Shankar Mahadevan: Sadhguru ji pranam. You know, we’ve been composing music for the last 23 years now – as Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy. One thing that’s fascinating me is always, in the concept of 3. I see the association of the number 3 with various aspects like – neutron, proton, electron; Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh. And, you now, we are also three of us composing music. So what is the relevance of 3? What is the importance of 3? And what is the effect of 3?
Sadhguru: Namaskaram to the trimurtis of Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy. Well, there are trimurtis, trinethra, trishula, trikala. All these things are evolution of ideas from the fundamental experience of human life. All human experiences rooted in these three things. Our memory belongs to the past, which is called as the bhootkala. Our experience, always, is vartmana or the present. And our imagination and aspirations are always of the future, which is bhavishya.
Human experience of life happens between memory, experience, and imagination
So essentially, human experience of life happens between memory, experience, and imagination. Based on this, many aspects, which spring from these three experiences were crystalised in our culture as 3. Trinethra, trikala, trishula, and you guys, trimurtis.
So this fundamental needs to be understood, that all these three dimensions exist in vartaman. All these, past and future actually exist now, because it’s only now that you can remember, it is only now that you can imagine. There is a whole lot of teaching going around in the world, particularly in United States, but I think it has also hit the Western coast of India – people are going about talking, ‘be in the moment’, ‘be in the moment’. They are worshippers of the present. But, I do not understand, why somebody is telling you to be in the moment, because you can not be anywhere else! Where else can you be? Can somebody show me where else they can be, other than [to] be in the moment!
So, we are anyway rooted in vartaman, but our memories are of the past, our imaginations and aspirations are of the future. So, essentially people who worship only today, people who worship only the present, they are telling you – just be in the moment, do not think about the past, do not think about the future. Well, it took millions of years to bring this level of cerebral capability for this brain to blossom like this.
To be able to have a vivid sense of memory, and a fantastic sense of imagination, it took millions of years of evolutionary work. But today somebody is telling you – let’s junk all that, and be like a earthworm. I have nothing against earthworm, it’s a very eco-friendly creature. But all this evolutionary work that has happened upon us, to bring us to this level of cerebral capability, should not be surrendered to some simple philosophy.
They [People] are not suffering life, they are suffering their memory and their imagination
The reason why people are saying this is… because the only two fundamentals of people’s misery is just this – people can suffer what happened 10 years ago, people can suffer what may happen day after tomorrow already. This means they are not suffering life, they are suffering their memory and their imagination – two most fantastic faculties that a human being has. It is these two faculties of vivid sense of memory and a fantastic sense of imagination, which sets us apart from every other creature. This they want to surrender because they do not know how to handle their thought and emotion.
If you could joyfully remember, and with great exuberance and ecstasy imagine things – why would you want to surrender that? It is just that your memory, and your imaginations have become compulsive, and they are creating a world of misery. So, people are talking about how to forget the past, how to not think about the future. This is not the way to conduct human life.
It’s very important all these trikalas are there. The three dimensions, the trishulas are there, and trinethras are there. That is the three dimensions of seeing life and experiencing life is there. And, we are very glad the trimurtis of Shankar, Ehsaan, and Loy are there. Please make some wonderful music. And let’s celebrate the trimurtis.
