarkable.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: There's a case that I'm involved with now, and this
Speaker 4: is how crazy our system is in America. In South Dakota,
Speaker 4: where and you brought this to mind, a guy his
Speaker 4: last name is Rhymes. He was sentenced to death by
Speaker 4: a jury who said that they sentenced him to death
Speaker 4: instead of life because he's gay, and they felt that
Speaker 4: sensing him to life in prison would entitle him to
Speaker 4: a life of enjoyment because he would enjoy being in
Speaker 4: there in amongst the presence of other men because he's gay. Now,
Speaker 4: this is such an outrageous and terrible thing for anyone
Speaker 4: to say, and the idea that it's allowed to stand
Speaker 4: in this country. It's almost like the jury was committing
Speaker 4: a hate crime. So many of us are working now,
Speaker 4: including people at the MISS Project, on trying to get
Speaker 4: clemency from the governor because it's it's an extreme version
Speaker 4: of what you were talking about, the idea that we
Speaker 4: sit there and say, well, we don't want there to
Speaker 4: be any joy of any kind or any and you
Speaker 4: contrast it with places like Norway, right where in Norway
Speaker 4: the guards are trained for two years. My understanding is
Speaker 4: that only ten percent of the ones who apply actually
Speaker 4: are accepted. They're trained in psychology, they're trained in conflict resolution,
Speaker 4: they're trained in all types of different protocols.
Speaker 2: And when people are brought to the.
Speaker 4: Prison, the warden gives a speech where he says something
Speaker 4: along the lines. So this is first of all, the
Speaker 4: guards sing a song and then and some people listening
Speaker 4: are gonna say, well, this is outraged, this is too much.
Speaker 2: We can't do that, it's too nice.
Speaker 4: Or whatever whatever, But this is the way they do
Speaker 4: it over there, and the Warden says, it makes a
Speaker 4: speech and says something like that, I recognize that your people,
Speaker 4: your human beings, like me, and when you come out
Speaker 4: you might be my neighbor. Therefore, I want to treat
Speaker 4: you as my equal and treat you, as you know,
Speaker 4: with dignity, so that when you are done with your sin.
Speaker 1: The intention of correction is very alive. That's what it means.
Speaker 4: Yes, over there, it's a very very don In Germany,
Speaker 4: it's true too where they have the cells have locks,
Speaker 4: but they lock from the inside. You know, how different
Speaker 4: is that?
Speaker 2: Right? What?
Speaker 4: It's simple change they lock from the inside, so you
Speaker 4: could have privacy.
Speaker 1: Huh, that's a home when you lock from inside, it's
Speaker 1: a home.
Speaker 4: I mean, you don't want to be there, right, I
Speaker 4: don't want to be there. You don't want to be there,
Speaker 4: No right minded person wants to be there. But at
Speaker 4: least again, it provides a certain level of dignity that
Speaker 4: allows for and it's quite opposite.
Speaker 1: Form that way, that form that he wrote about every
Speaker 1: time the cell door closed it felt like my grave
Speaker 1: in that he describes the clang of the boat when
Speaker 1: the damned door and clang crack they lock it. He
Speaker 1: always thought it's his debthnel, you know, when he heard
Speaker 1: the sound that life is over every day. It's just
Speaker 1: the way somebody locks the door from outside, if you
Speaker 1: could lock it from inside. It's a world of difference.
Speaker 2: It's a world of difference.
Speaker 4: And again, the recidivism rates in these countries are so
Speaker 4: much lower than ours because partially because of the fact
Speaker 4: that these people are treated as human beings when they
Speaker 4: go there and you know here, and of course I
Speaker 4: do want to touch on this too, and I'm interested
Speaker 4: in your take on this because in America we treat
Speaker 4: people with mental illness as pariahs and we lock them
Speaker 4: up instead of treating them for the syndromes that they
Speaker 4: suffer from. Now, I'm not saying that if someone's mentally
Speaker 4: ill and they go and kill, you know, people, that
Speaker 4: they shouldn't be punished in some way. But and I,
Speaker 4: like you, believe in a system of law and order.
Speaker 4: I do think we need a justice system. We need
Speaker 4: to be free society, but we also have everyone is
Speaker 4: entitled to be safe. So but it is incredible that
Speaker 4: we lock people with mental illness up in these prisons
Speaker 4: at the numbers that we do. The estimates of the
Speaker 4: number of people who suffer from a diagnosable medical you know,
Speaker 4: recognizable mental illness that are incarcerated in this country. I
Speaker 4: think it's something like thirty five percent of the inmates
Speaker 4: in this country have this and so, and those people
Speaker 4: are damned to an even more dire faith because of
Speaker 4: the fact that they can't obey the rules, right, So
Speaker 4: they're constantly being punished on top of their punishment because
Speaker 4: they're not mentally able to sometimes understand or go along
Speaker 4: with due to whatever it might be, schizophrenia or whatever
Speaker 4: they have. And so they end up in the hole,
Speaker 4: or they end up in these you know, the shoe
Speaker 4: or even worse can additions, and of course all that
Speaker 4: does is exacerbate their mental illness. So what is your
Speaker 4: I mean, do you have any insight into this?
Speaker 1: See, the thing is in the defense system of when
Speaker 1: people want to lawyers want to defend their clients of
Speaker 1: very terrible crimes that have been committed, the first step
Speaker 1: that they take is mental disorder because it's the easiest
Speaker 1: way to get away. So I think even those who
Speaker 1: make judgments, either a judge or a jury system in America,
Speaker 1: it's very hard for them to really decide for sure
Speaker 1: which is real mental illness which is not? Because every
Speaker 1: one of us, if we are willing, if you push
Speaker 1: ourselves a little bit, we can cross the line of
Speaker 1: sanity and behave in a certain way. A lot of
Speaker 1: people do under all influence of alcohol or a drug.
Speaker 1: They are crazy today, but tomorrow morning they may be fine.
Speaker 1: Having said that, when somebody is diagnos with an illness,
Speaker 1: treating him as a normal person and punishing him for
Speaker 1: those things is inhuman. But at the same time, the
Speaker 1: system might not have evolved to a place to handle
Speaker 1: such people. Well, there may be no systemic in a
Speaker 1: country like America, you should be able to do it.
Speaker 1: In India, I'm saying we don't have a systemic arrangement
Speaker 1: to be able to handle such people. But in being
Speaker 1: in all these prisons, being in no communication with various
Speaker 1: prison authorities, I've not heard of mental illness patients being
Speaker 1: there because usually they will be sent to a mental
Speaker 1: institution rather than keeping them in prison, because prison is
Speaker 1: simply not equipped to handle those things. But we do
Speaker 1: not know how many people are there who have an
Speaker 1: ailment but who have not been properly diagnosed as such
Speaker 1: and being treated as normal with punishments and stuff. It
Speaker 1: must be happening, I'm sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: In New York City, we don't have facilities for people
Speaker 4: in those conditions. We don't have the type of treatment
Speaker 4: centers that you would associate with what many people think
Speaker 4: is the greatest on one of the greatest cities in
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 2: I do, I grew up here. I love my city.
Speaker 4: But it's crazy that we have We have no ability
Speaker 4: to house these people in a secure but safe environment
Speaker 4: where they can be treated and hopefully get the help
Speaker 4: that they need in order to overcome or get some
Speaker 4: progress on these conditions that are afflicting them. And so
Speaker 4: we put them into the criminal justice system where they
Speaker 4: are you know, they're going to be abused in ways
Speaker 4: that that are even worse than people who are mentally fit.
Speaker 1: For these situations. For these individual sufferings, and if it's
Speaker 1: also a systemic situation. One significant aspect is we've made
Speaker 1: a huge difference. The reason why it's mandatory now in
Speaker 1: southern area because the difference it made to the people
Speaker 1: and how their behavior has changed, and many of them
Speaker 1: who are known to be a little crazy and doing
Speaker 1: wild things inside the prison, all of them leveled out
Speaker 1: just taking yoga into the prisons can be a big thing.
Speaker 1: But when I say yoga, not the kind of yoga
Speaker 1: you're doing in the studios in New York City. There
Speaker 1: is another dimension of yoga. If we take this dimension
Speaker 1: of yoga into prisons, if the right kind of people
Speaker 1: take it in with at most care, concern and compassion
Speaker 1: for the people inside, it can make a phenomenal difference.
Speaker 1: It has made a big, big difference in India. We're
Speaker 1: doing largely in southern India. There are other people who
Speaker 1: are doing in northern part of the India. And without doubt,
Speaker 1: every prison has reported significant changes in the behavioral patterns
Speaker 1: and the amount of violence was there in the prison
Speaker 1: because everything is settled. You know, hands are the first
Speaker 1: things which move in these people.
Speaker 4: And how does this How long does this particular? How
Speaker 4: many minutes a day do people need to devote to
Speaker 4: the practice.
Speaker 1: They just have to devote twenty one minutes a day.
Speaker 4: Twenty one minutes and seven days a week. Yes, yes,
Speaker 4: And and the change is.
Speaker 1: Sax days a week, just every day, every day that
Speaker 1: you can't carry seven days. There's too much of a
Speaker 1: burden to caddy.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 4: When I heard myself say that. I said, well, it
Speaker 4: sounds like a lot that you said every day. I
Speaker 4: was like, well that I could do. It's like it's
Speaker 4: like aa one day at a time, right, So.
Speaker 1: Never days come in bunches at you. It only comes
Speaker 1: one at a time. Yeah, that's good, isn't It's such
Speaker 1: a wonderful grace that creation never throws bunches of days
Speaker 1: at you. Suppose it came like a bunch of grapes,
Speaker 1: twenty five days came at you at a time, What
Speaker 1: would you do.
Speaker 4: Especially if it's like Wednesday, Thursday, and Monday at the
Speaker 4: same time, or Sunday and Tuesday and Friday would be
Speaker 4: like so confusing, you know what I mean, nobody would
Speaker 4: know what to do. Then we'd have a metaphysical problem
Speaker 4: as well. So how can we full time in America?
Speaker 2: Now? Not most of the time.
Speaker 1: No, I have teams of people here, volunteers.
Speaker 4: So we need to figure out a way to work
Speaker 4: together to bring this teaching inside more prisons here and
Speaker 4: see if we can.
Speaker 1: You know, I think this would work much better on
Speaker 1: East Coast and West coast. But most of the work
Speaker 1: that we tried to do, we did it in the
Speaker 1: Midwest and the levels of resistance. See the I think
Speaker 1: when we attempted this also about eight ten years ago.
Speaker 1: From then to now, I think the opinion of what
Speaker 1: yoga is has changed dramatically. In America. People thought this
Speaker 1: is some religious practice from India. Now they understand it
Speaker 1: is the signs of well being. So I think that
Speaker 1: understanding has seeped into the society quite well. Now. Should
Speaker 1: be much easier to do it now than when we
Speaker 1: attempted to do it here.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean, I would love to see if
Speaker 4: we can work on it in New York State. You know,
Speaker 4: there are But the good news is there are. As
Speaker 4: much as there's a lot of people in positions of
Speaker 4: power who are maybe closed minded, there are also a
Speaker 4: lot of people who are open minded and who want
Speaker 4: to improve the conditions. And it's better for everyone when
Speaker 4: we're able to do that. It's better for I think
Speaker 4: everyone in that ecosystem of the prison, not just the inmates.
Speaker 1: Even the closed minded people when they're very happy, they
Speaker 1: open their minds a little bit. Yeah, so that is
Speaker 1: my thing. People, they were amazed, So, how is it
Speaker 1: these criminals they're all behaving so well with you, They're
Speaker 1: so happy with you. I said, this is all it is.
Speaker 1: If you keep a human being happy, he's a wonderful
Speaker 1: guy always. If you're don't happy, he could be ready.
Speaker 1: That's different. That's true with everybody, isn't it?
Speaker 2: So twenty one minutes a day not bad.
Speaker 1: It's a way to put it very simply, to put
Speaker 1: it technically, it's like this. So all human experience has
Speaker 1: a chemical basis to it. What you call is stress,
Speaker 1: what you calls anxiety, what you call as tranquility, misery, joy, agony, ecstasy.
Speaker 1: Everything has a chemical basis to it within the system. Now,
Speaker 1: don't think about other chemicals in New York City. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the chemistry in the body. So every human
Speaker 1: experience has a chemical basis to it. Now, if you
Speaker 1: create a chemistry of blissfulness, you are blissful by your
Speaker 1: own nature. This is like a chemical soup. You are
Speaker 1: a chemical soup, actually a very complex chemical soup. The
Speaker 1: question is only are you a great, super or lousy soup.
Speaker 1: So this is just about teaching people how to make
Speaker 1: a great soup out of yourself, that it tastes really
Speaker 1: wonderful from within. And when you're feeling wonderful, you're naturally
Speaker 1: wonderful to everything around you.
Speaker 4: And how can people? So people are listening now, right,
Speaker 4: I'm sure they're wondering, how can I get involved with this?
Speaker 4: How can I myself? I'm not in prison, I'm out
Speaker 4: bad about doing whatever I'm doing. A lot of people
Speaker 4: are listening in their cars.
Speaker 1: Those who are in prison, not by the government but
Speaker 1: by their own nature.
Speaker 4: But this practice, this magical twenty and this is like
Speaker 4: a tease to people. Right, they're listening now, they're going,
Speaker 4: where's this twenty one minutes? How do I find these twenty.
Speaker 2: What do I do?
Speaker 1: It's called inner engineering? They must look it up. Inner engineering, Yes,
Speaker 1: inner engineering.
Speaker 4: And there's YouTube videos and things so I can learn,
Speaker 4: because I want to learn myself.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: You know there's even appropriatory online program uh huh.
Speaker 2: And you can just pull it up and.
Speaker 4: Start doing it right now, Yes, they can. I can
Speaker 4: envision people now driving to work and pulling over on
Speaker 4: the side of the road.
Speaker 1: Of people across the world have done it. We are
Speaker 1: an organization which is completely run by volunteers. We have
Speaker 1: about four forty six hundred full time volunteers and over
Speaker 1: nine million part time volunteers. It's all done by them.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean you might have nine million and one
Speaker 4: by the time we finished with this podcast, right, So
Speaker 4: it's www dot inter engineering dot com. Www dot inter
Speaker 4: engineering dot com. And I want to also say, I mean,
Speaker 4: I've had the privilege of getting to know so many
Speaker 4: people who are either still on inside prison like y
Speaker 4: Ensuring who is.
Speaker 1: Those people that you have helped to come out, those
Speaker 1: who are wrongly incarcerated, and now you help them to
Speaker 1: come out, we would be privileged to conduct a special
Speaker 1: program for them if they're in one place somewhere.
Speaker 2: Okay, fantastic, We're going to know what we're going to do.
Speaker 4: We'll organize that for the next Innocent Network conference, where
Speaker 4: we're going to have approximately two hundred people who are
Speaker 4: wrongfully convicted all gathering together.
Speaker 1: We will do the program. We'll offer the program at
Speaker 1: our cost. We will whatever is needed for those people.
Speaker 4: That will be wonderful and much appreciate, and we're going
Speaker 4: to make that happen. But I was going to say
Speaker 4: too that I've had the privilege of getting to know
Speaker 4: some extraordinary people like Sunny Jacobs, who I was talking
Speaker 4: to you about before, who was sentenced to death, who
Speaker 4: taught herself these practices from things she remembered seeing on TV.
Speaker 4: And this was in the seventies when she was convicted
Speaker 4: late seventies, early eighties, and who got her, you know,
Speaker 4: who managed to maintain her sanity in her years in
Speaker 4: isolation on death row by using some similar techniques practices.
Speaker 4: And then there's a guy who I always think about him,
Speaker 4: Yen Surring, who's still in after thirty one years in Virginia,
Speaker 4: who is a meditation practitioner and a tai chi master,
Speaker 4: and I know he's teaching others in the in the
Speaker 4: prison that he's in Virginia some of these practices and
Speaker 4: writing books about it and other things like that. So
Speaker 4: you know it's out there and it's already percolating, and
Speaker 4: you know it's helping people, but it needs to be
Speaker 4: done on a much more organized and.
Speaker 1: More organized scale. Scale is important if you want to
Speaker 1: see the difference.
Speaker 2: That's the word I was looking for. Scale.
Speaker 4: So I would love to see if we can start.
Speaker 4: I mean, for instance, I think New York State is
Speaker 4: a good place to start. We have some very good
Speaker 4: people in positions of great authority inside the correction system
Speaker 4: who I think would be very open minded to this
Speaker 4: and I have a prison in mind right now, or
Speaker 4: my friend JJ Velasquez John A. Trivelasquez, who's been on
Speaker 4: the show, it's still locked up in sing Sing and
Speaker 4: I think we're going to let's explore and see if
Speaker 4: we can bring this practice inside there. They do a
Speaker 4: lot of wonderful things their voices from within and other
Speaker 4: programs that are that are progressive, I would say, but
Speaker 4: this would be I mean, there's so many good things
Speaker 4: that can come out of you being here and starting
Speaker 4: this process.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: Now, it's interesting because you're such a such an interesting
Speaker 4: and inspirational man, and yet you are a victim of
Speaker 4: the same affliction as I am, which is called golf.
Speaker 4: So why do you suffer.
Speaker 1: I don't suffer that as an infliction. It's just that
Speaker 1: I used to play a variety of games. I played
Speaker 1: a lot of field hockey when I was young. I
Speaker 1: played soccer, being in India, played cricket. I was when
Speaker 1: I was in school. I was in some twelve disciplines
Speaker 1: of games. That's all I did, just sport most of
Speaker 1: the time. But about seven eight years ago, I was
Speaker 1: playing soccer with the kids and I tore my a
Speaker 1: cl and my left knee cartilage. So after that injury,
Speaker 1: I was just sitting. I had a event and I
Speaker 1: was sitting at a dinner table and somebody brought one
Speaker 1: brand new tailor made golf and they said, sad, grow,
Speaker 1: it's time you play golf. You're too old for the
Speaker 1: other games. Time it's time you understand this. The next day,
Speaker 1: all packed up my knee, I went to the golf course,
Speaker 1: straight onto the course. I've never been to a driving
Speaker 1: range till now. I just went straight, straight on the
Speaker 1: course and I hit the ball. It went straight the
Speaker 1: amazing I said, what's a big problem. It's a bloody
Speaker 1: sitting ball. Nice not moving, He's not moving. It's a
Speaker 1: sitting ball. Any other game I played, the ball was
Speaker 1: coming at me at different angles, different velocities, different spins.
Speaker 1: Here it's sitting. What's a big deal about hitting it?
Speaker 1: So I never took a lesson, I never been on
Speaker 1: a range. Now I'm playing for a handicup of nine ten.
Speaker 2: Not bad, pretty amazing.
Speaker 4: You'd like going to be the successor to Tiger Woods
Speaker 4: or something like that.
Speaker 2: We're going to get you on the tour. It's going
Speaker 2: to be amazing.
Speaker 4: Self taught and everything else. So and I think we
Speaker 4: may we may have to go out and hit some
Speaker 4: balls together tomorrow. I think the weather is going to cooperate.
Speaker 4: So that's the plan, and I'm excited about that. We'll
Speaker 4: with the ball will sit there and wait for us,
Speaker 4: and we will go out there and address it problem.
Speaker 1: I will never go anywhere. It's hits and weights.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it doesn't know who we are either until
Speaker 2: we hit it.
Speaker 4: And it is amazing because when people ask me about
Speaker 4: golf and they say, we're getting way off topic here,
Speaker 4: But people who don't play golf, they ask me, why
Speaker 4: why do you do?
Speaker 2: This?
Speaker 4: Is waste a time? Four hours just that the other
Speaker 4: what First of all, you're out there in nature.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
Speaker 4: It's grass and water and trees and birds and air
Speaker 4: and whatever, which is very nice, you know, nice day whatever.
Speaker 4: With friends, it's social. But moreover, on those rare occasions
Speaker 4: when you actually hit a golf ball properly and you
Speaker 4: can the physics are the same in golf as other
Speaker 4: sports with balls. Right when you hit one side of
Speaker 4: the ball, it compresses and then that energy has to
Speaker 4: go somewhere, so it explodes out the other side of
Speaker 4: the ball and then the ball flies and on that
Speaker 4: rare occasion when I have had the privilege of hitting
Speaker 4: it properly, you can actually feel that compression and it
Speaker 4: goes through the ball to the club, into your hands,
Speaker 4: and through your body into your soul and connects you
Speaker 4: to the center of the universe in a way. That
Speaker 4: is that's my that's my definition. I don't know it does.
Speaker 4: Like I said, it happens maybe once every few rounds,
Speaker 4: but that shot is what I live for when I'm
Speaker 4: out there. You know, it's just such a great, amazing feeling.
Speaker 4: And then unlike other sports, you don't have to run,
Speaker 4: Nobody tackles you, nobody's.
Speaker 1: Saying to take your ball left.
Speaker 4: You just go and walk and look and catch up
Speaker 4: with the ball and think a little bit.
Speaker 2: What kind of shot. And it's a very nice little breeze.
Speaker 4: It's nice, nice nace. So hopefully tomorrow will have that experience.
Speaker 2: I can't guarantee it, but we'll see what.
Speaker 1: It freaks people, mainly because they got nobody to blame,
Speaker 1: but the ball that went into the lake, they know
Speaker 1: it's them.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: That's what you see people freaking because they know if
Speaker 1: it's any other game, you can say the other guy
Speaker 1: did it here. There is nobody else when the ball
Speaker 1: lands in the lake, you know, it's just you. That's
Speaker 1: what makes them make people go totally crazy.
Speaker 4: So there's a strong element of personal responsibilities which you're
Speaker 4: out there, which I can see that. So, Saguru, before
Speaker 4: we close, I wanted to do the same thing I
Speaker 4: do when i'm every more or less every episode, which
Speaker 4: is to ask my guest if I can just turn
Speaker 4: the microphone my microphone off and thank you again for
Speaker 4: being here and sharing your thoughts and your experience and
Speaker 4: your wisdom with me and with the audience, and then
Speaker 4: just turn it over to you for any other ideas
Speaker 4: that you would like to share.
Speaker 1: So this is something everyone should understand. That everybody is
Speaker 1: some kind of a prisoner of their own making, some
Speaker 1: unfortunately by the state, but rest by themselves. When I
Speaker 1: say prisoner, people have limited themselves in some way. They've
Speaker 1: drawn their own by boundaries. The boundaries may be of gender, race,
Speaker 1: or religion, or ethnicity or nationality. We've drawn boundaries that
Speaker 1: we cannot cross in our own minds, which is the
Speaker 1: basis of so much of suffering that's happening within human beings.
Speaker 1: So we need to understand this, as there is a
Speaker 1: science and technology for external well being. When I say
Speaker 1: science and technology for external well being, if you just
Speaker 1: look back and see what is the level of comfort
Speaker 1: and convenience that people enjoyed one hundred years ago, and
Speaker 1: what is the level of comfort and convenience we are
Speaker 1: enjoying today, it's just unbelievable. No generation ever knew these
Speaker 1: kinds of comforts and conveniences, so we should be the
Speaker 1: most joyful generation. But such a thing has not happened
Speaker 1: simply because we've fixed the outside too much, done nothing
Speaker 1: about our interiority. So as there is a science and
Speaker 1: technology for external well being, there is a whole science
Speaker 1: and technology for inner well being. You don't have to
Speaker 1: believe anything, you don't have to belong to any group,
Speaker 1: if you just learn a few things about how to
Speaker 1: manage your body, how to manage your thought process, your emotion,
Speaker 1: and your energies. If these four dimensions your body, mind, emotion,
Speaker 1: and energy take instructions from you, you will live healthy,
Speaker 1: you will live blissed out, and you will live a
Speaker 1: powerfully intense life. This is possible for every human being
Speaker 1: when it comes to the outside action, not to human
Speaker 1: beings are equal. What we can do with our body,
Speaker 1: what we can do with our mind. No, to human
Speaker 1: beings are equal, but when it comes to the inner dimension,
Speaker 1: all of us are equally capable. Such a thing has
Speaker 1: not happened to most people simply because they never paid
Speaker 1: attention to what is within. They thought, by fixing the outside,
Speaker 1: everything will be okay. You see the hammer and banging,
Speaker 1: because they think by fixing the outside, everything is going
Speaker 1: to be okay. We have more comfort and convenience than
Speaker 1: any generation ever had in the history of humanity. We
Speaker 1: are the most comfortable generation ever. But we are almost complaining,
Speaker 1: like neurotic complaint level, simply because we have not done
Speaker 1: anything about the inner nature of who we are. So
Speaker 1: what we are referring to us in engineering is this possibility.
Speaker 1: This is not only for people who are in some
Speaker 1: state of suffering or imprisoned or whatever. First and foremost
Speaker 1: thing is people in positions of responsibility and power must
Speaker 1: get this because if they don't break their limitations within themselves,
Speaker 1: though they don't erase the boundaries of their individuality, they
Speaker 1: cannot change the situation. They cannot bring about a new possibility.
Speaker 1: You have heard the word yoga. Of course, the word
Speaker 1: yoga means union. The word yoga does not mean twisting
Speaker 1: and turning. Yoga means union. Union means there is you
Speaker 1: and the universe right now. If you look at individual
Speaker 1: human beings, their life is like it is you versus
Speaker 1: the universe. You versus universe is a stupid competition to
Speaker 1: get into the Yoga means consciously you erase the boundaries
Speaker 1: of your individuality. Where there is no you and the universe.
Speaker 1: You are a part of the universe in your living experience,
Speaker 1: not as an idea, not as an intellectual process, not
Speaker 1: as an emotional process, but as a living experience. Like
Speaker 1: you experience the ten fingers of your hand, you experience
Speaker 1: all life around you. If a human being is touched
Speaker 1: by this experience, even for a moment, the very way
Speaker 1: you perceive, experience, and express your life alters dramatically, And
Speaker 1: that is what needs to happen. We're just doing cosmetic
Speaker 1: changes to human beings by teaching them morality, ethics, small
Speaker 1: changes in attitudes. This is not good enough. Only when
Speaker 1: you experience the other as myself, everything about you changes.
Speaker 1: This is what yoga means. This is what engineering means.
Speaker 1: In a way.
Speaker 4: On that note, I want to thank you again for.
Speaker 1: In whatever way we can be useful for these people
Speaker 1: who have been unjustly punished by a society. We will
Speaker 1: do our best. Please call upon us whenever we needed
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: I will be doing so. And thank you for that
Speaker 4: very kind and generous offer.
Speaker 1: And also get ready to be beaten in the golf
Speaker 1: game tomorrow.
Speaker 4: Oh boy, I thought we are one and one is
Speaker 4: two and the other one is together and we're gonna
Speaker 4: We're gonna be one with the universe. So okay, Well,
Speaker 4: it's good to know that that doesn't That doesn't extend
Speaker 4: all the way to the golf course. It stops at
Speaker 4: the entrance to the club. So anyway, well, this has
Speaker 4: been a real treat for me.
Speaker 2: Don't forget to.
Speaker 4: Give us a fit tastic review wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: It really helps.
Speaker 4: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
Speaker 4: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 4: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 4: to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and
Speaker 4: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Speaker 4: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
Speaker 4: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 4: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 4: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm
Speaker 4: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
Speaker 4: with Signal Company Number one