honest the future is nothing more than a
combination of the decisions that we
make together me and you we had in
Indian history and days gone by receives
the the word vichy means seer people who
look and try and understand something
and they used to disappear in mountain
retreats and caves and meditate on this
particular issue the future me and you
and how we interact to bring that future
about they made some amazing discoveries
and those discoveries were accumulated
over a period of some 10,000 years and
I’d like to just share with you a
quotation which is one of my favorite
ones each day I believe less and less in
the social question and in the political
question and in the moral question and
in all other questions that people have
invented in order that they shall have
they shall not have to face resolutely
the only question that exists the human
question so in my tradition the
accumulated knowledge of all of those
Rishi’s sitting in their mountain caves
for decades and millennia it’s been
written down in stored we have four
Vedas which are twenty thousand three
hundred and thirty seven verses we have
the Mahabharata two hundred
thousand-plus lines 1.8 million words
there are Mayan or 24,000 verses yoga
scriptures there are lots of yoga
scriptures we have the Puranas and the
open oceans and all of those scriptures
are focused on one particular
manifestation and that is you what is it
that we actually are it’s all about you
and what I’m going to do in the next ten
minutes is to try and consolidate and
wring the essence and to try and share
it with you so that when you leave you
have got all of the essence of our
ancient scriptures so this youth the
Rishi’s sitting in their mountain
retreats they became aware that a human
being passes through four different
stages there are four types of human
being and the most basic human being is
actually characterized by a simple
phenomenon they don’t know who they are
they don’t know what their purpose is
but the key factor is that they don’t
know that they don’t know
this is a character who is confident
determined to make success to defeat
others to accumulate wealth to satisfy
all of their desire and this sort of a
character is the very base animalistic
human being
in one of those scriptures that I
mentioned via the Geetha it describes
this person as having the following
characteristics hypocrisy arrogance
harshness and ignorance to satisfy their
desires their goals today I’ve acquired
this tomorrow I’m going to acquire that
today I’ve defeated him tomorrow I’m
going to defeat him and defeat someone
else so that’s the nature of the basest
human personality we have the next level
who know that they don’t know they have
no idea their purpose they’re confused
and dissatisfied they have now come to
understand that there is something that
they still don’t know because they’ve
built their empires but inside of them
there is still some sort of a discontent
something is missing and then all of a
sudden they start to become confused and
start to seek that so this level they
don’t know their purpose but at least
they know that they don’t know now these
people know their purpose they know
their purpose but they don’t know that
they know so after having been in the
lower two levels they’ve now gotten to
that stage it’s time for a midlife
crisis
all the old formulae are not working the
body needs repairing the mind is not
tranquil all of the old ideas and
everything they’d learned hasn’t given
them what they were actually hoping for
so now they’ve gotten to that point
where they’re actually discarding all of
the old ideas and following intuition
they’re becoming more natural they’re
reconnecting with a deeper sense of
existence but they actually don’t know
that that’s what they’re doing yet now
this stage of a human being is
extraordinary in that not only do they
know their purpose but they know that
they know their purpose they have now
experimented or they’ve acquired wisdom
they know what they’re here for
and they’re actually fulfilling that
purpose the lowest level is too fired by
a possessive aggressive person the next
one is confusion and dissatisfaction
tranquility and innocence as in children
children have a natural sense of
intuition they have a natural desire to
be harmonious to
live in comfort warmth and with
affection and we have a symbol which
typifies the blissful person and that
picture of Shiva which has become very
common these days as a god it’s actually
symbolism for a person who has mastered
rage and anger a person who has mastered
lust a person who has mastered the auto
reactions that we have if somebody
shouts at you and say something
unpleasant how quickly we shout that
they’ve mastered those actions if
somebody pushes you in the hallway how
quickly we respond physically those auto
response mechanisms have also been
brought under control so that Shiva
image is actually of a tranquil person
to his self possessed to his mastered
his body and mastered his mind so this
is the pyramid that our ancestors have
depicted for us now we put forward the
proposition that every human being is
born actually at level 3 they know their
purpose but they don’t know that they
know their purpose they’re guided purely
by intuition they’re guided purely by
wanting to be loved and to give love
they’re guided by curiosity if you have
a if you peruse on that idea you come to
a possible understanding that all
creatures are actually created at that
level every single creature follows
intuition if you think of a bumblebee a
bumblebee knows that it’s going to go
out there and collect nectar and bring
it back it’s not taught that it knows
that it’s intuition and so we put
forward the understanding that actually
every human being is born tranquil and
innocent they know their purpose but
they don’t know that they know a genuine
education system from our perspective is
one which would take that person and
teach them about themselves it will
teach them how to master their body it
would teach them how to master their
mind it will teach them to understand
what it is that they are actually
experiencing and being an incarnate
human being this teaching would
immediately take them up to the next
level because there is one extraordinary
phenomenon that happens is there and do
people practice yoga here so we have one
or two
so the first thing that happens when you
start to practice yoga at the physical
level is you know your body intimately
you start to become very very familiar
with how it works and the more familiar
you become with your own body suddenly
you become familiar with everybody
else’s body because you realize that the
challenges that you have been overcoming
and making this body do what you want it
to do and to behave are the challenges
that everybody is facing the next thing
is that once the meditation is started
you start to navigate your mind you
become familiar with the tricks that
your mind plays and in doing so you
connect with everybody else’s mind and
you see that they too are working
through the same challenges so this
teaching takes a person from being just
an individual to actually being
connected in a very holistic and a
healthy and positive manner with every
other human being so this is an option
that’s available to us this is a choice
in terms of an education system but
there is a second choice as well and
that second choice is this the Greek
word the Greek root word for education
actually means to draw out from within
so there’s an understanding that innate
inside of us there is something wanting
to be expressed something unique that we
want to bring into this particular world
and unless we understand that to be the
case another type of education occurs
and another type of education is one
which actually changes the nature of
your existence in your understanding
it’s one which takes you from being
tranquil and innocent to actually
becoming confused dissatisfied and an
observation was made by a scholar where
he said in the West the education system
that were laboring under now is becoming
very close to this and that the
phenomenon of teenage rebellion is
actually that inner child which has been
taken from being tranquil and innocent
through confusion and dissatisfaction in
its last rebellious act in its teenage
years as it drops to the lowest level is
no I don’t want this anymore but more
often than not the early 20s are the
time when we actually give up those
struggles and those inner voices and we
become part of the lower level which is
the pursuit of material desires and the
pursuit of control and fear and
everything else we then come to in our
tradition a journey and each and every
person once they have spent a little bit
of time at the bottom and become
basically disgruntled and dissatisfied
with it they then start on their journey
all the way back upwards and that
journey the science of how to do that
and the science of the is the science of
what we call Yoga Union becoming
connected if you recall what I said
about becoming connected to your own
body suddenly connects you to everybody
else becoming connected to your own mind
suddenly connects you to everybody
else’s mind as your journey progresses
then the me and the I that is actually
experiencing life transforms into
something with not so many boundaries so
we understood that a society in a family
her company a department is nothing more
than the sum total of all of the
individuals all of the knees when they
work together they actually themselves
create an identity and so we have to on
my screen here I have two profiles of
society the first one on the left is
actually the one where at the top we
have all of these blissful connected
people who are actually not they’re not
aggressive they’re not dominating
they’re not into consumption they’re
actually very much more connected to
everybody else’s feelings and needs as
well and if those people are at the top
then what they will do is they will help
everybody else to come and rise up to
that highest level the other extreme we
have a society where it’s inverted where
the dominance is actually with people
from the lowest level who are very
aggressive who are demanding of
resources who are fearful and so they
control more they are actually
experienced junkies from the sense of
wanting to eat more wanting to see more
wanting to consume more and the two are
polar opposites and humanity has always
ocellated and varied so there are some
rises some changes and you can perhaps
even do it as an exercise for yourselves
to consider where it is that your
society is and where it is that your
communities at this moment in time but
the key question is who is in control
now that you know the sort of profiles
that are involved
which group is in control because the
people who are in control they determine
the future so there are two ways of
making decisions one is on the basis of
profit and loss does this profit me or
do I lose by doing this the other is a
slightly different way of making
decisions instead of trying to analyze
and project forward and plan and create
a scheme we adopted a slightly different
approach which was no matter what the
decision no matter what the
circumstances no matter what the choice
the decision that we would make had to
fit these particular profiles one is
non-violence Mahatma Gandhi made the
whole philosophy of non-violence very
very famous so does the action increase
or decrease violence does it prevent
violence or does it lead to violence is
it based in reality ie
certain exponential knowledge or is it
based in belief exuberance exuberance is
that explosive experience of being alive
when you look at something like a rose
the first spring of rose you will see an
explosion of red energy emerging from
that road that’s exuberance who has seen
the Indian festival of Holi the festival
of colours that’s exuberance so the
action that you’re making the choice
that you’re making the decision that
you’re going to be making does it lead
to an exuberant existence and finally
harmony we have this notion that all of
the units work together to increase
every units experience of an exuberant
existence so when you’re faced with a
decision we decided to take the approach
that actually forget the outcome the
outcome is unpredictable there are too
many variables in this space for you to
make a regular judgment where we’re
trained to use our left hemisphere to
make calculations and to make judgments
but frankly speaking as any
mathematician here will know unless you
know all the variables and unless you
know all the relationships between the
variables the decision that you make is
flawed if you if there is one variable
or one relationship that you’re not
aware of the conclusion is meaningless
it’s invalid and therefore if you don’t
know all the variables yes and no
equally suspect now if you have the
courage to experiment on that with your
life you’ll find a very interesting time
there was one year when I was getting
through these stages where I made that
choice at the beginning of the year I
decided for the next 12 months I’m going
to say yes to everything I’m not going
to tell anybody at all about my choice
but no matter what it is I’m going to
say yes to it because I understood that
yes and no we’re actually not within my
control to understand extraordinary
events happened I ended up somebody in
Spain phoned me and said Satish I would
like to sell you something it’s by the
sea it accommodates four people and you
really have a good time so I had to say
yes and I ended up buying one of those
drug runners boats so I had no idea what
it was until I got there six months
later and it was exactly that two
massive engines and as you can tell from
me I don’t even have a sports car but my
son’s had an absolute absolutely
wonderful son of her son
and that was the the impact of making
these sorts of decisions it becomes
uncertain but you develop courage and
you develop a degree of excitement in
how to be how to be a human being and in
your existence unfolds in front of you
but just consider if you’re making
choices on the basis of those principles
as opposed to loyalty most of us make
choices on the basis of profit and loss
gain or benefit and loyalty who we loyal
to but if you’re not making choices
using that calculation then all of a
sudden so many boundaries disappear
there is no such thing as a left wing or
a right wing it doesn’t make sense to a
person who has moved into that space
they all disappear the future becomes
very very difficult to predict but that
future is a lot more exciting and it’s a
lot more intuitive and it’s a lot more
in tune with the whole of human
existence and indeed the earth so it’s a
question of choices how do you choose to
make these decisions we have a choice we
can make the decisions and become one of
lots of little individual units and
scrambling around on the surface of the
earth trying to grasp a little bit of
safety to
come secured to look after people who we
think of our people or we have the
alternative and the alternative was
actually really well articulated by a
famous historian called Tony Lee who
even if everything in this day and age
would have a very slightly a slightly
different reaction but what he said was
it’s already becoming clear that a
chapter which had a Western beginning
will have to have an Indian ending if
it’s not to end in the self-destruction
of the human race but this supremely
dangerous moment in time the only way of
salvation is the Indian Way and what he
was referring to is a glimpse of it I’ve
given to you the Indian ways actually to
make choices on the basis of those
principles as opposed to on the basis of
our calculations and so I went to the
houses of parliament in this particular
Home Secretary he had his office tucked
away in one of those little towers and
so I sat there in this little office and
he said Satish tell me something he said
why is it that we have so few Hindus who
are radicalized how why is it that this
is a phenomenon we have so few who are
actually engaging in the Antonine
violent acts and I had no answer for him
when you ask a person why is it you’re
healthy you can’t find an answer to why
it is that you’re that way if you ask a
person why is it that you’re ill then
you can have an understanding and we
would suggest the following those
principles takes a person to a place
where because boundaries disappear
healing is so much easier you get to a
stage where you can actually see that
the breath that leaves one person is
entering another person the air that’s
moving around is actually moving around
through all of us each and every one of
you has been communicating with me
through your clothing through your
gestures through your eyes some of the
words that I’ve been saying they will
become part of you when you leave the
space none of us will be the same people
who we were walked in those boundaries
are actually only there are false
understanding that we have and as those
boundaries disappear the notion of me
starts to expand so I my conclusion was
that I would suggest to you that the
notion of me which will bring us to a
good future it’s actually how far are
you willing to allow your boundaries to
expand are you able to become a much
bigger me so much so that every decision
you make
is a decision as though the whole planet
was making that decision and I think
that’s an idea worth sharing thank you
very much [Applause]