So clearly you have this strong affinity for the species of snakes.
Now fun fact and you’ve also gone on to say that…
Sadhguru: I have a strong affinity for all species.
People take pictures only when I pick up a snake.
When I pick up a grasshopper nobody does it (Laughter).
Questioner: You’ve gone on to say that there is no such creature which is as perceptive
as the snake.
So fun fact, Shamirpet is a snake infested area, we have loads of snakes around the campus.
Sadhguru: Here?
Questioner: Yeah, in Nalsar.
So…
Sadhguru: It’s not snake… snake infested.
This was their homeland and you have invaded (Cheers).
Questioner: Exactly.
Participant: That’s something everybody agrees on.
Questioner: That’s something everybody acknowledges, we have come to their homeland so this is
where my question is going.
So is there any specific reason why we are so fearful of these species when they themselves
are equally fearful of us?
So how do we…
I mean how do we train our mind to overcome this paranoia and the larger question is how
do we ensure mutually sustainable habitat where we do not disturb the human… the balance
between the human-animal interaction.
Sadhguru: See there are many… many questions in this.
I don't know what’s the level of interest in snakes, accordingly I will go.
Hello? (Cheers) I’ve been involved with snakes from a very early age.
When I say “early”, I like caught my first snake probably when I was five - five-and-a-half
years of age.
What is significant about this is, snake is one creature, if you do not know this it is
stone deaf.
You know this?
All snakes are stone deaf, they don’t have hearing mechanism at all.
So it literally has ear to the ground, its entire body is to the ground feeling reverberations.
To what extent means let’s say there is going to be a… an earthquake somewhere in
Central Asia.
If you just observe a cobra today - let’s say in the next three days there is going
to be something happening - if you observe a cobra how he behaves, you know there is
going to be an earthquake.
If you study it sufficiently, you can even indicate the direction in which it’s going
to happen and an approximate distance.
Whether it’s going to happen a hundred kilometers away, 1000 kilometers away or 3000 kilometers
away, you can make an approximate guess, like meteorological science you can observe.
Because he has got his entire body to the ground, even the smallest reverb that he feels
he behaves differently.
So in that context he is very perceptive and he is also chemically very perceptive.
The only way he knows you is by your chemistry.
He doesn’t see you very well but he knows your chemistry very well.
See if you go, don’t try this by yourself.
Hmm?
Because you’re on pot (Laughs)…
Questioner: No, Sir.
No, no.
Sadhguru: …you may not be quick enough for them.
If you just go and pick up a cobra simply like this, not by his head or something, just
in the middle hold him just pick him up, he will simply come without any resistance, if
there is no any anxiety or anything within you.
You show bit… little bit of anxiety he will go for you.
Because he sees it as danger immediately.
So I was telling people, you know…
People were saying “How do we know, Sadhguru, we are really meditative and at ease?”
I said “We must do a cobra test for you” (Laughter).
If you just pick it up, if he just comes you’re at ease.
If he reacts that means you’re not at ease.
I don’t know one picture came for a moment in that video where I am holding a king cobra.
You saw that one?
A king cobra…
I think no, not in this, it didn’t come.
I think the king cobra was on the ground, there’s another picture where I’m holding
a king cobra half way down and he’s just like that (Gestures).
A king cobra is a snake that if it bites you, it will just hardly give you twenty to forty
minutes.
You will die within that.
A regular cobra if it bites you - because you said you have snakes I’m giving you
some knowledge - it mainly the cobra venom affects your cardio vascular system, it gives
you anywhere between four to six hours.
If you don’t get excited, you may get another one or two hours extra.
If it bites you in the body you will have four to five hours.
If it bites you in the limb you may get six to eight hours’ time.
But if a viper bites you, you have much less time.
If a banded krait bites you, you just have one-and-a-half to two hours because one venom
attack… affects your neurological system, another venom affects your cardio vascular
system.
What it is doing to you is your blood gets thicker so you can’t breathe and everything
is tough because the heart will start pumping in a certain way because the blood gets thicker
and thicker.
Coagulation happens across the body.
Why I’m saying this to you is, the nature of the venom gives him that.
Venom is not only in his sac.
He is producing it in his entire body.
Today there’s so much research gone into the medical sciences, you will see in the
next five to ten years’ time almost all neurological ailments will be treated with
cobra venom, snake venom and spider… scorpion venom and spider venom and some sea snakes
which have very special kind of venoms which could kill you in five - ten minutes.
So a lot of research has gone in.
Almost for every neurological problem that people are going through like Parkinson’s
and memory losses, all this they are going to treat with venom.
Still it has not been approved but much research has gone in this direction so it knows your
chemistry so well.
The beautiful thing about this is there was a time when I am sitting in some jungles in
the Western Ghats - you guys are on the east but you must come to the Western Ghats, that's
a real jungle, okay (Laughs)?
It’s a rainforest.
If I am sitting and meditating, normally I don’t know why… now I am wondering why
I sat in the afternoons but I always sat in the afternoons not early mornings.
Afternoon I sit for meditation and I’m like sitting for five, six hours.
When I open my eyes, a dozen snakes are sitting here (Gestures).
They’re just drawn to that chemistry.
When your chemistry changes they just know and it comes.
This is why Adiyogi is shown with a cobra on his… you know, around his neck to indicate
that he is meditative, he is still within himself.
If you become still within yourself, you pick up the cobra, simply it will come like that.
When I lived in the jungles for… by myself, no food arrangement nothing.
I mainly survived by drinking honey.
Huge beehives are built at a place where the bears can’t get.
They calculate - the bees have such intelligence, they calculate - a normal sloth bear weighs
how much, approximately about sixty to seventy kilograms.
They build it on a branch where if the bear comes, even if the branch doesn’t break,
the branch will be sufficiently disturbed for them to go and take care of him.
So it is up there and I slowly crawl up.
I…
My motorcycle petrol tube, I always keep it extra-long about eighteen inches and I go
with this tube, stick the tube and drink honey.
Three-and-a-quarter liters to one liter honey if I drink, for one or two days I am fully
fired up with food.
Enough calorie in my system but when I’m drinking this honey, the bees think I am one
more big bee, they don’t see me.
They are looking at the chemistry.
It’s…
Little agitation if you sow… show, they will come for you.
In your face if eight - ten bees bite, you will die of suffocation.
In fear if you open your mouth, if they bite inside, one will do.
Just one bee if it bites you inside your mouth, you will suffocate to death.
And above all you will fall down from the tree, okay (Laughs)?
So we can give you a cobra test or we can send people from our yoga center who will
train you how to handle - suppose a snake came in… inside, how to take him and leave
him in his habitat.
He’s come here not because he want to listen to the lecture or the conversation or the
air-conditioning, he has not come for anything that you have come for.
By mistake he’s entered.
You just have to let him back there.
For this, little bit beyond fear you must be to take it but without training if you
take it you could endanger your own life.
So if you want we can train fifteen, twenty people on the campus who can handle this safely
(Applause).
Questioner: Sir, I want to tell you are… you are just my life, okay.
Sadhguru: No, no, this is not a romantic expression, please ask the question.
Questioner: So my question is, sir, you told in your childhood you experienced the realization
of ignorance, some point when I watch your video I also feel… felt that I don’t know
really nothing, nothing means nothing but after ten minutes or fifteen minutes I get
influenced by my mind or something like that and I lose that realization.
I want to live like that, I want to live that…
I want to live like the realization that “I don’t know”, from that realization my
intelligence just becomes pure and I can look at everything…
Sadhguru: Mhmm.
That’s fine.
See, just intellectually thinking I do not know is not the point.
You must know the pain of not knowing.
The pain of not knowing should sear through you.
Only then, your intelligence becomes awake.
See, just… just look at this - suppose I ask you to walk from here to there right now.
Lights are on and you will simply walk like this (Gestures) without noticing anything.
Suppose we make this hall pitch dark, you don’t know what is next step.
Will you walk - everything alert, all your senses, intelligence, awareness, everything
super alert simply because you do not know where the next step is.
So, “I do not know” is not an intellectual conclusion.
It is the pain of not knowing.
It must really (Laughs) sear through you, it won’t let you sleep, it won’t let you
eat, it will keep you in a certain way.
When it keeps you in that way, then you will see your intelligence stays awake and alert.
In sleep and in wakefulness it stays alert.
When that happens, whe…
See, just now we finished Ganesh Chaturthi.
What Ganesh Chaturthi means is…
It's all become all about eating now (Laughs).
We’ve made it like that because we only see Ganesha’s big stomach these days and
we are inspired by that.
Essentially, you know the story of what happened that, that little boy stopped Shiva and Shiva
decided to take off the head of a gana.
A gana means – ganas are described this way that they were talking in a language that
nobody understood and they had limbs which had no bones, like this it’s described in
the… certain texts.
So, he took off one of their heads or the chief of the Gana and put it on this boy and
made him live with this new head.
So he had this new head which is not a human head.
Because of this, he was extraordinarily intelligent.
You’ve heard of those stories, where he asked Vyasa that “If you dictate something
to me you should not stop.
If you stop, I will give up this stupid project and go.
If you don’t know what you’re talking, I’m not going to write down.
You must simply speak, without a break, only then I will write down.”
So, essentially, Ganesha had enor… he’s Ganesha, not Gajesha, okay?
The elephant head came because of Sivakasi calendars.
So he is a Ganapati, and he has an extraordinary head and an intelligence.
Because of this intelligence, he cleared all obstacles.
So he became Vigneshwara.
So our interest is that in him that if we have intelligence like this, we will remove
all obstacles in our lives.
This is the phenomenal…
This is the fundamental and the phenomena of Ganesha is just this – that if your intelligence
is always on, you simply dissolve all obstacles in your life.
So, he is a Vigneshwara.
But on that day, most people are use…
usually only boosting their belly, not their brain.