See, this song is pretty amazing. Have you listened to the lyrics of it properly? This is our time. आज तो अपनी है बारी। I mean, life is what you make of it. It's not a car. It could be हवा। It could be a airplane. It could be anything. It is what we make of it. It's not just a song. It's an amazing, amazing insight into how the world is working. We are playing the game with somebody else's rules. So you feel you're stuck. You play the game with your rules. Then you're free. You understand that? All right. Let's go.

Oh, normal breath and Ujjayi breath. Okay. You guys want to learn Ujjayi breath? All right. Remember, Star Wars का आदमी, Darth Vader. Remember Darth Vader? Yes or no? Nod your head if you are saying yes. Nod your head like this, if you're saying no, this means yes, this means no. Okay. This does not mean anything. This is meaningless. ये क्या है, ऐसा करो या ऐसा करो। All right.

So Darth Vader, how does he say hello? पहले तो, he never says hello, but let's say he says hello. He says how? Hello. Now you have to say it with me. Hello. Now slow down the breath. Hello. Hello.

Now close the mouth and say the same hello in the slow breath. Hello. Now in the inhale also do the same hello. Hello. And relax the breath. Okay. This is Ujjayi breath.

So what is it? It's nothing. So simple. Think in terms of Darth Vader. They made billions of dollars taking Ujjayi breath from us and they made a whole movie out of it. What is this? Okay. All right. Good.

Arthritis? Oh! Okay, so the answer to this question is a little bit not so obvious. So here's the thing. Sudarshan Kriya is not a catch-all for every fix under the sun. Remove it from your head. Sudarshan Kriya is not. Sudarshan Kriya is a harmonizer. It harmonizes the mind and body. Got it? Sudarshan Kriya harmonizes everything in the body. Whatever is the offset, it harmonizes it. Now, if there is a dosha, there is a defect.

Alright, so what's happening? Sudarshan Kriya is a harmonizer. It will harmonize the offsets. But if there is a dosha, it cannot harmonize that dosha. It's a problem. So for that, specific treatment has to be given so that you, the mind or body, wherever the problem is, it gets dislodged from that problem state, and then the Sudarshan Kriya will harmonize.

The dislodging action you can do either way. Either you go with the allopathic route where you will be all given this, that, and the other, tests will be done, and all this. There is a whole mechanism of the allopathic route. Or you can go with the Ayurvedic route. Choice is completely yours. You can go with the Ayurvedic route. Ayurvedic route, what they will do? They will look at your prakriti. They will look at the, not the, the ailment is only a manifestation of something even more subtle. They will find that more subtle thing, and they will clean up that one in the Ayurvedic approach.

So the Ayurvedic approach takes a little bit longer time because the diagnosis process is not very obvious. There could be two or three things that could be manifesting as arthritis. So you have to find those two or three things. Allopathic way is like a, how do you say, it's like a direct approach. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work. It's a little bit complicated. So choice is yours, but don't rely only on Sudarshan Kriya. Saying oh I am doing Sudarshan Kriya, I should not be having even a cold. ऐसे थोड़ी होता है। No. Even Guruji gets cold.

The harmonizer effect and the dislodging of the dosha are two different effects. Don't confuse one versus the other. So find it. If allopathy is your way, go with allopathy. My preferred way is Ayurveda because that will take you to the root cause of the problem. See, the root cause is already there, and when that thing consolidates, consolidates, consolidates, consolidates, then only the physical ailment comes. The physical ailment is far removed from the primary. That thing has already started. You don't even know. You have to go to the source and clean it out there.

So this is the thing. Find a good Ayurveda person and work with them. They will do your Nadi check, all this stuff they will do. And they will start your, usually it's a dosha imbalance somewhere, and most likely it's Vata. Vata is the king of the doshas. It will wreak havoc on everything. Vata imbalance is most terrible, and most janta has Vata imbalance. Vata-pitta होगा तो God help you. I am like that. Okay, next.

Correct. So the fear comes because we are living in two potential barriers. You understand what is a potential barrier? So there is a wall for example, wall, let us take a wall. You are living between two walls. What is the first wall? The first wall is the wall of birth, your physical birth.

Do you, okay let me ask you this question. Do you remember your birth? You don't remember your birth. You will say of course I remember my birth. Really do you remember going through your mom's birth canal and coming out and with all the goo on your stuff and somebody pulled you out and then they cut the umbilical cord and then they tied it up and then they put you in a whole towel and wiped you down. You remember all this stuff? No right? So this is the first barrier. There is a loss of continuum of information, not memory. Memory is a very superficial thing. It's there in your subconscious deep inside. At that level it's continuous but on the level of the gross memory it becomes discontinuous. You go through a potential well and you lose information.

Same thing happens when you die. It's exactly this, it's just a reverse process. So from the process of birth the identification has happened. Oh I am my memory, I am my emotion, I am my body, I am this, I am feeling is there and then to let go of that I am feeling is not so easy. That results in fear. But taking a bigger step and looking at the underlying continuum, that of course, there was something before you were born. I mean you were there, you or whatever the concept of you, you have, you were there before you were born and by extension that same concept of you will be there after you are dead, whatever you call is dead. Once you look at it from that point of view then the fear loses its hold on you a little bit. I am not saying you are not going to feel the fear. The fear will come because there is an association with the mind and body. But on more subtle level when the realization is happening that there is a continuum which was existing even before death, that same continuum is going to exist after, I mean before birth, that same continuum is going to exist after death, then the fear releases its clutch on you.

Guruji has talked about this. I mean Nachiketa asked this to Yama. He says dude, tell me about death. And Yama, he didn't, Nachiketa was like a pidlu little boy. Yama didn't say get out of my way. He said okay, चल बैठ, I will tell you and he told him everything. And Guruji has, you know it's in one of the Upanishads, isn’t it? Katho or something. Guruji has talked about this. So that's it. He tells him that look there is an underlying continuum. You are stuck in middle of these two things. Okay.

Tapa is a process of cleansing. It is a process of cleansing. Cleansing of what? Cleansing of impurities at all levels. Impurities at the body level, impurities at the emotional level, impurities at the thought level, impurities at the action level, impurities at the speech level. At all these levels, whatever actions or impurities at the sensing level, impurities at the expression level—all these impurities. Tapa is the only way to cleanse them. No matter how much information you have in your head, unless there is Tapa, the purity will not come.

Parvati had to go through Tapa. She knew everything. And then she told Shiva, "Dude, I don't get it. I mean, I know all this stuff, but I don't have the feeling. I don't get it." And he made her go through all the tapas. You know, there is a whole story in the Shiva Puranas where Parvati goes through tapas, and then she gets it. Tapas is the fire that burns off all the crust and all the rust and all this other stuff there is obscuring the free flow. It's like a friction remover. It removes friction from every part—thought में there is no friction, speech में there is no friction, action में there is no friction, work में there is no friction. This is tapas.

And tapas only works when it is done willingly. Tapas cannot be imposed on somebody. You can't say, "Dude, you got to do tapas now." Nothing will happen. It has to come from inside. "I need to clear my system with all this rusty stuff and I will willingly go through this." Patanjali has given a whole proper sequence of what is tapas. Read the Patanjali Yoga Sutras. If you have not read it, or even if you have read it, come on the Patanjali Deep Dive sessions. They are not for the faint-hearted. They are pretty intense, and there are some people here who have taken the Patanjali Yoga Sutras Deep Dive session. They can write in the comments how it was. It will unlatch your mind. It becomes an experience. The Yoga Sutras don't remain a concept. After that, it becomes actionable. And he has described it. Patanjali has described it beautifully on how tapas is so important. Yeah, good.

Somebody is entangled in negativity. How do you get out of it? The first step to realize is there is nothing per se positive or negative. There is no such thing. We have ingrained in our heads that the positive is good and the negative is bad. With this ingrained notion, you get stuck in duality. You will never get out of duality. You are stuck there.

Why are you stuck? Because you are either running away from the negative or you are running towards the positive. Both times, you are only running. Nobody else is running, except you. You get tired out in the whole process. People say, "Oh, fear. Fear is negative." Fear is what? Who said fear is negative? If there was no fear, you would not even survive. You heard some rustling in the bushes. You had a fear that it could be a snake. You ran the hell out of it. So now you are alive to tell the story that, "Hey, you know there was this rustling in the bushes, and I ran away." The guy who didn't run away cannot tell the story because the snake has bitten him, and he is finished. It's over. You don't even survive.

So there is no such thing as negative or positive. Everything is there, sustaining life. Opposites are perfectly complementary. This is the meaning of opposites are complementary. So being stuck in negativity simply means you are focusing on one part and not flipping it over. You flip it over, and that process has to be done with you. It is a swadhyaya; it's a process of self-reflection. Why are you stuck in negativity? Ask yourself, what makes all this negativity come out?

Somewhere, there is a discord that you have to find that discord. Once you pull out that discord, then this whole thing just goes away. This whole feeling of "I am stuck in negativity" flips over. But for that, sincere, sincere—how do you say—swadhyaya has to be done. Sincere swadhyaya, not just time-pass swadhyaya. Sincerely, you have to look at it. What is it that is making it negative? There is something that there is resistance to at the mind level. What is that something? Find that. Look at it and then dissect it. What part of this thing is causing me all this irritation? And find that one thing and say, "Really, this thing, is it really causing me irritation?" It will flip right there. The process of dissection is what flips it over.

But for that, you need to do sincere swadhyaya. Otherwise, it will never happen. I can tell you any amount of reasons. I can justify it. But it will be a concept in your head. The negativity will still be there inside of you. You have to look at it. Look at it. 

No, no. Vairagya doesn't mean that. Endless thoughts are coming. Why? We looked at it. Have you done the Sahaj Samadhi meditation course? Or if you have done the course, have you done the refresher? I talked about that in the refresher. Thoughts are coming because of guna imbalance. When the rajoguna is imbalanced, then it leads to incessant thoughts. This also disturbs your Sahaj Samadhi meditation. In the meditation, you sit and एक के बाद एक, there is just a series of stories that are coming out of your head. You are taking mantra once, nothing happens. You take mantra again, again nothing happens. Third time mantra, the beej mantra becomes japa mantra at that time. Again and again, you are taking mantra. Where is the Sahaj? No bloody Sahaj there.

But then the diagnosis has to be done. Why are so many thoughts coming? It is because of rajoguna imbalance. Now, how do you fix the rajoguna? You do yoga, you do some exercise, you go for a walk, you play tennis, you play cricket. Do some physical exercise. Then the rajoguna will start to get balanced. Then you see automatically the connected thoughts are diminishing. Then the Sahaj becomes again Sahaj.

The same thing you have to apply to other actions of life also. Sometimes you will find that how much ever the mind wants to do something, the body says, "नही करना है, छोड़।" I just want to sit and watch the Matrix or something. Watch some movie, Ferrari Ki Safari or something. How much ever you do, inertia will come. Hello, Tamogun, खाना देखो, look at the food. Are you eating all these karanji and what's that? Chakli, all this stuff, fried food. Yes, so tamas will come. After that, there is nothing. The mind can say whatever the heck it wants. Body will say, "Boss, तू कर ले जो करने का है।" I am going to just sit on the couch. You have to look at the Tamogun imbalance.

And once the rajas and tamas are taken care of, what is left is sattva. Sattva is 100 minus the sum of rajas and tamas. You can only reduce these two. The third automatically comes up. See, I reduced one action. You cannot increase sattva at all. You can only reduce rajas and tamas. What is remaining is already sattva. Look at it from a scientist's point of view. Everything is based on three gunas here. It's not even complicated. It's not even four or five. Three है। One, two, three. How difficult is that? Come on. Look at it.

You already overcome it. You found it to be stupid. It's over. Already overcoming has already started. If you don't find it stupid, then you will never overcome it. First, you have to say, what is this nonsense? Now you have started to overcome already. It's over. Most people don't even find that stupid. They think, I have so much karma, I am carrying such a big sack. So heavy. Boss, what is that sack? It's all your mind stuff. Vashistha has made it very clear. It's self-effort. Its all a series of actions.

Causality is a construct of the head, of the mind. Mind makes the causality happen. Crow comes and sits on a tree and the coconut falls. These are two actions. The mind makes the story that the crow came and sat, then the branch moved, then the coconut fell. This is a construct of the mind. Causality is a construct of the mind. It's only actions. Professor Vashisht has made it extremely clear. Go and read Vashisht Yoga. You are already out of it. Once you say that what is this stupidity of the mind, it's already out. Already you are coming out of it.

Yeah. It is so difficult to accept this answer. How is it possible? What is it? When you are not accepting that this also is God's will, means what? You are stuck in the opposites. You are stuck in duality. You are stuck with the positive and you are averse to the negative. And then you say everything is done by God. Opposites are complimentary. Opposites are not complimentary in your head. Opposites are opposites. Positives are higher than negatives. It's ingrained in your head. So you are stuck with that duality. You cannot accept this violence, etc. This is also part of, we are living in the world of opposites. You cannot get only the electron. The proton will come with it. The electrical neutrality has to happen.

So now, recognize this. Recognize this. And here's the trick about balance. Opposites are complimentary means what? Good and evil balance each other. That does not mean that they are in the same magnitude. Balance means, this is what people miss. Balance does not mean that both are equal. For example, if I take a 20 kg positive and I take a 20 kg negative and I put them on a weighing balance which is 10 meters away from the fulcrum. You know what is the fulcrum? The midpoint of the balance. The 20 kg is on 10 meters this side. 20 kg negative is on 10 meters on the other side. Now they are balanced.

So now these are equal weights because they are equally apart from the fulcrum. Now I keep the 20 kg positive at the same point and I make the 10 kg negative. I reduce the negative to 10 kg. But opposites are complimentary. So what has to happen? That negative 10 kg has to go to 20 meters. Only then it will balance. Did you understand this? So a small amount of negative will be further away from the center and it will always be in balance. This is the rule of the universe. Opposites are complimentary. You cannot have imbalance.

Now, if you are seeing only the negatives around you, which means you are so far away from the fulcrum point, you got to move towards the fulcrum point. You have to bias yourself to move. Things are going to be always in balance. You cannot get out of it. Think about how the universe has told us again and again how things are perfectly in balance.

There is this one guy. There is this one guy called Ravan. एक आदमी। The whole universe had to conspire to defeat this one guy. Think about that. एक, one fellow. So many things had to happen. First Ram had to be born. Then Ram being born was not enough. All this other jhamela had to happen.

Hanuman had to come. The guy who is fully the master of the prana. Because the guy has to fly across that stupid sea. जानें का chance ही नहीं है। So he had to be brought in. Then that setu had to be built but when the stones would go in the water then the stones would sink.

So that one guy had to be given a curse that whatever you throw in the water will always float. So that curse had to be given. So then that guy came and whatever stones he threw then those stones started floating and then those stones started moving. So the squirrels had to be given a boon that you will use your tail to put some dirt between the stones so that the stones don't move. So then Ram had to bless the squirrel.

Dude, the whole universe had to conspire against this one guy because things were perfectly in balance. They will always be like this. They will be evil, they will be good. It is the way of life. You have to transcend the opposites otherwise you are going to be stuck. In every story you see. You tell me, was Duryodhana a good guy or a bad guy? Duryodhana. तू बोलेगा, क्या बोल रहा है बक्वास? Bhaiya of course he was a bad guy. थोड़ा सोचो। If there was no Duryodhana, there would be no Mahabharata. If there was no Mahabharata, there would be no Bhagavad Gita told to the world. Duryodhana के लिए ही, because of Duryodhana we got Bhagavad Gita. Now tell me, is he a good guy or a bad guy?

Dude, there is no such thing. Everybody is playing a role and things are perfectly in balance. समझ में आ रहा है की नही? Do you understand this? 

This is a very made-up question. दिख रहा है कि कुछ तो झोल-झाल है। अच्छा story नही बोल रहा है, I will ask a question. ऐसा है ये। तुम लोग बहुत smart है, लेकिन उस्तादी उस्ताद से? Come on man. I have gone through all of these steps myself. You cannot fool me. But I will tell you what my story is.

So in the beginning, when I first took my Happiness Program, from day one, when I first took my happiness program, I can also say this, a long long time ago in a world far far away, वैसे भी बोल सकता हूँ। So क्या है, at that time the Happiness Program was like five days, you know, लम्बा। How did I get there? How did I get there also? How did I get to the first? That's also a good story. So क़्या हूआ? You know, a boy was born in 1970! पूरा बोलू life story? कर देता हू process. खत्म कर तू  आज।

Okay, so somehow things happened and this joker landed up at IIT. And then in IIT there was a hostel and he made lot of friends in the hostel and then eventually what happened that this joker, he was working in a national chemical lab and this girl walks in through the door and he says, dude, this is it. लगे हाथ आ रही है तो, why not? So then he gets married to this girl and then somehow come to America. This has got nothing to do with how I ended up with the course but you said start at the beginning. So I am starting at the beginning. और भी बोल सकता हूँ। I can keep on talking irrelevant stuff. So point is this.

So with this girl, he is living in America and one of his IIT friends comes and visits them. One of our friends comes and visits us and we know, Madhuri and I, we know this guy from our India days and when we see this guy, there is little bit of peace and calm in him. He's a different fellow from what we knew him, what I knew him from IIT days and what my wife knew him after we got married and was hanging around in Pune. So there was something different. So then my wife asked him the correct question. My wife asked him, Vikas, what are you doing? You have this feeling of settledness. What are you doing? You know what question I asked him? I asked him, what drugs are you on? This is my question to him. So this is the approach. When I'm telling you that I've fallen through every hole that is to fall through, this is my approach. What drugs are you taking?

So he says, you know, there is this Sudarshan Kriya course and stuff. He told. So my wife, highly sincere girl, she looks up Sudarshan Kriya thing and the closest course is in Philadelphia. We are living in Wilmington. So if you look at the map of the United States, Philadelphia is midway between New York and Washington DC. And we are about 45 minutes south of Philadelphia in the city called Wilmington. So closest course is in Philadelphia. So she said, let's go. I said, no, no, I'm not driving to Philadelphia. It's like driving to Mumbai. Traffic, 40 minutes going up and down five days a week. No chance. I'm not going to Philadelphia. I put my foot down. I mean, if you can believe that I'm like a rat in front of her, but fine. I put my foot down for whatever it's worth.

So then she said, all right, fine. Then we got busy in our life. And then it turned out that the course was being offered in the University of Delaware campus in Newark. So Newark is the university city of the University of Delaware. So she said, OK, there is a course in Newark. Now I have no opposition because there is no parking problem. It's all in the same state. I said, all right, fine, I will go. So she twisted my ear and she dragged me to this course. That's how I came to the course.

So on the course, what happens? The instructor asked the question, at that time we used to ask the question, what are you looking for? Why are you here? You know, all this stuff. So all the other course participants, they said, you know, I've got I want to clear my mind and I want to find peace and I want to do this and I want to do that. All this ऐसे heavy answer. मेरा answer क्या था मालूम है? I said, dude, I don't want anything from this course. I just want to see what all the fuss is all about. What are you doing? Breathing and this nonsense techniques. This is my answer. So I'm telling you, I'm setting the stage कि इतना उल्लू आदमी जो गया था course में। Left brained, IIT trained, you think you're like the king of the world.

So then all right. So the instructor said, all right, fine. But you will not get the experience unless you participate on the course. You know, it's like learning to learn swimming. You want to learn swimming. Michael Phelps का book पढ़के you cannot learn swimming. You have to jump into the water. It's like this. So correct. So I said, all right, fine, I will jump into the water. So I did the course and I found that first Kriya, oh wow. So there is some release happening and I felt light, etc. After the fifth day, I thought, that's it done.

And then after one week, somebody asked me, are you doing your home practice? I said, okay, what is home practice? What the heck are you meaning home practice? Course is over, money is over, and the end of story, done. They said, no, no, no, you have to do the Kriya every day. I said, what the heck? Kriya every day? I forgot. But my wife, she does it every day. So I said, all right, तू मेरे को सीखा वापस। So she taught me again. Hand positions, 20, 40, 40. Still, I was highly regular in my Kriya. I used to do once every seven days. Regular. Once every seven days, why? Because we have to go to the long Kriya to drive. So once every seven days हो गया, people would say, are you doing your Kriya regularly? I said, yes, regularly. ये रेगुलरली वर्ड ही उल्लू है। पागल जैसा वर्ड है ये। Regularly means nothing. Daily, the answer is daily. But at that time I was regular.

Then Guruji said, no, no. Then what happened? So then these guys tricked me. They told me, oh Sandeep, so the local teacher and Madhuri and all these people, they ganged up and said, we have to trick him. So they said, Sandeep, let's go to New New York for sightseeing. तो मैं बोला चल जाते हैं। 

So, we drove to New York. This was like a 3-hour drive from us. Then वहाँ पर पहोचनें के बाद, they said, you know Sandeep, there is this thing at the Art of Living Centre, तो वहाँ जाते हैं। I said we will go there for 5 minutes and then we will go to the city. I went there for 5 minutes. There was Guruji there. There was a whole mess. We registered and sat down. I said, what is this? White sheets and people were saying "Oh Jai Gurudev". I said, where have I come? I did not feel very comfortable there.

So then I sat. Guruji came. I said wow man. This guy, I could feel it. I said let me see. There was a question-answer session. Whenever the question was asked, I would answer the question in my head. I would wait for Guruji's answer. I would say this is going to be 50-50. Half of them I will be right, half of them he will be right. So the score started Guruji 1, Sandeep 0. Guruji 2, Sandeep 0. Guruji 20, Sandeep 0. Guruji 75, Sandeep 0. I am saying what the heck? How come I did not get even one question correct? Correct means his answer is always better than my answer. I said, what is this? Alright, this guy is a smart fellow.

So then he got up at the end of the thing. Jai Jai Radha Raman started and I did not know what the heck that meant. What the heck is Jai Jai Radha Raman? But everybody started getting up. I said okay, this is the end of the story. So I got up and somehow there was a line that formed. I did not even know what the line was. So I was standing and then Guruji came like this walking. It was supposed to be Darshan line but how would I know? I do not know any of this stuff. All these white sheet kind of people, Kuku Log. So I was standing in the line.

So Guruji, he was walking and he came and stood in front of me. And I said alright. And he says पूछो। He has to tell me to ask him the question. He says पुछो। I said oh. I said Guruji, what do you think about string theory? No, I did not say Guruji. I just said what do you think about string theory? So he looked like this and he said हाँ। Finally, the scientists have figured out that everything is vibration. And he took one step ahead. I said यार ये तो धाँसू answer है। This is an amazing answer. Like I never thought of it like this.

Then he turned around. And he said you should teach. And till this day I am convinced that he did not tell me. I am thinking he was talking to the guy who was standing behind me. But Janata is telling that no he told you to teach. I said how can he tell me to teach? I am not even doing my kriya everyday. काहे का teach? What the heck is teach? So I ignored that. I said छोड़। I was convinced that he was speaking to the guy behind me.

So then he left and I was feeling a little bit good. I said yaar this is maybe not so bad. And then in that session, he had said about the importance of seva. I remembered that. And I said चल I will start doing seva. So what I said, I told my local teacher that I will commit.

So at that time, we did not even have a centre. So we were doing Kriya in a church. We would rent a room in a church and once a week on Tuesday evenings we would go and do the long kriya there. So in that room, there would be people during the day who would walk with shoes and all this. So we had a whole set of white sheets. Remember this whole white sheet organization? I was part of that organization. So we had white sheets and we would spread the white sheets and Janata would come and sit and do the kriya there.

So my seva commitment was that I will bring the white sheets to the Kriya place every Tuesday. That was my only commitment for seva. That's it. That's how I started. But what does that do? That does many things. That lets you put this as priority number one in life and everything has to be going around it. Because you can't say that चल आज मैं नहीं आरहा हूँ। Janata will not get white sheets. So कैसे करेगा? You cannot do like that. So if you cannot go for some reason, then you have to find a way to give the white sheets to someone else who is going. All this stuff.

Whole mindset changes when you just commit to doing a little bit of seva. You know, your whole priority stuff, everything changes. Good. So then what happened? Then I went to my first Silence course. I mean, in the United States, we call it Silence course. In India, you call it what? Advanced course or something like that. I know. So I went to my first Silence course. This was in Montreal Ashram in Canada. Remember in the Physics of Pranayama, I tell you the story about oatmeal. Oh, that was the course. That was the oatmeal course. There is no poha, upma, nothing. Oatmeal. So anyway, I had the oatmeal and all that thing happened. So in that course, there was a meditation, which I will not share the experience now because it's just too heavy. But there was an experience there that it was obviously the gift from the guru. Let's put it this way. Leave it at that.

So then I came back from the Silence course. I said, yeah, this is good. But by this time, my wife had done TTC one. She was on fast track. At that time, it was TTC one, TTC two. So she had done TTC one. And then she had committed to organize a course for Mikey. Mikey is Michael Fishman. He was at that time the president of Art of Living. So Mikey said, OK, I will come. So she organized. I mean, she worked like amazing, you know, single handedly. Now, this was so many years ago. Single. She and one more person, Hari. These two people. They single handedly organized 75 people course. You might think 75 people is a very small number, all the India people. तूम लोगों का तो 750 is a small number, but fine. हम लोगो के लिए 75 was a big number at that time. Single handedly ऑर्गेनाइज किया यार। So Mikey came. Mikey is a very strict fellow. So all. So he was staying with a teacher's house and that teacher's a little bit scared of Mikey. So she said, Sandeep you take care of Mikey. So I picked him up at the airport and drove him to the house. Then I cooked for him, made chai for him, etc. And I said, yaar ये आदमी चाय पी रहा है, he's not such a bad guy because, you know, I'm a fan of chai. So then we hung out like this.

And then I had done at that time something unique. So we had these discs, the VCD or VCD, you know, you remember the VCD disc? Ashtavakra VCD disc set था। I had taken that and I had digitized it in an iPod format. So I put it on my iPod. I had an iPod. So in the evening after the course, when Janta was hanging out, I said to Mikey, Mikey, I'll show you something. So I connected the iPod to the TV and I played the video from my iPod and it came on the TV and Mikey was just stunned. He says, wait a minute. What have you done? Right. So then I explained to him, you know, there's this digitization software and you do it, all this stuff he did. So that that was the start of. So after I explained to Mikey all this, he sent me the DVD versions of Ashtavakra. I had the VCD version. He sent me the DVD version. So I digitized entire Ashtavakra DVD version, sent it to him. I showed him how to do that. And that was the start of now, you see, all the Silence, Silence course teachers nowadays, they carry iPod. All the videos are on iPod. That was the start of it. I started the digitization of all those Silence course videos to put on iPod so that the people don't have to carry tapes and this and that. They can just carry one iPod. That was the start of it.

So in that series of interactions, Mikey asked me one question. How many days are you going to be like this? I said, what's wrong with this? This is perfection. What the heck are you talking about? I mean, what do you mean? He said, no, no, come on, you take the next step. Come for TTC. I said, what the heck? TTC? First I should do the Kriya every day. Then we will see. And then what happened? I was still not 100% committed. So then Mikey said, you know, I've written a book. I've written a book and I'm looking for somebody to help me publish it. And he asked Madhuri that, Madhuri, can you help me publish the book? And Madhuri said, yes. And I was listening to this whole conversation. I was thinking, ये सब काम मेरे पर आने वाला है। Madhuri says, yes, which means I have to do the work. And she was pretty smart because once then after that, she said, Mikey, maybe Sandeep can also do. I got stuck there.

So then we got the unpublished version. It was like a typewritten thing. So we read it, and I was totally moved by that story. So I said fine, I will help you publish it. So then I looked at the whole process of book publication and book proposals and all this I wrote, and we sent it to so many publishers, etc. I got so many rejection letters from the publishers that I could put all those rejection letters on the ceiling of my apartment, and it would completely fill the whole ceiling. इतना rejection letters आया। Finally, one person agreed, and then that book was published. It's called *Stumbling into Infinity*. Read that book. It's really good. It's Mikey story. And if you read the acknowledgment section, you will see that my name will appear in just like a tiny 8-point font somewhere.

So this was the whole thing, and then I was thinking, yeah, okay, this guy, he walks the talk. So I will go and do TTC one with Mikey because now I'm thinking Mikey is my friend. I helped him publish the book. So I'll be taken care of on TTC one. He just destroyed me on TTC one. He just took me apart. ऐसा पूरा जो भी मेरा self image का concept था वो कचरा कर दिया। Completely. I said, साला ये तो मेरा friend है यार। ये क्या चल रहा है? What the heck is going on? This was the rebuilding process that started. He completely destroyed me on TTC one. And then he became my friend also. I mean he took care of me also.

So then after that, I wanted to do TTC two. At that time, it was TTC one, TTC two. So then TTC two was announced. And there was a lot of chaos in my office. There was a high, high visibility project. So we were working for Boeing at that time, and our membranes units that are on airplanes, they were not functioning. And Boeing was getting very annoyed, and there would be a lawsuit and all this. Boeing is a big giant, and ours is a very small company compared to Boeing. So that whole chaos was going on, and I was the technical lead to solve this problem for the Boeing product. वो process में how to take two weeks off? Boss को जाके बोलूं, boss two weeks मैं नहीं आरा हूँ। वो बोलेगा घर पर ही रह तू। Don't even come back after two weeks. Just stay at home.

So then I told Mickey, नहीं हो सकता, I cannot come because my office work etc. I cannot come. And then what happened? So now let's say TTC is starting on Saturday morning. Saturday morning—नहीं, Saturday evening. It was like, okay, the course will start in the evening on Saturday. So I had not applied—nothing. Application deadline is midnight on Friday. Midnight on Friday applications have to be completed. Fees have to be paid. And only then you can come on Saturday evening for the course. Janta had applied everything. There's a whole project also. Before TTC also, there was a project to be done. So since I was not going to TTC, I was not even part of that project.

So Friday, 4 pm, Madhuri and I went to see a movie. The movie is called *Three Idiots*. This is the Friday of the deadline of TTC. We went to see *Three Idiots*. So in *Three Idiots*, there is this one scene where the guy says he had a scholarship. He had a scholarship and he had a job interview. And then somebody says, after many years you will think that the taxi was at the door. If you had taken this scholarship, then life would have been different. There is this whole scene. I said, this scene is written for me. TTC is at the door. If I had taken TTC, then life would have been different. All this thought was going on in my head.

So during the drive back, it was like a 35-minute drive back from the theater to home. I was just thinking about this, and Madhuri was not talking because she knows that I am thinking about something. So she is not talking. It's very rare that she didn't bang me over the head. But it's one of the few moments that I escaped unscathed. I was driving and came back. And then I was telling Madhuri, कल से TTC चालू है। She said, she didn't say anything.

Then I called one of my friends and I said, you know, I'm not coming for TTC. She said, Oh, what do you mean you're not coming for TTC? You have to come for TTC. I said, यार एक और signal. Then I said, okay, so there's like a secret link for even to get the registration form, because only the people who are doing the pre-TTC project are sent that link to apply for it. So, you know, so Alak was the person I called. Alak is now one of the secretariats in the Guruji US office. So Alak told me, okay, I will send you the link. So unofficially I got the link for even applying for the TTC. So I filled out the link. And Madhuri said, now this is two weeks TTC, so laundry has to be done, all this other stuff. Right. I cannot, I need clean clothes, etc. So Madhuri said that, don't worry, I will take care of all the laundry to be done. That was also the first and the only time that she has done my laundry. Otherwise, it's usually the other way around. You know, I'm doing the laundry of the house. But that one day she took care of laundry. Fine.

So then I wrote my application and I said, यार, before I submit it, I have to call and get permission from Mikey. Because I already told him I'm not coming and I didn't do any of the project. So he will feel that I'm taking advantage of the fact that I know him. So I called Mikey and he picked up the phone. And I thought he's just going to let me have it on the phone. So I said, Mikey, is it OK if I come for TTC? And I was waiting for the whole process to start and he says, OK, and he put down the phone. I said, what is this? So then I said, all right, now this is good. So I started typing feverishly all my application and I submitted the application. I still have the timestamp of it. It was eleven fifty seven p.m. Three minutes before the deadline, I submitted the application.

Then in the morning I did all the laundry, etc. I packed my bags. And I went to TTC. In the process, what happened on the Thursday of that week? The lawyers got involved. So our company lawyers and the Boeing company lawyers got involved to work out the frame agreement to do this project work. And that frame agreement slowed down the whole process, it delayed it by three weeks, so I could go for two weeks. The project was not the project was not going to be because anyway, the lawyers were involved, so all the work had stopped on the project. So I told my boss, कि अभी मैं 2 week जा रहा हूँ। I'll check my email. If something happens, I will come back. I'm right here in DC. Don't worry.

So I went. Two weeks vacation I took. I went. The whole TTC was done. So this is how I ended up in TTC, like the shortest application time. That's how I came to TTC. And it is a good process, TTC good process. I thought in TTC I'm not even going to get the manual because you know what? In the last day, there's a whole there's a whole box where all the manuals are kept. And one by one, they will call the person and they will give the manual one by one. And it's alphabetical. So when my name came, they didn't call my name. I said, OK, then they called the next one. Next one, next one, next one. No, good. Then they called my name, the last one. And then before he gave me the manual, that that silk cloth that they used to cover all the manuals with, he took that and he put that as one of those, you know, how they put like a thing. He said, all right. So he put that on my head, on my neck, and he said, all right, here is the manual. So it was. It was quite something at that time, I had to say something because. Yeah, that was a big experience. So, you know, so this joker who didn't even who did Kriya regularly once, once every seven days. I said, OK, reached TTC. Yeah, so if I can do it, anybody can do it. It's like this. I mean. I'm the lowest common denominator. If I can do, anybody can do. Year of HP, I did my first course in 2003. The course was happening when I was in the campus also, all these Bawa, Kashi, all these people are from my time on the campus, but I ran away from all these jokers. I said, these people are crazy. I ran away from them. Then I came here in 2003.

I could have done the course in, I don't know, 1995 or 2004 or something like that. In 2003, I did the course. So every dog has his day. My day came, I did the course. It's like that. But this was the process. Anyhow, so I've done everything. I've done every instruction that Guruji has given. I have said no. I will independently verify. He says, do seva, your meditation will be deep. I said, "हट, नहीं करता हूँ सेवा। I will not do seva." So my meditation goes in the tank. Then I said, "All right, fine." Then I said, "Start doing seva." Then the quality of meditation increases. Like this, I've fallen through every hole

Same thing happened for Physics of Pranayama also. I got this idea. It just came. I was teaching one course and somebody asked, "How does it all work?" So as the words just started flowing, I said, "Oh, this, that." It was not as sophisticated as you have seen all this PowerPoint. It was just talk. And I was like, "Shak, ये कौन बोल रहा है? Who's talking?" I was not talking. Some words were coming. I was really excited. So I came home and I told Madhuri, "Madhuri, you know what happened?" Because, okay, remember, Madhuri is the senior teacher in the house. She has done TTC before me. So she's a senior teacher. So I said, "Madhuri, you know what happened?" I said, "This, this, this, and this." And she was doing something. She looked at me and said, "What nonsense."

"What do you mean, 'what nonsense'?" What she meant was, "This is not ready for prime time, dude. You cannot say this to people in this format. किसी को समझेगा नहीं।" That's what she was saying. So I said, "All right, fine." In the course, I also learned something. "Don't be football of other people's opinion." "वो Madhuri का opinion था, nonsense." "Okay, fine." So I took it and I researched everything, and I did all that stuff. And then I started telling this to people. You know, at that time, there was no PowerPoint. It was all handwritten, whiteboard type thing. So I've done like six or seven sessions. You know, the Northeastern story that I told you on the Physics of Pranayama, that also had happened before. And then Guruji was there in the Washington DC Center.

Washington DC Center there is an entry, ground level. Then on the first floor, there is a meditation hall. And on the floor above that, there is a series of rooms. And one of those rooms is Guruji's kutir. So it's on the third, second floor. So Guruji was there. He was inside. So Janta was waiting for, he had some meetings, etc. So once the meeting is over, Janta will go see him. So as they were hanging around in the meditation hall, I saw that there were like 25-30 people just hanging around there and talking all nonsense stuff. So anyway, it's the center. So I took a easel, whiteboard, and some markers, and I put it in front of the meditation hall room and said, "Janta, let's, I'm going to tell you about Physics of Pranayama." And they said, "What the heck? Who's this joker?"

So fine. So then they turned around and I gave an impromptu talk. And I had one of my TTC buddies. She's a trained physician. I told Aditi to sit in the room and I said, "You fact check it. If I'm saying something wrong, you tell me from a medical point of view." So I gave the whole Physics of Pranayama talk. And Janta liked it. And then Aditi took me aside and she said, "You know, Sandeep, this is not technically correct. You have to say it like this. You have to say it like this." So she made like five or six adjustments to it. Fine.

And then suddenly there was a line that formed because they had to go to Guruji's kutir. So I also sat in the student line. So after 25-30 minutes in the line, we entered the kutir. So Janta was sitting there. So I also sat. Then one by one people would go, and he would give them some prasad, some apple or some pedha or something. He would give them some prasad. So when our turn came, Madhuri and I also went. So Madhuri went first. He gave prasad. Everything was okay. It was good. Yeah, yeah, good. So she sat. Then he gave me some apple, something. And as I was going back, he said, "You, you should meditate more."

I said, "Huh? I'm doing twice a day sahaj. How much more?" This is what I'm thinking in my head. And then Madhuri, she's telling in a loud voice, "See, I'm telling you, you are sleeping in your Sahaj. Guruji is telling you to meditate more and not sleep." In front of the whole room. I said, "Very good. My reputation is set now." It was a mess. This is the good thing about wifes. You feel you're exploding, you're expanding like a balloon, they have the correct pin.

It's amazing. It's like the gift. I'm telling you, complimentary. You become a balloon and directly go down. So that's what she said, "Dude, you're sleeping in your meditation." So I said, "Fine, I will meditate more." Then Guruji had to go for some meetings. So we said, "Okay, go Jai Gurudev." I stood up to go outside and Guruji was going also to his inside room. And then suddenly somebody caught my hand. It was Ruchika. Ruchika Lal, she's one of the board members of Art of Living United States. She caught my hand and she pulled me in front of, I mean just behind Guruji and says in loud voice. Ruchika's voice is booming loud. If you want to hear source voice, you go to Ruchika Lal. I mean the whole room just fills with her voice. She says, "Guruji, this guy is teaching people Physics of Pranayama."

First of all, I'm telling you, you might think that I'm all this big, you know, dude. In front of Guruji, I'm like a mouse. My voice will come out like this. So I was thinking, "Oh my God, what is this?" Then, you know, Guruji, he's so light on his feet. So he was already four or five feet ahead. He suddenly spun around like this and he came in front of me and he looked at me in the eye and he says, "Physics?" I said, "Yes, Guruji, physics." Then he says, "Of pranayama?" I said, "Yes, Guruji." Then he looked somewhere, in infinity, you know, how he's doing some downloading, God knows what he's doing. And then he looked at me and says, "सबको पढ़ाओ। Teach everybody. सबको पढ़ाओ।" And he left. That's it. "उसके बाद क्या approval चाहिए तुमको, मेरेको बोल।" The boss has said, "सबको पढ़ाओ।" End of story.

That's how I said, "All right, I'm going to teach people this." So now, we put it on Udemy. I started, you know, at that time I was traveling, so every city I would go to, I would do Physics of Pranayama for that city. We did a thing in Dadar, like in one of those halls, like this. And now, after the lockdown, I said, "All right, I'll do Zoom sessions." After the Zoom session, I said, "Eventually, lockdown will be over also. Then what will I do?" So then I filmed the whole thing and we put it on Udemy. So now it's on Udemy. tiny.cc/pop-udemy. Anybody can watch. So तुम लोग भी देख सकते हो। If you want to keep it for you, you know, as a reference, sign up. It's available for life. After you sign up, it's available for life. So it's there on Udemy now.

So that's how the physics of pranayama started. It's all, it's all, you know, somebody else is in charge. It's not me. It is. I'm just a medium through which things are happening. It's not, definitely it's not me. Yeah, so that's the story. 

Okay, you want to hear Sahaj TTC story. All right. So Sahaj TTC was announced. And I didn't apply for it. I thought what will I do with one more manual? इतना सब तो पड़ा है घर पे। Two or three manuals. Project Welcome Home Troops का manual है, Prison Smart का manual है, Happiness Program का manual है। कभी life में एक भी manual पढ़ा नहीं है ठीक से। हम जहाँ खड़े होते है line वही से शुरू होती है type mentality है ना। Amitabh Bachchan से ही सीखा है सब तो, bye god.

Manual तो कुछ पढ़ा ही नहीं है life में। सिर्फ़ ऐसे ही पड़ा है। So what will I do with one more manual? So again, Sahaj TTC starting on Saturday. Thursday को, Madhuri gets a call from Ajay's wife, what's her name? Madhusri. Madhusri calls Madhuri saying, Didi is asking, Didi means Bhanu Didi. Didi is asking why Sandeep is not on the Sahaj TTC. I said, what is this? How does Didi know that I even exist? I said, what is going on? Didi knows because Madhuri is on the TTC desk. So Bhanu Didi interacted with her. So she knows Madhuri and because of Madhuri, people know me as Madhuri's husband. I don't have any status here. Who is Sandeep? Yes, Madhuri's husband. Very good. I am very happy with that. That way of identification is perfectly fine for me.

So Didi asks why Sandeep is not on Sahaj TTC. And have him call. So I called Madhusri and Madhusri was saying that we were talking and we were just looking at the list and your name was not there. And Didi asked, Amma asked, I call her Didi, she calls her Amma. Amma asked why Sandeep is not on TTC. So I said TTC deadline application is over. Sahaj TTC is going on from tomorrow. Application is over. She says no, Amma said you apply. So I applied. Last moment. So remember that TTC story, same thing. I applied at the last moment. I submitted. And it was the complete, there are so many questions in Sahaj TTC, I didn't answer any question. Every question's answer is Bhanu Didi asked me to apply, so I am applying. The same answer, I copied and pasted everywhere. In 5 minutes, application is over. It takes people like hours to finish Sahaj TTC application. Mine was done in 5 minutes. I said Bhanu Didi said I am applying. Done. End of story.

But now I am in trouble because now the TTC is starting on Saturday. I have to memorize the entire meaning of the Guru Puja with all the Vidhi and the placement and the intonation and the Ucharan and everything. All this, you know, it has to be perfect because there is a test. You have to do the Guru Puja, there is a test of Guru Puja. So I sat and did रटा at night. Saturday morning at 4.30 I started driving with a couple of my friends. It's a 12 hour drive to Boon where the TTC was. So we started at 4 o'clock in the morning. By 4 o'clock in the evening, we reached Boon. And the TTC starting at 5.30. So I reached there, we checked in. I changed my clothes. I went to the TTC. Everybody's testing was already over. I was the last guy to be tested. So I did the test. Seems like I passed because otherwise I would not be on the course. Anyway, I passed. Done. And that's how Sahaj-TTC happened. I mean, it's just a gift. Otherwise I would, you know. So it takes Bhanu Didi to tell this joker. I mean, get out, get unstuck buddy, come on. So she unstuck me there.

And then afterwards, so when she came to our house. I mean, three years ago, she came and visited us. That time she told me that, you know, you have to do fundraising for my children. That's how the Physics of Pranayama fundraising is for Care for Children. Every single session of Physics of Pranayama is paid. Every single session of whatever I do is paid. Because all of it is going to Care for Children. She said, you will do fundraising for my kids. I said, yes, of course, I will do fundraising for your kids. Hundred thousand children they have to teach. That is the intention of Guruji. Hundred thousand. Somebody has to have the money for it. When people say, oh, Bhaiya, you should do it for free. I said, I don't do anything for free. This session is for free, fine. This is okay. But Sahaj refresher or Patanjali Yoga Sutras or Ashtavakra Gita that we have started or Physics of Pranayama. There is a fee for it. It all goes to Care for Children. 

We talked about this. What can you do? You have done the Patanjali Yoga Sutras with me, right? What did we say? Go revisit the recordings and you will understand. 

Just observe the anger. Don't do anything. Just look at it. Just look at the anger as a pure emotion and then magic will happen. You tell me what happens after. Just look at it as a pure emotion. Don't assign a cause to the anger. Just look at it as anger. How when you go to shopping you want to get the perfect color of pink to match your saree, blouse pieces to match the saree, perfect pink. You are not observing the cloth, you are just looking at the color. You want to see if the color matches or not. Like this you observe the anger as a pure emotion. Not assigning a cause to it, what is the texture of it, who is it for. As a pure emotion you observe the anger. Then you see what happens.

So what is loop quantum gravity? I don't know who is this Redmi Note 7 Pro. So what is loop quantum gravity? It is a way to resolve the confluence of three things: gravity, quantum, and space, a tiny amount of space. What happens in a really, really small portion of space where there is intense mass which warps the space-time because the equations of the field equations of Einstein, etc., they break down. It gives you infinities, and all kinds of nonsense come. So loop quantum gravity is a way to get around those infinity problems. And it is very nice. It is a very elegant theory. It is really good. Some of the predictions of the theories of loop quantum gravity are almost in line or precisely in line with the various time scales that we are used to. So there is a Brahma time scale, there is a Vishnu time scale, there is a Shiva time scale, and there is a human time scale. These are like billions of multiples of each other. So loop quantum gravity also gives a mechanism of how these times speed up and slow down and all this other stuff. I am not an expert at loop quantum gravity by any chance, but it has got a big promise. Now there are the purists who will say it is not making any predictable, any verifiable predictions. That is because it is not refined enough yet. So people are working on it. And it is going to take some time to resolve all this stuff.

Yeah, yeah. So you are not unique. Everybody is in the same situation. You are just a little bit better off that you are actually aware that you are stuck in a pattern. Most people are not even aware that they are stuck in a pattern. Once you are aware of the pattern, now you feel bondage. You feel ki yaar, there is no freedom. Ki yaar. There is a way out of this whole mess. What you have to do? You have to start thinning out the vrittis. The vrittis are what are causing all these patterns to keep on repeating. Vrittis are what? Repetitive patterns. There is a way to thin out the vrittis and we discussed it in extreme detail in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras. Patanjali Yoga Sutras have the mechanism by which to get out of the vrittis. The problem is, if you just read the Patanjali Yoga Sutras as it is, you will not understand how to implement anything because those are very complicated. But what we do in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras Deep Dive is we look at it from a point of view of physics and make it actionable. At the end of the Patanjali Yoga Sutras, you have something in your hand that you can do. That will show you how these vrittis are being thinned out. It takes some time. That's the answer.

No, it is not about the other person. It is about you. You come back into the world only when there are some unlearned lessons. There are some unlearned lessons that have to be learnt. Then you come back into the world. If there are no more lessons to be learnt, you are done. Then you come back only by choice. Not about the other person.

There is a proper mechanism. For quality of sleep, there are proper actionable steps that you can take. There is a book called 'Why We Sleep'. Read that book. If you don't have access to the book, then you WhatsApp me. I will send you the summary of that. There are actionable steps like 10 or 15 steps to improve the quality of sleep. One thing you can do is to reduce the exposure to blue light. Blue LEDs. On your laptop screen, you put a filter on it or set the setting so that the blues are lessened. Then that will not affect the brain center which governs sleep. Usually, the blue light activates the brain center that governs sleep. Then everything goes out of whack. I will tell you all this. It is coming from the book. I have not made it up. It is from this guy who is a sleep scientist. He knows what he is talking about. Done?