Sadhguru: When we refer to human beings today, we don’t refer to them as humans,
we refer to them as Indians, Americans, Emiratis and whatever else and whatever else -
nothing wrong with this on one level because a nation is the largest segment of humanity that you
can address in terms of bringing well-being. So in that sense, there’s nothing wrong to it… about it.
But at the same time, taking these national, ethnic, tribal, religious and racial identities
as ultimate nature of human being will be a serious mistake and for which we have paid
an enormous price in the last few hundred or thousand years. Too much blood has been shed,
too much prejudice has happened. Above all, we stand divided in so many different ways.
Sadhguru: There are three fundamental aspects or activities through which we are shaping
these aspects or these identities within ourselves. One is education, economics and our spirituality.
All these three have become divisive processes. The way ae... we educate our children is about
identifying ourselves with small identifications which leave us completely divided as human beings.
The way we’re conducting our economics again divides people. Our spirituality has become super divisive
process. So how can we address these issues?
When it comes to education, it is somewhere probably hundred-and-fifty-two hundred years ago, this mass
education program started. Probably sometime in future, we will look back and see that this mass education
process was one of the most divisive things that human beings have done.
To feed the industrialization that was happening, we came up with an education package that
is common for everybody. Not recognizing the individual sensibilities and the uniqueness of genius in every
human being, we just came out with a mass extruder program, where everybody will come out as
a product that will fit into the economic process or the larger economic engine that we built.
Sadhguru: When we say economy, we are talking about -
in a very fundamental way - we are talking about providing for the people.
Providing the fundamental needs and whatever else they aspire for in an organized manner.
But this has risen in such a way that today nobody talks about anything other than economics.
No more discussions about weather is happening in conversations, everybody is talking economy.
It’s amazing, just about anywhere you go, in the remotest part of India or in the capital
cities of every nation, you will see the main subject of conversation is economics.
This is not a progressive thought because we are shifting to a place where our survival
process or organization of our survival process has become the supreme part of our thought.
This is not a good way to go because survival is a rudimentary aspect.
I know we have made it very complicated but every worm, insect, bird, animal is ta…
able to take care of this with a millionth of our brain.
But human being should be looking at much… something much bigger.
Sadhguru: When we say education, from ancient time’s education has always been about expanding
one’s horizons.
But today we are looking of education as how to feed the industry.
I’m not saying we should not conduct our industry, I’m not saying we should have
an ec… we should not have an economic process, but within fifteen-twenty years every child has to be
extruded through a machine to serve the economy or the economic engine, is literally a crime against humanity.
Sadhguru: I’m very involved with variouslevels of schools, rural schools, urban schools,
very elite schools of our own and also we have adopted over 3600 government schools.
When I see the children, more than sixty percent of the children are just bewildered
as to why are they being put through this process. They just can’t figure what is the purpose.
At least I could not figure till I was twenty-five, why the hell I have to go through education,
so (Laughs) I didn’t go through much education because what is the purpose?
Well somebody has a purpose for you. The purpose of life is that this life should find full expression.
The purpose of life is not that this life should serve this or that.
Every creature on the planet is always trying to become a full-fledged life.
That is the aspiration of the human being also. But now we have made that
thing of longing to become full-fledged life to find expression only in economic ways.
The only way, you can be something in the world is, you have to be economically… you
must be success in the economic field. This type of education will smother human genius.
Nothing new or truly wonderful will happen. We are only thinking of how to use everything.
Sadhguru: Our idea of education has become this, we are teaching our children not how
to be with everything, not how to be inclusive - we are only teaching our children how to
exploit everything. Our idea of education - unfortunately our idea of science has become like this, from an atom
even to other galaxies, how to make use of them? People are exploring what minerals are there in Mars.
Have you not done emouf… enough damage to one planet (Few laugh)?
Before we learn how to live well on this planet, we should not step into any other planet if you ask me.
(Laughs) (Applause).
Sadhguru: Our ideas of spirituality has all become about belief systems.
Different cultures have established different authorities in the form of books, in the form
of divine entities, in the form of gurus, in the form of various teachers.
A time has come where we need to cultivate our children that authority cannot be the truth, truth can be the only
authority. We have to cultivate our children in this direction. If we don’t do this, you have one authority,
you respect one authority, I respect another authority and inevitably we will fight.
We are fighting for economic reasons which is (Laughs) more tangible fight but we are
fighting for divine geography, which is unnecessary (Laughs). Sadhguru: If you are willing to come to this
much realization… If we’re willing to become at least straight enough in our lives that what we know, we
know, what we do not know, we do not know - only then education will happen, true education will happen.
Right now whatever we do not know, we believe. You believe one thing,
somebody believes something else, eternal clash (Gestures – with a single clap) is happening.
All the fight in the world, though it is being projected as good versus evil,
the reality is, it is one man’s belief versus another man’s belief - endlessly going on, religious or otherwise.
Sadhguru: Why is it that we don’t mature? In the next couple of decades, the entire world…
why can’t we do this that we come to this much understanding, what we know, we know,
what we do not know, we v… do not know? This is not happening because we have
not educated our children and adults, that “I do not know” is a tremendous possibility. Only if you see
“I do not know,” the longing to know, the seeking to know and the possibility of knowing becomes a living reality.
Whatever you don’t know, you believe. If you believe whatever you do not know,
you will become confident without clarity. Confidence without clarity is a disastrous process.
Where there is no clarity, it is better there is hesitation. If clarity comes, let’s do everything.
If there is no clarity, we should at least hesitate. If you have confidence without clarity, it becomes disastrous.
This is what belief systems are giving people. People believe something, suddenly they are confident.
It doesn’t matter how much disaster it causes to themselves or to everybody around them
but it will go on because we believe. Sadhguru: What we believe is a psychological reality.
It may not have anything to do with the existential realities where we exist.
Education is a way of expanding our perceptions of how existence is.
Whether it is science or spirituality or whatever, essentially we are trying to know, we are trying to
understand, we are trying to grasp something more than what we know right now. And from our exploration
of this creation we know, if we spend another ten million years here, we will still continue to learn.
When this is the nature of our perception and this is the nature of the existence in which we live,
there should be no room for belief. There should be no reem… room for dogma.
Education should become a process, where seeking is encouraged, where every human being becomes
a seeker. The fundamental qualification of seeking is that you have realized
that what you know is very little, what you do not know is limitless.
Sadhguru: In the yogic culture there is a tradition that we always identify with our ignorance, not our knowledge.
Because what I know and what you know are two boundaries. Knowledge creates a boundary.
Our ignorance is boundless. If you identify with your ignorance, all of us will be together.
If we identify with our knowledge, you will be on one island, I will be on another island
and these two islands may never meet. Knowledge or what we know right now, what we have perceived,
what we have understood is valuable but it is very puny compared to the nature of creation.