Ecology is not an academic subject. Ecology is the basis of our existence.
We, as a generation of people, have this responsibility, that in the next ten-fifteen years time,
at least at the policy level, all the right things happen.
Fundamentally, the most important thing is human beings have lost connection with what is life,
and everything that nourishes life and sustains life around us.
This is the disaster we are manifesting.
Superscript: Sadhguru at the Sustainability Summit Asia 2018 - Solutions for a Sustainable Future
Interviewer: I wondered if you could talk to the kind of leadership you think is required
to generate this kind of concern around conservation and the environment.
Sadhguru: The reason why I see that ecological concerns have not become everybody’s concern
is simply because
activists have been taking an attitude of being against everything that is for economic well-being.
We’ve always pitched economy versus ecology.
That’s a fundamental thing that I wanted to change in India.
I actually said this, “I am officiating the marriage between economy and ecology.”
Because these two things can’t go against each other, there is no way to do it.
You have to go… together.
I think that is the basic message that needs to go – that we need not destroy businesses,
we just have to transform businesses
and the necessary time, room and policy support is needed to transform businesses.
(Super – Transforming Agriculture)
Ecological sustainability is mostly understood as pollution coming from cities and industries or whatever
but what is missed is –
the biggest disaster on the planet is actually agriculture.
It’s the degradation of soil which is the real issue.
Everything else can be attended to and reversed in a matter of few decades.
The degradation of soil across the planet is not something that you can turn back,
it will take fifty to hundred years.
There’re only two ways to regenerate the soil.
One thing is the leaves from the trees, and the animal waste and the human waste.
Well, the trees are gone long time ago.
The next thing is the animal waste – without animals you cannot enrich the soil.
You cannot enrich the soil with bags of fertilizer.
(Super – Spirituality for Ecology)
Interviewer: I wondered whether you know in the relationships in the ecosystems around us
you see a certain spiritual process in conserving the environment.
Sadhguru: Essentially spiritual means your experience of life has gone beyond your physical self.
So if you experience yourself beyond this body, what will be your experience?
Naturally, it’ll be an inclusion of life around you.
So what I exhale the trees are inhaling, what the trees exhale I am inhaling every moment of our life
but somehow we are going around without any consciousness about this.
So spiritual process is not aimed towards ecology, but ecology is just a part of our existence.
Ecology is not a academic subject.
Ecology is the basis of our existence.
To bring this experience to people large scale is very, very important because
you can teach as much as you want, you can campaign as much as you want,
but people shape their lives according to their experience of life.
Especially those people who hold
positions of responsibility and power who can make a difference in the world,
their experience of life has to become much more inclusive than the way it is right now.
I must tell you a little example.
You know a few years ago, almost after twenty-seven years, I did not go back to my home town.
I mean I go back to meet my family
but never did any programs there because I wanted to be little anonymous in my town.
Well, which didn’t work out, about ten-twelve years ago, they insisted I must do a program, I did a program.
So everybody turned up – all my schoolmates, my school teachers, my college teachers,
all kinds of people that I knew for a long time (Laughs).
So my English teacher at the end of the program came and hugged me and she said,
“Now I know why you didn’t let me teach Robert Frost.”
I said, “Ma’am why would I not let you teach Robert Frost?
I like Frost.
I even went to his place and I have in his own voice, recital of poetries.”
I said, “Why would I not let you teach?”
She said, “Don’t you remember?” And she reminded me.
What happened was we were always studying English poets and she’s introducing American poetry to us,
and came and she started reading the... she introduced Robert Frost saying he’s a great poet.
And the first poem she started off, “Woods are lovely, dark and deep…”
I said, “Stop it.”
I don’t want to listen to this man who calls tree a wood.
She said, “No no, Robert Frost is a gr…”
I said, “I don’t care how great he is.
A man who calls tree a wood, I am not going to listen to that guy.” (Laughs)
So this is just like a tiger looks at you and thinks “Breakfast!” (Both laugh)
So this has to change in our mind.
A tree is not a table, a tree is not chair, a tree is not furniture,
a tree is a phenomenal life, and it’s the basis of our life.
This has to become a living experience for everybody, only then there will be sustainability
(Super – Individual Impact)
Do individuals need to alter their attitudes towards consumption?
Or are there larger solutions needed?
Sadhguru: Individual people are powerful today.
One thing is there is social media – they can do a lot of work sitting at home.
They need not go anywhere, they can do… impact the world in many ways.
Apart from that, most nations on the planet are democracies.
If the citizens do not manifest this and make it very clear,
a democratically elected government will not do anything – they will do populistic things.
We are willing to sacrifice a few conveniences to… for a larger and a long term good.
If we do not express that, no government will make any policy.
(Super – Government Impact)
Governments move at their own pace.
You do not expect a huge, massive cargo carrier to just make a U-turn like that.
I am very clear on this, I am just looking for a one degree turn.
If you make a one degree turn and hold it, there will be a U-turn (Laughs).
Interviewer: And you mentioned this morning, that you also managed to bring together bits
of the Indian government who... who’d never met before.
Sadhguru: The different ministries –
there is water management ministry, there is irrigation ministry,
there is rural development ministry, there is agricultural ministry,
but they never meet.
So we got them to meet for the first time and look at what they could do together –
that’s what made a huge difference.
And now the planning commission, or the Niti Ayog, as it is called today,
sent out a notification to all the twenty-eight states,
that this Rally for Rivers policy is the official policy, you must implement.
Many states have already taken it up.
In some, we are directly participating, rest we are consulting.
(Super – Working Together for Solutions)
I’m trying to talk to a lot of activists, and tell them the problems that they are protesting against,
first can you find a solution – look through that.
If you can find a solution, suggest the solution, rather than just protesting against a problem.
For example, all this software…
I mean, soft drink manufacturers, where single-use plastic is going around –
they shifted from bottles to plastic because it was far more convenient for them.
The reason why you cannot recycle this bottle easily is, because there is a paper label.
So we started doing a little bit of research – what is the solution, how can we print on this?
So there is a company in Chicago,
who’s manufacturing a certain kind of dye which will come out just like paper label on the plastic.
If you do that one thing, all these plastic bottles can go in for recycling
A business which is using this and they know it is a major polluting factor, they can suggest,
“See this is the change, if you give us some incentives, we will shift.”
So the business has to collaborate with the government to suggest,
“See, these are the changes we would like to make, but we want this kind of policy benefits.”
(Super – Business of Sustainability)
Sadhguru: Our idea of what is profit, what is a successful business,
has to go through some transformation. It’s not one day’s job,
it needs to happen over a period of time.
Definitely it’s happening – today,
a whole lot of business are looking at how they can impact ecological sustainability.
This was simple absent twenty-five years ago.
They’re investing in this direction.
Once people put their money in a direction, you can trust that they have intentions.
See, the next twenty-five years, probably, in the history of humanity,
is going to be very crucial in terms of what kind of corrections we make.
If we take care of the soil, the rivers, forests, agriculture, human health – everything will be taken taken care of.
If we turn this around in the next ten to fifteen years... if we do all the right things
in the next ten to fifteen years, I believe, in thirty to forty years, major change will happen in a positive way.
But let’s say, we leave it for another twenty-five to thirty years, and then try to turn it around,
in my estimate, it will take hundred to hundred and fifty years to turn it around
because we’re crossing a certain line.
After you cross that line, turning it back is going to be so much more difficult.
So we, as a generation of people, have this responsibility,
that in the next ten-fifteen years’ time, at least at the policy level, all the right things happen.
Why I’m insisting on the policy is,
only when there is a policy change, the budget reallocations are there,
and a sustained movement towards that is there.
Particularly major populations in the world like United States, Europe, China, India –
if we make the right policies right now in the next few years, within the next three to five years, I would say,
then I think the rest of the world will follow.
(Super – ‘One-Building City’)
Sadhguru: One major advantage for Asia is we are very sun rich.
So harnessing solar energy is going to be a major thing.
Technologies still need to go further, but there are many solutions coming forth.
I think this entire system that we went into in... starting from early twentieth century
– this power distribution grids, this must go.
Power must be generated where it is used.
Right now, you will see in any city, probably
because yesterday I drove into Kuala Lumpur around 09:00 PM and every road was jammed.
What’s happening in every city is those who live there, work here.
Those who live here work there.
I don’t understand why (Laughs)?
So these are simple changes we can make.
So I designed what’s called as a one building cities.
We insist on calling them cities.
I am talking about fifty acres of land –
you build only one acre, fifty floors and rest forty-nine acres you just leave it.
Make it forested, make it water bodies.
No waste going out of this land.
Easily it can be done.
People will live much better.
Everything can be right there,
they can live there, they can work there, children will go to school there, they can shop there.
Once a week, if you want to go out somewhere, you can go but daily there is no need to pull out your automobile.
(Super – Water and Vegetation)
Sadhguru: Before we launched the Rally for Rivers,
our project Green Hands had planted a little over thirty-three million trees
which has changed the green cover in one state.
But now with Rally for Rivers, we have signed MOU’s
with six different states in the next eight years for nearly seven billion trees.
And this is government funded, and most of it is going to be done by the governments.
Many states have already announced one... one kilometer along the river side they are planting
but now sixty-two to sixty-four percent of the land is owned by the farmers.
You are not going to talk to them about ecological sustainability
because they are just struggling for a livelihood.
So we have created what is called as agro-forestry
with which we have shown that easily you can multiply your income three to five times in a matter of five years
if you shift.
Fundamentally the most important thing is
human beings have lost connection with what is life
and everything that nourishes life and sustains life around us.
This is the disaster we are manifesting in the form of ecological thing.
But the fundamental thing is we have become psychological beings not living beings.
We have to transform them into living beings (Laughs).