Those days it's like if you don't go to college, you're finished
So I did one thing and because of this suddenly everybody thought I'm become some kind of an enemy
Then I made a deal with all the teachers
Superscript: What Kind of Student Was Sadhguru In College?
Speaker: Also speaking of schooling and parents and careers you know we're in right now,
we're in an age where there's so many different offbeat careers coming up as YouTubers.
We get this question all the time you know,
“How did you talk to your parents about it?
How do we convince our parents about this really new career that we have?”
I wanna ask you, you know, if you had to convince your parents and tell them that this is what you
or what, how did that discussion go?
Did that happen where you had to sit down and tell them that this is what I'm going to do
for the rest of my life.
Speaker: I want to do YouTube now.
Like did that happen with you too (Laughs)?
Doing YouTube right now.
Sadhguru: Well not everybody can be convinced about everything, okay.
Some things are just done.
So just to give you an example, when I,
when I passed my twelth standard at that time, it was called PUC, after that I decided I will educate myself.
I don't want to go to college.
This is a family where everybody is educated, not going to college is like sacrilege.
At least today there is a little more flexibility.
Those days it's like if you don't go to college, you're finished
because now probably if you don't go to college, you may lose your lifestyle but you won't lose your life.
That was a generation, if you don't go to college, you lost your life.
You are on the street.
That's about it.
So they were terrified of this.
My father being a physician, he was just freaked about it (Laughs).
He is a very studious man, all his life first, second, third in everything that he has done.
So he couldn't believe this that I want to educate myself.
So I did one thing and because of this suddenly everybody thought I'm become some kind of an enemy
and they are not even talking to me properly.
I did one thing.
I was a (Laughs) just to tell you, I was such a big eater.
I would eat ten times, eat more at least ten times of what I eat today.
But I never was putting on weight or anything because my level of physical activity was such
I could just run up a coconut tree.
I was made like that (Laughs).
So I was everyday cycling about fifty-sixty kilometers,
swimming in the Kaveri and going back like this.
So eating this,
I decided to go to Mysore university library.
Every day when they open at nine, I went eight in the evening they close.
That entire time I sat there read all kinds of stuff
from Homer to Popular Mechanics to National Geographic to literature, to
geography, this, that whatever.
Whatever came my way every day for one year, I read like this, just all kinds of things.
But the most important thing for me was though I was such a huge eater at that time,
this one year, I went without a meal.
Morning I ate as much as I could breakfast at home
and I went there and sat there the entire day without a meal which was a huge achievement for me
because without food, I could stay.
This kind of expanded my way of looking at life.
But you know, family drama started,
my mother started crying when the next academic year comes go to college, go to college, go to college.
Then I said, if I must go to college, I will go for literature.
My father said, “What will you do reading poetry?
You must become a doctor.”
He has a seat ready for me in the military medical college, everything.
I said no.
Then they said, “Okay, at least do engineering.”
Then I said, “See, if I say I don't want to be a doctor, if you told me become a veterinary doctor,
ayurvedic doctor, at least a witch doctor (Few Laugh) I would look at it.
If I say no doctor, you say engineer, I'm not going to listen.
Your problem is society.
Your problem is not me.
So I just came for literature and
these three years I went there in the beginning and they all had readymade notes, the teachers.
They would read and everybody writing down.
Those days fountain pens it just irritated me.
I said, “I don’t want to listen to this 'karakara' noise.
I gave them a suggestion, if you give that notes wherever you got it, we will photocopy it and give it back to you.
We don't have to come, you don't have to come.
Then you know if I'm there, I’ll ask hundred questions.
So they didn’t like it.
Then I made a deal with all the teachers that they'll give me attendance that was my only concern.
So once a month I just, once a month I went to college, just to check if they're keeping their part of the deal.
Speaker: My life is so similar ya.
Sadhguru: So I explored the geography of Mysore district in such a way every village tract,
every hill that is there, every little bird nest, whatever is there,
everything I paid attention, paid attention, just wandering aimlessly.
But today, like when I went for the Rally for Rivers board, where all the top experts are there,
some questions came up, and I was just telling them casually.
They said, “Sadhguru how do you know all this?”
I said, “What… what was aimless wandering, where I paid absolute attention to everything,
from a worm to an insect to anything and everything, I paid attention.
Now it’s become formidable knowledge.
I never intended to learn anything, I just paid attention because it was life,
and this is all it takes.
We have come here to live, there is no other damn purpose.
Those of them who want to go to heaven can go today.
Why are they postponing?
If it’s such a great place, I don't see why you should postpone it, isn’t it so?
This is very important for the youth – if anybody says there is a better place than this earth, it is a crime.
It's because of that we have destroyed so many things here (Applause).