Sadhguru: United States of America has acquired leadership position in the world, not just
militarily, politically.
See if you here wear these blue trousers, half the world, without knowing why, they
are also wearing blue trousers.
If you tear your trousers (Laughter), half the world is tearing up their trousers (Laughter).
I am watching this with great interest.
Now the entire world is looking up to you.
Is it not important that we fix ourselves and set the right example for the world?
Today I’m telling you, in the rest of the world, for a whole lot of youth in the world,
America means free flowing alcohol, America means drugs on the street, America means living
a freaky life, America means war.
We must change this.
America means healthful living.
America means joyful living.
America means responsible behavior (Applause).
America means a great life (Applause).
Participating in the democratic process is not politics.
It is the fundamental responsibility of being citizens of a nation.
Democracy means, in Indian languages, in Tamil, for example, it is called, “Jananayakam”
that means it's the leadership of the people.
Well in this country, they have told you, “Of the people, by the people,” whatever.
Yes, it is leadership of the people.
We are not electing one person.
We are asking one person to represent us.
Yes.
Now, the world is in a unique situation.
That is, there was a time we’ve developed this mentality, which I see everywhere in
this country.
We've developed this mentality probably in sixties and seventies during the cold war
period that we must be suspicious about everybody, we must dominate everybody, we must control
everybody.
I… you are living in the past.
Those days are over (Applause).
We… we need a leadership… we need a leadership which thinks for the future, not which thinks
from the graveyards of past.
There was a time when there were two big guns on the planet, both super suspicious of each
other, “Who is going to shoot first?”
Now one is a broken gun.
This is the time.
This is the time to take the world to a visionary, new way of living.
You ask any human being on the planet, “What do they want?”
That's what everybody wants.
Everybody wants well-being, everybody wants opportunity.
Nobody wants war, nobody wants poverty, nobody wants exploitation but we are not looking
at the world still like that, particularly for the leadership in America.
All of you, as citizens of this nation should not think, ‘Who is better?
Who is worse?’
That's not the point.
Whoever they are, they must do what you want.
We don't care who they are.
They must do what you want as people of this nation!
It is time instead of thinking, ‘Whom should I vote?’
Why don't all of you, because today we have media's and mediums through which you can
contact them, which was never possible in the past.
Why don't we set this much that in the next four years, it doesn't matter who rules this
country, they will not open up one more theater of war?
Why don't you get this commitment from those who want to get elected?
Believe me when they want to get elected, they are willing to make commitments.
Later on, we don't know.
But now, in any country, this is true.
The best time to talk to politicians is pre-election time (Laughs).
So we must do this, we must shift our way of thinking.
World is changing, but leadership is not changing in its mentality, everywhere, not in any one
country.
But America’s leadership is important, not just for United States of America, but for
the rest of the world.
If you do not know you must come and see.
For example, in India, I'm traveling wherever I see it is there, but especially in India,
people are looking at American election as if it is their election.
It doesn't mean a damn thing to them.
But they are looking at American election as if it is their country's election – with
that much interest and involvement.
When this is there, it's time we conduct this in a certain way, that we become an example.
We must give up these ideas of conquest, of dominance.
Instead of trying to conquer somebody, it's better to embrace somebody.
See, I'm telling you, today this nation has become big enough… big enough, large enough
to embrace the world but our hearts have not become big enough to embrace the world.
When I say, “Embrace the world,” for example, it seems they are telling me they've spent
about $1.2 trillion in war in the last twelve, fifteen years, nearly a million people dead,
two, three nations destroyed.
Maybe, I will assume that they entered there with good intention.
But this is the result, all right?
It doesn't matter, “I entered.
I tried to do good things to you but all that happened is, you got crushed.”
But still, there is something to do about it, isn't it?
I was driving within the speed limits.
I was driving properly but somehow you came in my way and I smashed you.
Is it not necessary that I get down and see what I can do for you?
I am saying, instead of sending hundred, hundred-fifty-thousand soldiers and spending this billions of dollars
out there, with ten percent of this, you can educate every child in Middle East.
You can nourish every child in Middle East, you can skill them, you send your doctors,
your engineers, your business experts, and America's business will boom and world will
love America (Applause)!
Just… just look at this suppose… suppose United States of America takes up every child's
education; not just in Middle East, in every other country where they are not able to do
it; because it costs nothing, I am telling you!
If you spend ten dollars a month, you can nourish a child, do you understand?
You don't… that drone, that missile, that bomb is costing you billions, isn't it?
Instead of that you can make the world yours.
You can make somebody yours either by sitting on their head or just including them, isn't
it?
See, never before this was possible, this is unique times, because today one nation
is in this position where they can do this.
They have the necessary economy, necessary strength.
Military usage can come down to two percent of what it is and just use it only extremely
selectively where it is impossible to fix things.
But everything else can be fixed.
It is important that America moves from trying to dominate the world, to include the world.
If you educated half the children around the world, you could pick the best.
You could pick the best and ask them to come into your country.
You are fearing something that you don't have to fear.
You are losing a tremendous opportunity when you are sitting on a platform of leadership,
instead of exercising it in a sensible manner, you are earning the hate of all the people
on the planet.
People are looking at you as exploiters.
Why don't they look at you as educators?
Why don't they look at you as people who skill them rather than who will kill them?
You must skill the world.
If you skill the world, you will have opportunities.
American business has tremendous opportunities if they go out, along with the US government,
to do things.
You can spend ten percent of the money that you're spending on the military and do things
in the world where the world will become yours, out of love, out of involvement out of gratitude,
not by conquest, because by conquest it's not going to work.
Well, we have understood that it doesn't matter what you do, one nutcase with a nuclear bomb
can do things to you.
Instead of living in fear, we can live with earning people's gratitude and love.
It's very much possible.
This is not some naive idea.
This is…
I'm saying it in a simplistic way.
I have thought through this.
I have written documents on this, how this could be done.
It is just that in some places there is mistrust, you can leave it for some time.
Take those countries which are good and say, “America is willing to educate every child,
nourish every child on the planet who needs it.”
Believe me, in five, ten years, entire world will be looking up toAmerica.
This is what you must ask (Applause) out of your leadership, “Who is willing to do it?”
The question is not whether you elect this person or that person, are they willing to
make this commitment that we will not open up another theater of war?
There are other ways of handling problems.
Because even if you enter with your weaponry, with good intentions, the result that happens
is neither good for you, nor for anybody; it is just going on.
I am saying with the expertise of business, technology, engineering and schools that you
have built here, you can go build across the world and make a business out of it too.
Not all of it is charity.
You don't have to give it away.
Business today does not mean that I spent ten dollars, I must get fifteen dollars or
twenty dollars next month.
Let… let's leave this short-sighted nonsense.
If we develop a humanity with a certain skill and talent and gratitude, the nation is made
in future, isn't it?
If everybody with the best talents want to come to United States, which is how this country
has grown, this must continue.
For this you don't wait.
You don't wait for those poor countries to develop talent… talent and you steal them.
You go there and develop the talent.
Why can't you go there and develop the talent because I see not one American looks like
the other, obviously you come from many (Laughs) different corners of the world.
We can still continue that, not just that, a time has come where national boundaries
will not mean much in future because people are communicating across borders, technologies
have unified nations.
It doesn't mean anything, the boundaries that we built in the past does not mean anything.
I want you to understand this – at one time when kings were ruling this different, little
countries.
They always built big fortresses.
Why did the fortresses become irrelevant suddenly?
Because we started flying.
When people could not fly, a fortress was all safety.
But once they started flying, a fortress is a stupid thing because they will anyway come
and bomb you and you are trapped (Laughter).
The same thing today, national boundaries will not mean anything in future because we
have technologies with which people are communicating everywhere.
Now you are trying to put up cyber walls.
What is needed is not cyber walls.
We have to use our cerebral material to connect with the rest of the world and make the world
ours.
Not by conquest but by love, by inclusion, by embrace.
Please ask your leaders if they can do it.
The first and foremost thing is, no new theatres of war must be opened.
We have seen in our own lifetime, it is not history book that we are reading.
World War I happened, World War II happened, so many millions of people died.
Any sensible human being…
I have always wondered, ‘How did the people let it happen, in those times?’
Not one or two, thirty million people! Fifty million people dying, how did they let it
happen?
But well, in our own time it's happening.
Yes!
In our own times, in twenty–first century it's happening; is it not time?
When the time to vote comes, this is what it means.
You are voting either for the well-being of the world or out of your fear, some nonsense.
So the question is not whom you elect, you can elect whoever you want.
Above all, democracy is a functional democracy only when you don't behave like tribes.
When I say don't behave like tribes, I'm amazed.
I'm just watching the language on the news channels.
You eith…you are either a Democrat or a Republican, you already decided without consideration.
Democracy will be a democracy only when it is a considered vote, not when it's a committed
vote.
You're pre-committed.
This means you are going back to tribal days, you are going back to feudal ways of living
through democratic process.
Democratic process has to be successful means, just a day before the election, here… seeing
what all they are promising, ‘Will they do this or not?’you must make up your mind
as an individual, not as a Democrat, not as a Republican, because that means to… means
you are destroying democracy and going back to tribal ways of functioning, ‘Anyway I
am this, I will vote for this.’
No.
It must be a considered vote, it should never be a committed vote and all of them who stand
up for elections must know that this is a considered vote.
They are going to consider, it's not a committed vote.
Anyway, there are blue states and red states, I'm amazed.
There should be nobody blue or red, till that day comes!
Hello (Laughs) (Applause).