Tracey: I think that we are in a very unique moment in history of healthcare, at least in this
Sadhguru: That’s what every generation thinks. (Laughter)
Tracey: Well, let me give you some data points,
maybe I can convince you. (Laughs)
What I… what I mean by that is
even those of us who may really,
who are quite attached to the current medical model,
to re-look at that in a new way simply because it’s not working
and it’s not working in a lot of significant ways.
It’s not working financially,
I mean, the statistics and this audience probably knows them well.
The amount of money this country is spending in
hi-tech medical interventions exceeds any… by-far exceeds any other country around the globe
and yet our health outcomes are worse.
The….. Interesting now that I live in Veterans Administration and I interface quite a bit
with the department of Defense,
a statistics I was
I was in a meeting not very long ago and someone from the department of Defense said,
‘Do you know this? Health in this country is an issue of national security’
and I thought for a minute like,
‘What’s he talking about, right?’ (Sadhguru Laughs)
Because eighty percent of people that walk into a recruitment office
for the Armed Services
doesn’t even qualify to be considered for service,
eighty percent because of their health status
So the dominant medical paradigm is
what you were describing which is we have a disease that we have to fight.
And our… you… it’s revealed in the language that we use,
you know, antibiotics, anti-psychotics, anti… anti… anti
the concept - the disease, it’s over there
and the job of medicine is to fight that battle and win.
Sadhguru: See this… this whole concept and this approach to modern medicine
has come because
you need to understand when they thought of medicine
when they thought of developing some kind of medicine
and a system of medical treatment,
their problem was only with infectious diseases
and contagious diseases.
How to treat the plague?
How to treat the small pox?
How to treat this?
Nobody ever thought of a diabetes or a hypertension or a cardiac problem.
They never even considered those things
that did not exist in their radar.
In their radar, only infectious diseases did exist.
That has to be handled on a war footing,
no question about that because it is a war.
An infection means it’s an invasion from another organism
upon our own system and you have to use chemical weapons. (Laughter)
You can’t shoot them.
So this whole medical system
evolved from the need to handle infectious diseases,
contagious diseases which were taking a huge toll on populations in those times.
But today we have come to a place
where people are on self-help.
That is, they manufacture their own diseases, (Laughter)
they don’t wait for any infection to happen to them. (Laughs)
Because now they are on self-help,
they need another system of medicine,
another way to approach it completely
which is a shift we are struggling to make right now. (Laughs)
Tracey: And now where we are of course is that the sciences have advanced.
We have complexity theory and systems biology and quantum physics
but the medical model,
the dominant medical model
again I am making gross generalizations
but the dominant medical model is still designed,
our core competency is still designed
on the ‘find it - fix it’ approach
which is clearly failing.
I mean even in the chronic conditions in this country,
we’re not even holding our own.
I don’t know if you are aware of those statistics
but diabetes, hypertension, heart failure –
they are all… the percentage of our population,
obesity, the list goes on
every single one of them across the board and our veterans,
NNRs, civilian population are increasing every year.
So we are failing and I believe that
that uncoupling and removing the boundary shall we say
between medicine that has been over
held over here (Gestures)
and health and spirituality and whatever labels we want to put on this over here (Gestures),
you know
One response right now in this country is even with unaffordable
well, we have to focus more on health.
So one response is
‘well, medicine will keep doing disease management over here
and then we can pay little more attention and hopefully reimburse
a little more for health optimization over here.’
I personally think and then I want your thoughts on this:
If that is… that’s better than not including this
but the real opportunity is to remove the boundaries –
these are not separate things;
the mind and the body are not separate things.
And in… in western medicine,
we are taught to diagnose and treat the diseases of the body,
the diseases of the mind
but we have missed that the doorway to the health
and healing of the body and mind is really in my opinion,
the heart and the soul.
So how do we
how do we re-envision a future of healthcare where they aren’t those boundaries?
Sadhguru: See the ideal,
the ideal is one thing and what we can do today is a different thing, okay?
The ideal would be that we look at human well-being,
not human health.
If you consider human well-being as a composite subject
and an approach,
then you would consider what makes a human being complete
and approach all of them together –
that is the best way to do it.
But today what can we do?
If that’s a question,
we can only talk about, you know,
somewhere having a little
we can’t marry them yet,
we can only have a date. (Laughter)
Tracey: I kind of like to jump right in. (Laughter)
Sadhguru: It’s a… the situation is not ready to simply
get them together, no.
Because lot more work has to be done,
it’s not going to happen in a short span of time
but we can start interfacing here and there.
It is possible that hospitals can have a meditation center going within them
and it is possible meditations can….
meditation centers already generally have,
but we can make sure that there is a little bit of health center out there.
We can start having a little bit of a skirmish right now.
Right now, they are not ready for total union
because in both the sides,
there are too many opinions about each other.
Largely people are not looking at the whole health as… as such.
They are trying to impart what they have studied or what they have grasped.
It doesn’t matter whether it addresses the whole humanity
or the whole human being or not.
So that attitudinal change is not going to happen just like that.
Till a day comes
when medical education includes all these things
which may make it even longer than the way it is right now… (Laughs)
And I would like to see a day
when doctors before they touch another patient,
first fix themselves internally
before they touch somebody else
because this is all important.
When I say this is all important –
for example, we were talking about Bhuta Shuddhi
or handling the elements.
Today sufficient research has gone into particularly into water,
scientific research.
And what these scientists are saying is
‘water has memory.’
If you give it a thought, it remembers;
if you give it an emotion, it remembers;
if you give it a touch, it remembers.
So, if elements have that kind of memory outside, you can turn
you can change the quality of water just by touching it
or with a thought or an emotion or a hand.
There was a beautiful experiment conducted by
a twelve-year-old girl and ten-year-old boy in India.
What they did was,
they read about this somewhere on the internet and they came home
and they set up two glass pots of water.
One room… same water in two glass pots.
One room, they go and express very loving emotions,
they touch it, they kiss it, they hug it every day for ten minutes.
Another room, they go and abuse it and do
express all kinds of negativity.
Mother was very… their mother was very concerned,
‘I can’t believe they have so much negative emotion in them, (Laughter)
they are expressing it to the water.’
In ten days’ time,
this water for which they were abusing and expressing negative emotion, it turned dark.
The other water remained just like that.
They posted it on the YouTube, you must see it.
So, this is something we have always known.
In India, in part of our life,
nobody in traditional Indian home ever drinks water from a tap.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s potable or not potable.
Even if it is say… if it’s said potable, it is not.
What we do is, we take a copper vessel
or a… see, here otherwise always next to me,
there is a copper vessel or a brass vessel.
And they will take it, they will wash it with turmeric and tamarind and everything in the night,
put water in it;
they will apply something… some, you know, what is considered sacred symbols on it,
they worship this, and then only tomorrow morning,
it is given to your family.
Because water has memory.
They are saying if the water is pumped through the pipe, this
if pumped through the pipe and it’s taking fifty bends by the time it
it comes to your house
by the time it comes to your house, sixty percent of it,
the molecular change… change in it is such that it is literally turned into poison.
But if you take it in your glass and hold it for about twenty minutes,
it will undo itself
but just the forceful pumping, not contamination,
just the forceful pumping is making the water
in molecular structure in such a way
that it’s harmful to human health.
So if you’re doing that to the water,
if you are treating this with all kinds of emotions and negativities and,
you know,
all kinds of abuse to yourself and to others,
the water here also behaves the same way.
This is not new; always
every human being who lived on this planet with a certain connection
with nature around him always knew this.
So one of the things that we can do
particularly for people who are going to war and coming back whatever
war is the most extreme situation that human beings can create by themselves.
For other things, you need nature’s help, you know? (Laughs)
People who have been put through this wringer
if they are coming in broken states,
one of the best things you could do is,
all of them compulsorily should go through
at least one month of living on a farm being connected
to the soil and water and air around them
putting their bare hands into the land and doing something simple,
just being connected.
I must tell you this experience.
We had a yogic hospital in our yoga center in India.
We called it yogic hospital.
We did not want it to grow too much
because we don’t want to turn into a hospital fulltime;
we are a spiritual center. (Laughs)
So we’re keeping it low-key.
Once when I came here, I spoke and a few doctors
American doctors who were interested, they traveled to India.
They came and stayed there for three days and after three days,
one of the volunteers came and told me,
‘All the American doctors are up in arms.
They want to leave.’
I said, ‘What happened?’
They said, ‘It’s best that you meet them.
They’re just… off.’
Then I said, ‘Okay’ and I went to meet them.
Then I said, ‘What’s the problem?’
They said, ‘You said there is a hospital.
Where is the hospital?
There is no hospital here.’
I said, ‘Right now, there are about sixty and odd patients.’
They said, ‘Where is it?’
Their idea of a hospital is that there must be beds,
you must treat sick well and everybody should be
if you treat them so well, they will not want to become healthy. (Laughter)
‘Where are the patients?’
I said, ‘They’re all in the garden. I put them to work. (Laughter)
We give them the treatment and therapies and medication but rest of the time,
I put them to work.
Whatever they can do, they must do.
Above all, they must sit and work barefoot and bare hands in… with the soil.’
Just being in touch with the planet
because you are just a drop of this planet.
You are forgetting that.
What you call as my body is just a piece of the planet, isn’t it?
If you lose connection with the source,
will you not get disorganized?
There are specific scientific ways of doing that.
If you cannot do any of those things,
at least just let them walk in a farm barefoot,
work, do something,
you will see at least sixty-seventy percent of them will just come out of their problems
just like that, just being in touch with this.