Pravin Gordhan:Today’s world is about possession.
It’s about buying the next biggest car, the next biggest house,
I won’t name any brands (Sadhguru laughs) but the next handbag, or shoes, or whatever
it is.
What...
What’s the...
How do you reconcile that ethic of just acquisition at any cost,
sometimes at great debt, and if you like, the kind of value system that yoga would teach
one or ask one to embrace?
Sadhguru: See, the yoga does not teach any value system.
That’s the beauty of it.
The yoga only strives to give you methods to create an experience of inclusiveness.
From your inclusiveness, from the experience of inclusiveness...
See, suppose you experience the person next to you as a part of yourself,
I don’t have to tell you, “Be nice to them,
don’t kill them, don’t harm them.”
All these things – not necessary.
Now, about wanting more – wanting to be more is natural in a human being.
Whoever you are, whatever you are,
you want to be something more than what you are right now.
If you know only money, you’re thinking more money.
If you know only handbags, more handbags (Laughter) because you can’t make it bigger
because you’ve got to carry it (Laughter).
Pravin Gordhan: That’s true.
Sadhguru: More handbags.
And if you know wealth, more wealth, if you know knowledge, more knowledge,
if you know love, more love – whatever is your currency,
but every human being is striving to be something more than what they are right now.
If that more happens to you right now, what next?
Hello?
Pravin Gordhan: More.
Sadhguru: More.
If that more happens, what?
More, more, more, all right.
If you look at this carefully, this process of wanting to expand consciously,
if you look at it, how much more would settle you for good, if
you see this, you clearly know that you’re looking for
an infinite expansion.
If I make you the king or queen of this planet, would you be fulfilled, I’m asking?
Don’t look at me hopefully, I’m...
I will not (Laughter).
I’m not known to commit such blunders (Laughter).
Pravin Gordhan: But you see, the principle of acquiring more is causing trouble in the
world because the world is becoming increasingly –
like South Africa and many other countries, including India –
more unequal.
So, I picked up some interesting numbers.
This is when Finance Ministers do look at numbers (Laughter).
That global private wealth in 2015 rose to one-hundred-and-sixty-eight-trillion dollars,
if you can imagine that.
And that’s a 5.2 percent increase.
And the greatest increase comes from Asia Pacific.
China has now over two-million millionaires amongst them.
India is growing fast in that direction as well.
The Asia Pacific region grew in wealth at thirteen percent
to thirty-seven-trillion dollars of wealth amongst the top brackets.
And trade unionists, for example, from... from Britain says the following –
“For all the moral angst being expressed by business leaders and politicians
about growing wealth inequality, very little is being done to change the status
quo.
Unless companies here and across the globe rein in executive salaries,
pay... pay their fair share of taxes – I’m sure by now all of you have heard about
Panama, a country that you didn’t think existed
– and invest in decent jobs,
the yawning gap between the haves and the have-nots will continue to grow.”
That’s the dilemma, which is causing all sorts of difficulties,
both within countries and within the globe as... as a whole.
What’s an alternate way of looking at the question of wealth and greater equity in...
in the globe?
Sadhguru: See, we are...
Pravin Gordhan: Because the search for this wealth is
what creates all sorts of conflicts amongst human beings
and contradicts the kind of ethic that I think that you are promoting.
Sadhguru: No, I am not promoting any ethic.
This’s what I want to say.
Human beings want more.
If that more happens, they want more and more and more.
So, if you really look at it, what they are looking for is not more, they
are looking for all.
They want all.
That’s why I said, if you become the king of this planet, will it settle?
No, you will look at the stars.
This is the nature of the human being.
You cannot contain this (Referring to oneself).
You can give as many ethics as you want, you can give as many pacifist philosophies
as you want, you cannot contain the desire of even one
human being because the longing to expand is inevitable
within the human being.
Now if you want to expand in a limitless way, trying to do it physically is a foolish thing.
Your desire is fantastic.
Infinite expansion is a fantastic desire.
The method is hopeless.
This will not happen by having more cars or more bags,
whatever is your thing.
This can only happen if you transcend the limitations of physicality.
This is where yoga comes in.
Yoga means you learn to erase the boundaries of your physicality.
Erasing the boundaries of physicality means –
right now, as we sit here, this is me, that is you,
one-hundred percent clear, no any kind of ambiguity about that.
But as you sit here, to be alive, you have to breathe.
Breathe means what you exhale (Laughs), the trees inhale,
what they exhale, you inhale.
One half of your lungs are actually hanging out on the tree.
So…
Or in other words, what you think is you is not some kind of
a solid state.
Every day, something comes in, something goes out,
transaction is happening – not just on the level of food and breath,
every subatomic particle is in transaction with everything else in the universe.
Yoga means that this reality of your existence, you begin to experience.
It is not a philosophy, this is modern physics, which is telling you
that you don’t exist as an individual,
it is happening as one big happening.
But the magnanimity of the creation is such, though you are just a microscopic existence,
though you are part of everything, you’re just a bubble in the larger space,
still it gives you a powerful sense of individuality, so that you can experience your life as an
individual.
But the reality of the existence is, this is one living cosmos and you blew your
soap bubble.
When you were children, you blew soap bubbles,
your bubble and somebody else’s bubble was distinctly different.
The moment it burst, my air and your air, there’s no such thing.
Similarly, this (Referring to oneself), we’ve blown these bubbles.
And without the rest of it being there, we cannot be here.
So knowing this experientially is yoga, that you understand –
not intellectually but experientially you know –
that your existence is not individualistic, but it’s universal.
So, this economic disparity is happening because people are trying to fulfill this aspiration
of wanting to be something more, something more,
something more.
Because they don’t know anything else, they’re going through money right now.
Because the disparity and the rise of wealth in certain countries, whatever, is...
See, one thing we must understand.
In the last hundred years, no new imports have happened to this planet
from outside.
Do you agree with me?
Little exports have happened, some space crafts and others have gone.
But no imports have happened, no major asteroids have come in to add to
us.
So, we are the same amount.
There’s a very beautiful incident which happened in 2008.
When the recession was just hitting, which we were discussing just before this,
an American delegation went to China.
I happened to be at the Economic Forum at that time
and you...
I saw the entire American delegation was carrying, you know, a mile-long faces,
all in a state of depression because they had a few billions less than before.
What they had four months ago, a few billions less,
so they were all miserable.
So they asked me to handle a... a session called “Recession and Depression”
(Laughter) at the World Economic Forum.
So I said (Laughs), “Recession is bad enough.
Now you have depression” (Laughter)!
Pravin Gordhan: Economic one or the personal one?
Sadhguru: “But the way we have structured our economic engine,
the way we have structured the economy of this planet right now is such,
if you fail, you will be depressed, if you succeed, we will be damned for good.”
Yes.
So I said, “It’s better you’re depressed.
At least you can sit down and think, ‘What are we doing wrong?’”
Because no more has happened on the planet, we’ve just turned one thing into another,
another thing into another.
Nothing more we have added to the planet, right?
So a delegation went to China, American delegation, and they were all in
a state of depression.
So a Chinese wise man gave them a lesson (Laughs).
He took a chair and placed it in front of a mirror.
And he said, “See, there are two chairs now –
one here, one in the mirror.”
He went and stood between the chair and the mirror and said,
“Now there’s only one chair.
And now you’re depressed” (Laughter).
There always was only one chair, there always will be only one chair.
But in the marketplace, you can place two mirrors and create 10000
chairs or a million chairs if you want.
But there has always been only one chair, let’s learn to sit on it properly (Laughter).
Let’s make sure (Laughs) everybody can sit on it somehow (Applause).
So, this wealth creation, generation, disparity, all said and done...
I’m not saying it needs to be fixed.
Yes, it needs to be addressed definitely.
But one thing is clear, all of us all of us,
compared to how our parents were living, materially we’re living better than them.
Yes or no?
Please, you must admit.
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: Compared to our grandfathers, we’re living way better than them.
Yes or no?
Participants: Yes.
Sadhguru: Compared to our great-grandfathers, we’re living way, way better than them.
Or in other words, we are the first generation enjoying these
levels of comforts and convenience.
Let’s not whine.
Let’s strive to do what we want, but we can do it joyfully.
We don’t have to become miserable, simply because somebody else has more.
This more business will go up and down.
Who has more, who has less keeps happening.
But the important thing is, we look at somebody else and we become miserable.
Yes, this disparity must be addressed.
The ownership of the property unfortunately is going into a few hands in the world,
which has to be fixed.
But how will you fix it?
If you try to fix it, you will move towards communism.
Pravin Gordhan: I don’t know why he’s pointing in my direction (Laughter).
Sadhguru: No, no, no.
Pravin Gordhan: I used to belong to the South Africa Communist Party, I must confess (Laughter).
Sadhguru: And now I can firmly point (Laughter).
Pravin Gordhan: Now you can firmly point (Laughter).
Sadhguru: So, communism is a fantastic idea.
There’s no better idea, in terms of economics, that everybody by his need, not by his greed
– so fantastic!
when Marx came up with this idea, many people around the world,
all right-thinking people got very excited about this around the world.
Marx predicted, United States of America will become the first communist country in the
world.
How wrong he was!
The word communist is the worst thing that you can say to a person in United States
today (Laughs).
Pravin Gordhan: Particularly in the 1950s.
Sadhguru: Even now (Both laugh).
Even now, if you want to really accuse somebody of the
most horrendous thing, you don’t call him a murderer,
you don’t call him a racist, you say he’s a communist (Laughter).
That’s the worst thing.
Pravin Gordhan: No, no, that happened in South Africa too.
Sadhguru: No, now I’m not pointing at you (Laughter).
Pravin Gordhan: No, no, no, now I’m pointing down here, you see.
I’m saying (Laughs) that’s what we were called in South Africa
Sadhguru: Yes.
Pravin Gordhan: …whether you were there or not, you see.
Sadhguru: So, this happened.
Mark Twain was so excited about this communism, so he went to Russia.
So he was walking in a country road and he saw a country gentleman,
with two hens under his arms, walking.
So he caught up with him and said, “Comrade, is it true...
Are you a communist?” he asked.
He said, “Yes, I’m a party member.”
“See, is it true that if you had two bungalows, you would give away one to somebody who doesn’t
have?”
He said, “Of course, I’m a party member, I would do that.”
He asked, “If you had two carriages, would you give away one to somebody?”
He said, “Of course, I hold office in the party in my village,
I would definitely do that.”
“If you had two chicken, would you give away one to somebody?”
He said, “What the hell?
This is all I have” (Laughter)!
So, what was a fantastic idea became a ridiculous thing in practice
because people who had nothing wanted to share (Laughter).
When people who have something want to share, it’ll become a beautiful thing.
“I have a lot and I want to share”, this would become a beautiful thing in the
world.
But people who had nothing, the poorest of the poor societies,
they took to communism because they had got nothing to share
But if the richest became communist, what a wonderful world we would have created.
This was the vision of Marx.
But unfortunately, he might have known lot about economics,
but he misjudged human beings (Laughs).