Synopsis: What do you think of the proximity that religion and good work, or good faith have in our country? In the sense that, someone turns up at my parents’ place, for example, and he affiliates himself with a religious organization rather than just a normal, secular organization, or labour’s organization, my parents are more likely to give him money for charity if he belongs...

Synopsis: Sadhguru, you told about clarity. If you go from the literature of self-help, everyone talks about self-belief. But then after some period of time, that self-belief turns to ignorance. So how do we develop conscious self-belief through any process?

Synopsis: I have two clarifications from you, Sadhguru. First thing is, India, from time in memorial has been producing a lot of philosophers, social reformers like you. Then how can I evaluate you, that you don’t belong to the Ram Rahim category?

Synopsis: Sadhguru, right in those lines. You were talking about asking people to change the places in which they live. So how can we make them think about society? Many of the people are selfish, they think about themselves. How can we make them see that it is harming another person? How can we make them see that we have to do good for society?  

Synopsis: Almost 280 people lost their lives. Almost 3 million people were cut off from basic amenities. The heavy rainfall caused around 3 crore worth of damage. I’m not sure if Chennai or Tamil Nadu is prepared to face another situation in the near future. What needs to be done Sadhguru?  

Synopsis: So can you please share your insights on how business leaders should act on social welfare?  

Synopsis: I just want to ask, that there are goals that I want to achieve, and I also know that there are certain things I shouldn’t do that will hinder my progress. So I’m trying to find methods of accountability for myself where I can push myself and get that. As you said that we all are trying to win in some ways, but I’m not able to figure out methods of accountability...

Synopsis: I have a question. What do you think is more important to the youth, being right and staying with their point, or staying with the point, knowing that they’re wrong? But admitting that they’re wrong, they would be doubting themselves.  

Synopsis: Sadhguru, my question is, I have seen youngsters. They are addicted to drugs or alcohol. They smoke. And I have even heard one of my friends saying, if I recollect correctly, that even Lord Shiva used to consume substance. And they take it as an excuse. And they imitate it, saying that even Shiva used to do it, why should we not imitate it? So that excuse that few of...

Synopsis: Hello Sadhguru. I wanted to know, what is the one major difference you see between the youth of your time and the youth of this generation? What’s one major difference? And what’s one quality you would want of that youth to be imbibed in this generation?  

Synopsis: I wanted to ask you one thing. As young entertainers, as you know we all have youtube channels and there are millions of people following us. Do you think there’s some sort of responsibility on us? Like, how to go about it? Or we should just do what we like to do?  

Synopsis: My question is touching back to the point which you brought up about the belief. Can you tell a little bit more about what’s the difference between belief and faith?  

Synopsis: So when I was a medical student, I was a pastor of a church here at the time. And I would write my sermons on a hospital note paper. This was before EMRs. So I’m writing my sermon at the nurse’s station, and my attending physician came to me. And he said, “Dolittle, physicians are the priests of today.” And I said, “What? What do you mean?” I was offended....

Synopsis: I actually want to talk about being a prophet. Let’s go there. Because one of the things about being mindful of the inner life. So, I wouldn’t say you’re a prophet. I’m talking about the Judail Christian tradition of prophecy. So, in the Hebrew bible, in the old testament, there is the role of those who speak truth to power. Who speak out against injustice. Who...

Synopsis: So let’s talk about making soup. So this soup of life, if you will. You know, tonight, there is a nurse, or a physician, who has come home. And they told a family member that their loved one just died. Or they treated a child who’s undergoing chemotherapy. Or they’re in a clinic where they’re taking care of someone who doesn’t have enough insurance to cover...

Synopsis: I wonder if there was some final thought or mantra that you can leave our audience with, before they go home.  

Synopsis: So what do you think of organized religion?  

Synopsis: Are you worried about global leadership though? I mean, you say, we’re living in the best time in terms of survival and technology. But, if we look at the global phenomenons at the moment. Even if we look at what’s happening in this country, with Brexit, and identity politics and people feel like they need to belong to a certain type of thinking or group, on either...

Synopsis: Are you saying that we are living in the best time in history?  

Synopsis: Then tell us, how do we get to a point of consciousness? How do we not take our impulse from smoking to something else?  

Synopsis: Do you think that technology is a good thing or a bad thing?  

Synopsis: You just said, the worst thing that can happen is if you live forever. But what if that death is, then imposed on you? So, I go back to what happened on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka. And the attacks on various churches across Columbo, where 310 people were killed. I mean, what goes through your mind when you see this. Some would say, a level of evil inflicted on man by...

Synopsis: Pranam. Post-truth era. Are we living in a world of dishonesty? These days there are many confusing statements.   

Synopsis: We are all love deep inside. Then why do we have war guruji?  

Synopsis: Pranam Sadhguru. I’m Srinavas. Everybody is aware about the debate on tolerance and intolerance. The concept of intolerance is growing mostly among the public or the well-educated, that too from well known institutes. I never find the concept of tolerance and intolerance among the lot like BSF, who are suffering more toughness in life, more controversies, and more...

Synopsis: Sadhguru, as we all know, in our society, women are stepping up. They are becoming equal to men by working as well. However, our society is not accepting women. Nobody is accepting that women are doing the same amount of work as men. How do we change the mindset of men, parents, and everyone else in the society?  

Synopsis: 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,...

Synopsis: 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...

Synopsis: 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....

Synopsis: 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...

Synopsis: 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...

Synopsis: 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...

Synopsis: 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...

Synopsis: 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?...

Synopsis: 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...

Synopsis: 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...

Synopsis: You said you love machines. Okay, you like them. Have our lives been overtaken by gadgets?  

Synopsis: Namaskaram Sadhguru. I just want to ask you that everybody’s perception of good and bad is different. And, what do you think, if we start manifesting our own good and bad, what will be the state of the society?  

Synopsis: How do we keep faith separate from politics? You have, in the past, for example, I remember when Anna Hazare was launching his anti-corruption movement, you did come and applaud it but you said that the Lokpal was not some magic wand. I remember you saying that. Do you believe that we are seeing the dangerous cocktail of faith and politics getting more and more mixed...

Synopsis: We live in times where faith, for certain, has become a very inflammable, easily politicized conversation. If faith should have been personal, today it’s not. Today you actually have decisions taken in the name of somebody’s faith. So you mentioned food right now. I remember that you said somewhere, that there’s nothing religious about the act of food, just eat...

Synopsis: You often spoke about how economic leaders are going to be the future of the world, you’ve been interacting with CEOs. It’s rare to find a spiritual guru who’s also quite openly capitalistic. Are you a capitalist?  

Synopsis: This beginning of this conversation perhaps underlines that you are atypical. You are atypical of what we imagine Gurus to be. We expect people who don’t crack jokes, we expect people who don’t have a zest for life. Somehow, all of our spirituality has traditionally been centered around giving up. Around abstinence of some kind, abstaining from pleasures, from denying...

Synopsis: As you said earlier, it is what the other person thinks of you not what you think of yourself. What is it that you would like to share with the people out here about the role of service? And equate it to the meaning of service in our lives.  

Synopsis: In our society, there is a bias towards skill, against skill. We try and believe that being a babu in a railway station is probably a better job than being a retail employee. And Nagesh said that, some of the people think that the moment a girl’s father gets to know that the prospective boy works in a shop, he says, “Humko toh ladki hee nahi milti hai.” There is...

Synopsis: They say, look you have to look at the world through a different prism. You have to change your whole prism through which you view your own life, is a broad theme. The second broad theme is that if you were able to do that, you will have unmeasurable benefits for the body. Dr. Chopra is an expert in talking about the body, and Sadhguru, as well for the mind because how...

Synopsis: Today, many youngsters don’t want to marry. And few of them who marry, there are occasions where they are getting divorced. So, would you like to throw some light on this situation?  

Synopsis: Years ago, when films started, through the 60s, 70s, there were lovely stories, nice values, beautiful music and lyrics. By the time I was a star in movies, some of our jhatka makas might have shocked the previous generations and they must have said, what is all this. But we were still in limits. And then now, today the complexion of films, the kind of films we see....

Synopsis: Today, many women in our modern society are stepping out and having a career. And, I’d just like to know, what do you think of this. Of women stepping out, being career people, managing home as well, being financially independent. Is this good?  

Synopsis: So, if I understand the answer, it’s a very hopeful answer. Because no matter how bad things look, they present us as a problem we can solve. Is that in the next generation? Is that sort of the point?  

Synopsis: The world has a lot of problems. Right? And, you know, one of the things that we need to solve, we were talking about some of this just as we were sitting down here before the programme started. So we could focus on that one issue, alright? What do we do? How do we use the insights, the understanding, the enlightenment that you have, to go after some of these issues?...

Synopsis: With respect to inter-personal promises and intra-personal promises, seeing that there are two types of promises that we make; to others and to ourselves. How do we balance both of those? Specially, considering, sometimes we have to keep the inter-personal promises at the cost of your intra-personal promises.  

Synopsis: When we’re all in this journey of life, we tend to set a lot of short-term goals. And when we don’t achieve them, we don’t know how to deal with failure. And that is something we deal with a lot at UofT in specific. But, in that moment when we can look back and say, ya this is fine. But in that moment, how do we hold our ground and how do we learn to see the bigger...

Synopsis: So, I’m a diaspora, I’m Canadian born, my family is from Tanzania but originally from Gujarat. So I’ve always struggled to identify who I am in the Canadian context. So when I went to school, I had to eat my lunch. So I would take my butter chicken and go on the side because I didn’t want my white friends to smell my food. But when I was with my family at a mosque,...

Synopsis: What worries you the most about the youth of tomorrow?  

Synopsis: My question is actually also about identity. You’ve spoken about the need or benefit of detaching from a biological identity. And I’m curious, I think there’s a lot of people in the room and this question came up again and again. If somebody wants to act positively in society, there’s an instinct to start from the biological community, from the people that you...

Synopsis: My question is about this idea of a cosmic or global identity. I think it’s no secret that many of us here, no matter where we came from before this, we now have a certain level of privilege studying in a place like Columbia. And I think, I’m confused as to whether this notion of a global or a cosmic identity almost is predicated on a sense of privilege. And that...

Synopsis: There’s so much suffering in the world. Like when I travel on work, or otherwise, one observes that on one hand there is lack of basic peace, or there is so much violence. And on the other hand, there is even a lack of basic resources and abject poverty. So I would be curious to hear your perspective on, why does every single person have such different starting points...

Synopsis: So, I understand, you know, the pursuit of freedom and justice. But oftentimes what I’ve dealt with in regards to religion, I grew up Catholic, I’m Catholic, is it’s view and limited acceptance of the lgbtq community. And the fact that I am lgbtq, and just trying to understand how I fit in. And oftentimes I was not accepted. It depended on how progressive a church...

Synopsis: What role can we play, when people aren’t as enlightened as the people in this room? We can’t really make the same connections as you because we do agency. Right, we are people that want to make a difference and are willing to kind of have the courage to, I guess, have compassion or pity, depending on the mood we’re in. How do we do this? Because that’s something...

Synopsis: Politics. In America we’re more and more divided than before and quite polarised. For me, this is something that troubles me. As someone who has some less than popular opinion sometimes, I’m conscious of how I’m received. Because of people who are passionate about these identities. How can I and others that share, I guess, my desire to bring people together in...

Synopsis: When it comes to purpose, what has defined what your purpose is in this world? As it has led to you being here at Columbia Business School in the youth and truth program. But, as well as if you have any words for other people in the audience or just me, would be fine as well. Around, how do we find purpose in this world?  

Synopsis: So Sadhguru, you said that we should not be the problem but a part of the solution. And I know that you are so committed and concerned about the rivers of our country. And you also basically try to engage the country, youth, various parts of the society. To really understand what this issue is, how successful have you been up to now in getting people to understand why...

Synopsis: Sadhguru, there is a growing concern that we have become an intolerant society. Have we really become intolerant?  

Synopsis: I feel a compulsion to entertain people. Does that make any sense to you?  

Synopsis: I feel technology is constantly evolving. And I have a feeling that mobile phones have really changed the way we are. You know it’s having a huge bearing on pretty much everything. It’s permeating everything. Social media, mobile phones, this kind of technology. Like sometimes I wonder, were human beings ever meant to communicate like this? Like I could be hanging...

Synopsis: My question is, why do people lie all the time?  

Synopsis: My question is about India. India currently is a shining star on the global map, its economy is thriving, people are flourishing. All things are great, and going good. And in the last four and a half years, we’ve seen a serious government which is taking us into this development path. But my question is about this gruesome, you know, horrible act that happened yesterday...

Synopsis: Since this auditorium is filled with Indian expats. So one of the questions we wanted to ask was how do you recommend that we, the Indian youth here in the US, start thinking about contributing back to India while they are living their American dream. Because these two pursuits are very diverse, they might not coincide.   

Synopsis: So the summary of that will be that, as people, we choose to learn those things that we think have value in it, not things that transform them. Correct? So how do you suggest that one can expand his or her horizon to see beyond what his/her logic tells them to do or not do?  

Synopsis: As we graduate from school and leave university, and go into the corporate world. A lot of people follow their passion and take an unconventional path. My question is, should you do what you love, or should you love what you do?  

Synopsis: My question is regarding, because I’ve been following most of your videos. So, you always mention a need for collaboration of other people to be successful. You always mention that, to be successful, that’s the only time that we need the collaboration of other people. For other things, like our energy and our emotions, everything can come from within. My question...

Synopsis: My question is, what, on an individual level, can we do about water wastage?  

Synopsis: Tell me, you also mentioned that your first visit here, your trip to Australia. And, my first impression of India was that there are a lot of people. And there’s also, in India because there are so many people, there is so much energy. Human energy. Chances are, that if you’re having a bad day, it’s like the whole India is having a bad day. Because there is so...

Synopsis: Tell me this then, if our strength is only in our intelligence, why are we making such dismal decisions? As a humanity. Why can we honestly say that history does repeat itself? And we’re talking about all sorts of global atrocities. If we’re so intelligent, if that is our strength, which I agree 100% with you on. The fact is we’ve got boundaries in terms of our...

Synopsis: Let’s focus for a second on collaboration, because as an individual, I can take it that the Isha Foundation is something which is now a global movement. So talk to me about the spirit of collaboration. I mean, how you’ve developed, built these organisms like a human body that. You might describe yourself as, maybe a platelet within the human body. You know, there’s...

Synopsis: I would like to know your opinion on present day art. Like, the modern art, the films, the videos. And its influence on the present day generation.   

Synopsis: Speaking about how it is very important to realize about life and death. So, because I did not decide to be born. A lot of us, we did not decide to be born. But certain countries have taken up this issue of euthanasia very seriously. And they have legalized this, pulling off the plug. So do...

Synopsis: I’m sure many of my friends will relate to this question. We find no purpose in what we’re studying. And we feel we’re studying just for the sake of marks. We feel, most of the time, we regret the decisions we have made. We feel trapped sitting inside the classroom. We want to go outside, explore the world, learn, and do a lot of things outside the classroom. But...

Synopsis: I, being a law student, give a lot of importance to the rights that I possess. Which is, basically the fundamental rights, that’s what we’re talking about here. So I think I should probably be allowed to sleep during classes because that comes under Article 21, right to life and liberty. But, I also have a sense of responsibility, that I should stay awake and focus...

Synopsis: I just wanted to ask you about how we can contribute back to society and give back? Because everyone keeps talking about contributing and contributing, but it’s really hard for each person to come up. I just want to hear your thoughts on that. 

Synopsis: I personally feel, Sadhguru, that there’s this phenomenon of castration anxiety in India. Castration anxiety, something related to male ego. We see that this male ego has been somewhere hidden behind rapes that happen, sexual harassment that happens. A lot of gender disparity. I wouldn’t say this is the only reason, but somewhere hidden behind. And we never address...

Synopsis: For a woman who chooses not to be a mother. So she has chosen you as an advocate for her case. And you have to fight the case. What are the arguments that you would give for a woman who doesn’t want to bear a child?

Synopsis: My question today is, in the world that we live in today, there exists a multitude of paths to traverse, both, spiritually and religiously. For instance, in Hinduism, there is both, Veda and Vedanta. I can make a conscious choice as to what I would like to take up. But I’m confused. As a millennial I’m really doubting if a ritualistic approach is relevant today....

Synopsis: I am interested in, or I learn, Carnatic music in my pass time. Around the same time, last year, 2013, there was a controversy that broke out about four Carnatic musicians, famous ones, who sang kritis, which were not related to Hinduism or Jesus Christ. The common folk believe that Carnatic music is sacred of Hindu origin and should remain so. My question is, is Carnatic...

Synopsis: Shouldn’t this be the government’s job? Why should I pay 42 rupees when I already pay taxes? I don’t even live near Chennai. 

Synopsis: So Sadhguru, speaking of Chennai and change. All of us here are undergoing one of the biggest changes in our lives. Because up until now, we haven’t really faced the shortage of a basic necessity, that is like, water, or food, or shelter. But now Chennai is facing one of the biggest water crises, I think in history. Where they predict in 10 years the city’s going...

Synopsis: I consider myself very against littering. So what I do is, I generally take all my trash and I put it in my bag. At the end of the day I go to the trash can and I dump it there. And it hurts me when I see someone else littering. In this case, I’m taking a selfless effort to make the world a better place. And that effort is made worthless because of one selfish person....