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So, let me start with a deep one. You know I always like to look at my background and my cultures. And in so many ways I think I embody two different cultures. My father’s from, his family is from Kashmir, my mother’s family is Kenyan, African. I grew up in a family where, for all the girls in the house who went through this you will understand, you say something at the table and nobody notices you said it and five minutes later one of your brothers says it, and everybody says, “Oh what an intelligent thing!” How many ladies went through that growing up? I see a few hands. And you’re wondering, you know, am I not here? Am I not present? What’s going on? What is the problem with our society and our culture? And why do we hold women down so much?  

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Back to the family. Ladies and gentlemen, if you look at much of our societies, in Africa, in Asia, and all over the world. There is a struggle, and it brings us back to feminine and masculine, as in a gender. And we do see the prevalence of gender violence. Something that we are dealing with a lot. For instance, even fighting ills such as female genital mutilation and trying to re-educate people. It’s a huge issue. Within homes, how do we bring up young men who respect and love women? And how do we bring up young women who are confident and demand love and respect? How do we do that and bring a balance?  

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My daughter is very close to her father. Do we have that in many families? Where the young lady can get anything from daddy, right? And my sons are very close to mommy. What happens in society that when they grow up, you would think that a man will always treasure and woman. And I think when families get it right, it doesn’t go wrong later. Where do we get it wrong? Because, clearly, in parenting, there’s something going wrong.  

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And looking at the society we’re living in, and the children that we’re bringing up. It’s so dynamic. If they’re looking for positive information out there, they will find what they’re looking for. If they’re looking for negative information, they’ll find it. It’s easily accessible in this highly digital world we’re living in. What are the key things that you would say we need to teach this young generation and keep them firmly grounded?  

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So I must talk about political leadership for a moment, if you will allow me. Can we? For a moment? Sadhguru, what’s wrong with our politicians? In so many of our countries, and I think in many ways India is similar to Kenya. Very vibrant countries, you know, alive. And brimming with opportunity. We know what we must do, and we just never seem to be doing what we know that we must do. Why? What’s wrong?  

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I want to take it a little bit deeper. And you know what’s interesting, Sadhguru, is that in Kenya a lot of people do vote. Right? We have very high, interestingly enough, we have high voter turnouts. 75%. Which is possibly in the world is one of the highest. So the problem we still have, and I want your comment on this, please Sadhguru, is the fact that for us, the vote almost has become so important that the next person’s rights become irrelevant. And what I want, how I want it. Hakeya chu, isn’t it? But not hakeya ko. Hakeya chu is my right, but we don’t say your rights too. We almost feel like we can trample on your rights to get ours. What do we in our society about this? How do we re-balance?  

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So, I’m bringing us back, for a moment, to family Sadhguru. And one of the things that is happening in Kenya, with much of our young society, is that we have a lot of single families. How many single parent families? How many people are aware of this happening in society today? Lot of women are left with the burden of bringing up children and struggling through. And it’s really very sad. I remember, I’m looking back at when I first got married. And you know, you get very few lessons on marriage. You kind of get in and you have to figure it out right? And in many ways it took some time to understand exactly what you’ve told us. When you know unconditional love comes from your partner, everything is solved. And so you put that first, and you build up and you build up. Lot of young families seem to be going in without the tools to get through those really difficult and tough times. Sometimes they don’t even get to the point of marriage and family. What advice would you give young people courting? Or young people in a situation where they feel alone and abandoned. And they’re wondering what’s gone wrong. How do I get it right the next time, maybe?   

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My question is about yoga and of course, ahead of international yoga day, we’re very privileged to have you here in Nairobi. My question is about the benefits of yoga which everybody talks about. And everybody knows that yoga has great benefits for inner well-being, as well as the external. However, in Nairobi, with all due respect to certain people who are in the craft, I notice that housewives overnight turn into yoga gurus because they watch some DVDs, they watch a few programmes on TV and then decide to start teaching yoga. And that is, of course, a big concern because people do understand the benefits of yoga. But they don’t understand that if you’re going to be training under somebody who’s not quite qualified in the craft what are the disadvantages. So I’d possibly please request you to highlight what are the disadvantages of practicing with, I’m sorry the term may seem harsh, but a quack yoga teacher would be?  

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You know so much about the universe. I’ve seen a lot of your videos on youtube. And you’ve talked about geometry and I saw that video. The largest telescope on earth is not able to get a picture of the nearby galaxy. It’s so far. So I wanted to ask you why did god make things which are not even visible to human beings? Or we’re not able to travel there.   

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With lots of respect, I’d like to ask. I loved your talk about the future of the feminine. At the very beginning you changed it, it wasn’t anything to do with the women. It was to do with the feminine. And you acknowledged the hardships women take in showing their masculine side. I would love to hear a little bit more about what you meant by the future of the feminine. Because when men behave slightly feminine, we discriminate against them. We call them gayish. There’s lots of things, I think, that we need to learn from you about. What is masculine and what is feminine? Nothing to do with gender.  

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In the beginning of the discussion, you stated that we are so busy in doing things that don’t matter. Actually, it should not matter. And we forget to enjoy life. Now when I look at myself. It has been almost 15 years, or a little more in this profession. And we, as professionals, probably say for example, I’m into the FMCG sector, and I'm creating a brand. To create how my product should look, I actually enjoy it. I enjoy the creativity in the product, in its distribution system, innovation that we bring into the business. And sometimes it takes more than 10 hours, or 12 hours, in a day. Now for somebody, including some members of my family, probably that’s something that should not matter. Or probably I’m in a mad rush. But no, I'm enjoying it. Now my dilemma is, where to draw a line?  

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You said something that is very interesting. You said that it’s our responsibility to make the generation after us a bit better. And for me, as a young mother, it’s quite a concern. And I would like to ask you, Sadhguru, if you have three tips to give me, as a mum, on how to protect my children from disconnections of themselves, while living in society. What would it be?  

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I’ve done interviews for so many years in the media. And there’s always this need to have a confrontation. You know, to one up. You know, I'm going to one up the person I’m sitting with. Rather than the need to listen to what the next person is saying before you even respond. What advice can you give us, as to how we start to better relate and speak to each other, rather than at each other?  

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