योगा नहीं कर पाते हो क्योकि योगा नहीं कर रहे हो क्योकि योगा के बिना कुछ भी ठीक से नहीं कर सकते हो। It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. There is no out of it. You know, if you don't do yoga, you cannot do anything properly. So you're not even doing yoga properly. So it's done. End of story. Next. 

So the mind can be settled only by the principle of indirect action. You cannot work on the mind directly. You tell the mind, stop talk, stop thinking about pink flamingo. You close your eyes, and the first image will come in for pink flamingo. This is the nature of the mind. You cannot deal with it from the level of the mind. You have to invoke the principle of indirect action, meaning you do something else and that something else indirectly affects your mind state. And that something else is sadhana.

You do the sadhana. You know we learned Physics of Pranayama, the hand positions are correct, and the method of breathing is correct and all this other stuff, and then the bhastrika, do it correctly, then do the kriya correctly, then you do the sahaj properly. Now all this stuff you do, then it happens. It will happen automatically, it will not happen forcibly, you cannot force it. The more you force it, the more it will come back.

On the level of the mind, there is a rule that says what you resist will persist. So you are resisting all this stuff on the level of the mind, it will persist. On the body level, what you resist will reduce, like when you resist the fever on the body level it reduces. The rule applies only to the mind. So stop resisting, and then you see.

Find ways to be grateful. It's an indirect action. You be grateful, it affects your quality of mind. There are many things, but it all comes under sadhana. This is all sadhana.

When you're working with your senior and he is troubling you for no reason, which is known to others, how do you apply the rule of accepting people as they are? Intellectually, I can instruct myself to accept, but on an emotional level, it drags me to anger, stress, and frustration. I've already shown my displeasure in a dignified way, but there is a tendency to retaliate.

Yeah, it's difficult. When this thing happens, it's really difficult. See, accept people is not a frivolous thing. Accept people is a very deep thing. We will look into it. We will do a refresher, a happiness program refresher, where we will go into the next level of the sutras. I will not give the answer now. So, look at it. Why do you want to accept this person? It is not for their sake; it is for your sake. That non-acceptance is not disturbing that person. That person is happily sleeping at night. You are the one who is tossing and turning. So, for your sake, you accept.

But accepting doesn't mean being passive about it. What is the word that people use when they don't understand anything? Karma. This is my karma. Nobody knows what karma is. It is like entropy in physics. When you don't understand something, you say, "Oh, it's entropy." Boss, relax. So, what is the meaning of acceptance? Acceptance doesn't mean being passive. Acceptance doesn't mean you are okay with whatever nonsense is happening. Acceptance means recognizing that this nonsense is happening, waiting for that disturbed state of mind to become calm, and then acting on it. The action that is missing is acting on it. Acting on it could mean many things. Acting on it could be not assigning meaning to the words that are being said to you. Let's say I say, oh, you're stupid. Now that has disturbed your mind because you have assigned a meaning to the word stupid. If I say you're an idiot, what happens? You assign a meaning to the word idiot. You know what is the meaning of the word idiot? Idiot simply means that somebody who is unable to follow someone else's behavior pattern in the society. If you see somebody walking in a straight line and you don't walk in the same straight line, you are an idiot. This is the definition of the word idiot. It does not mean you're stupid or anything. It simply means you're unable to follow the rules of society. But over time, the meaning has been assigned to the word idiot means गधा है साला। That's the meaning of the word idiot. Now that assignment of the meaning of the word idiot is coming from your head. So let's say it's an uncomfortable situation. Guruji gives a good way of solving this. He says slow it down. So let's say I say you are an idiot and you slow it down in your mind and you say you are an idiot. Now this has zero impact on you because you slowed it down. It has no hold on you. It is not getting any hold on you. Slow it down. That is one way to get out of this mess. It will not disturb your mind. It's a real technique. It's done in Sanyam. If you've seen Sanyam, he says slow down, just slow it down. Everything you slow it down, then you see. And then action has to be done. Action has to be done, which means what? If things are not right, you have to build a consensus around your idea, which is right and the boss's idea is wrong. So that building of the consensus also is your responsibility. You can't just expect people to know, I'll come with you. You have to show them the pros and cons in a non emotional way, not in an emotional manner. Then automatically things change. Otherwise things don't change. Maybe the action is you find another role in the company, not work with this person. Who knows? There are many actions can be taken. Some of them are not possible. Maybe I don't know. I don't know the situation, but I'm saying the action has to be come from your side. You cannot say, oh, acceptance means that thing has to change. That thing will never change. The world will never change. You have to change. This is this is Ashtavakra. This is I'm not making this stuff up. We just finished Ashtavakra series. Most people forget this. The world will never change. We have to change. That is the acceptance. Acceptance is very powerful thing. 

What is there to cope up? You're getting worked up daily. So what? You want to cope up because in your mind getting worked up daily is not a good thing. Who decided that it's not a good thing? You decided it's not a good thing. So you're resisting it. That is persisting. You're just extending the short cycle action into a long cycle action. That's what you're doing. You're totally responsible for it.

Emotion will come. Whether you do sadhana or not, emotion will come. The trick of sadhana is to let the emotion play out on its own and it will go away very quickly. It will just go. The more you resist it, this emotion is not good, you are extending the action of that emotion. Over days it will be there. It's totally not a very smart thing to do. I can say that you're an idiot, but I won't say that. But essentially that's what you're doing. You're extending an action when it is not necessary. That action is happening, just let it play out. It will be finished.

I give you another example. Let's say you have a dirty bed sheet at home. Me as a sloppy person, I come to your home with all my not wearing chappals etc. and I sit on the bed sheet. It's already dirty. How much more dirty can I make it? Nothing will happen. You think, "यार, ठीक है, this joker." But now let's say you have a white clean bed sheet. And now if I sit on that bed sheet with my all sloppy way of coming into your house, it will be all dirty. And you will say, "यार, यह क्या पागल?" It is the same dirt. Except in one situation you have seen it and one situation you have not seen it. You understand? You are doing your daily sadhana, so you are cleaning your sheet very nicely. Now when these little bit emotions come, you are able to see them. And you are saying, "Aree yaar, this is not good." Those emotions are always there. They will eventually go. Just relax. Do your sadhana. It's a principle of indirect action again. It will happen.

Accept people is a very complicated thing. We will talk about it at the refresher. How about that? In the Happiness refresher, we will do. It will be a weekend session. Maybe two and a half hours on Saturday and Sunday. No, two hours. What is it? Two hours Saturday, two hours Sunday, four hours weekend session. We will do refresher. There we will talk about acceptance in great detail.

I daydream a lot. Sometimes it is good because a lot of planning is done for the job to be done. But most of the time, a lot of energy and time is spent daydreaming, which could be more productive. If not planned, it creates restlessness and anxiety. Kindly advise on how do I stop daydreaming? 

How to stop daydreaming? Wake up. Pay attention to what is happening in front of you. Recognize the beauty and everything that is around you, the magic that is happening around you all the time. Then there is no chance to daydream. Why are you daydreaming? Because you think that things around you are highly boring. So your mind wants to get distracted from the boredom. So it goes into its own space. Recognize the beauty of things around you. For example, this cup of chai, it is such an amazing thing. It holds chai for example. It could hold anything. It could hold nimbu paani. It could hold water. It could hold anything. Small little things. Rubber band. I spoke about rubber band in one of the sessions.

Have you heard Richard Feynman? He is the Nobel Prize-winning scientist. He speaks about rubber band. You understand what is rubber band? Richard Feynman when he speaks about rubber band, his eyes light up. He talks about all these jiggling molecules and all these energies. This guy is the Nobel Prize-winning scientist. He finds joy in rubber band. Look at Guruji. He finds joy in some faalto things. He takes a bell and he does ting like this and that becomes the perfect sound at the end of Kriya. This is the magic of being in the present moment. It is the perfect action that will happen. Pay attention. You are missing life if you are not paying attention to what is happening around you. You think it is boring. I have done this and that. Then your mind will go into daydream state. It is a distraction. Your mind is distracted. It is distracted because you are not finding the joy in the here and now. Take an interest. Do a hobby. Do something. Then you will see. Daydreaming will stop.

[SK] Wait. This is such a long question. You are asking this at 7 in the morning. Again. Once more. 

[Pooja] I am a person who overthinks a little more. There are too many thoughts going on. 

[SK] Enough. Enough. This is also coming from overthinking only. I mean... Keep going. What is the question? 

[Pooja] There are too many thoughts going on. Sometimes even in my meditation I can witness something talking, but it's not very clear. I do my sadhana daily. How can I stop this shattering of the mind? 

[SK] You can never stop it. Now what will you do? You can never stop the chattering of the mind. What will you do now? You'll stop your sadhana? You'll go crazy. It is the nature of the mind to vacillate. You're saying I want to go away from the nature of the mind. It's impossible to do that. What can you do?

You can put a toll gate on it. You can say, "Okay, these thoughts are coming. Fine, let them come." This you can do. You cannot stop the thoughts from coming. Nobody knows where they come from. And who said thoughts are not part of meditation? Thoughts are totally part of meditation. You have a concept in your mind about what is meditation? Remove that first. Come for the Sahaj refresher. You'll understand. Thoughts are part of meditation. There are techniques. When the meditation is drawn out by following the train of thoughts, you do something and then it comes back. So resisting these thoughts is what is creating them to come again and again and again.

It's the same principle. What you will resist on the level of the mind, it will persist. Don't forget this rule. This is a very important rule on the level of the mind. What you resist will persist. Most people misrepresent this rule. They apply it to the physical level. This rule does not apply to the physical level. When you resist something in the physical space, it will stop. But not on the mind level. It's a little bit of a confusion. This rule has been applied in the wrong places and it's misunderstood.

So what is happening for you is I think you're resisting the nature of thought. Thought is just happening. You're resisting it, coming again and again. So stop the resistance. 

You're already out of the past. See why we are not out of the past? Because we think that we had free will in the past. We could have taken the left turn when we took the right turn. And you think that because you had free will in the past, your future is destined. Because you have already taken the right turn, so what will you do? You have to go on the same road.

So you think your future is destined versus your past was free will. It is the opposite. That had to happen. It has happened. Finished. Now what are you going to do? This point onward. You know in Word there is a formatting thing that says format document "This point onward." There is a whole thing in Word. If you do document formatting. Let's say you are in portrait mode and you go to landscape mode. You can say this point onwards it's landscape mode. Life is like that. The memory is there.

You are not very happy with that memory and the fact that you are not happy with the memory keeps the memory there for even longer. And then you are not even happy with that, then it keeps it even longer. This is exactly how vrutti is formed. This is vrutti. That impression becomes engrained on the shell which is obstructing the light from shining. This is vrutti. Patanjali speaks about this. This is the whole problem. The whole Yoga Sutra starts by recognizing that there are vruttis. The vruttis are coming from memory and memory is coming from interaction that is frictional. We have talked about all this stuff in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras. If you haven't heard it, go listen to it.

So this is what happens. So you say fine, that thing happened. There is no way to turn back the arrow of time. It is only one directional. It is only going forward. You cannot go back. At least we don't know how to go back yet. At our level, at the level of the boss, he can do anything. We are not at that level yet. At our level, we are stuck with going only one direction in time. So yeah, I can imagine that. Memories are painful. Which is why doing Silence courses is highly advisable.

Because in Silence courses, again, it is a principle of indirect action. You are doing something else, observing the flow of breath in the nostril and sitting through those highly torturous sessions of hollow and empty and nothing is bloody happening and what the heck, get me out of here. All this is happening. But by God, on the emotional level, it is being cleansed like you won't even believe it. It is amazing. These things will just disappear over time.

I will give you my own example. So I was in engineering school in 1991, third year of engineering and then I got a phone call that my mom had passed away. I went home and did all the last rites, all this stuff, came back to hostel and I thought my life is over, finished. Then over time I sort of accepted it, whatever. I didn't even accept it. I just suppressed it. And then life happened, I got married etc. And then we did the Art of Living course and then Kriya happened, all that. And then I did like four or five Silence courses. In India you call it Advanced courses. I did four or five Silence courses and on the fifth or sixth one, suddenly this whole emotion came up. There was a grieving loss there. It just came up and it just went. It took six, four or five Silence courses for this. I didn't even know that this was inside. I was really happy. I was like okay, fine, done. I have dealt with it. The word in English is dealt with it. Then it came up and it was a huge relief. It takes time. Depending on how deeply you have compacted these things, it takes time. And this is only one lifetime. Who knows what I have repressed for so many lifetimes. कितना baggage लेके घुम रहा हूँ मैं? Who knows?

Which is why you have to keep doing. Nayrantarya Punah-Punah. Again, again. हम लोगो को लगता है एक Silence course कर लिया, अभी तो I am king. Boss, थोड़ा ठंड रख। Only one Silence course, not going to do anything. Many, many. At least once a year you can do. अभी तो now it's online. अभी तो कुछ जाना ही नहीं है कहीं पे. It's just online. Once a year, twice a year at least you can do. We do twice a year. Madhuri and I, we do Silence courses twice a year. And I would not have, I would not have done it on my own but because Madhuri is there, alright, you know who is the driver.

So do it twice a year, कर लो। At least once a year तो करो। Daily do sadhana, do seva. These are all expressions. These are all ways to indirectly work on the mind. Find the gratitude in your life. Do all this stuff. Then you will see those memories lose the hold on you. They will come, they just go away.

No, no, you don't change your breathing style during meditation. Nothing. Breathe normally. There is no such thing as better. There is no such thing as which meditation is better. For some people, guided meditation is easier. When you say better, you think your meaning is easier. You think that guided meditation is easier versus sahaj is so asahaj. There is no sahajta in sahaj. That's what you are saying. That is because you are fixated on a certain idea of meditation. You think meditation means 1,2,3,4. It's like an excel sheet. If 3 boxes are checked, meditation is good. Otherwise, meditation is not good. That's the idea in the mind somewhere.

So I will explain to you what is happening in guided meditation. In guided meditation, what happens is, I will give you an example. If you are in a swimming pool somewhere and let's say there is a song playing outside, some Kishore Kumar song. I don't know, that's my favorite guy. So Kishore Kumar's song is playing and then you take a breath in and you put your head just a little bit, a couple of inches below the water level. You have done that as a kid. What happens to the Kishore Kumar sound? The sound is still playing but its volume reduces by a lot. This is what happens in guided meditation. So in guided meditation, the instruction is given, and then the mind focuses on the instruction and it sort of tunes out or reduces the intensity of all the chaos that is happening inside it. That is one level of rest.

In Sahaj what is happening? In Sahaj you don't just put your head a couple of inches below the water. You take a deep breath and you go all the way to the bottom of the pool eventually. There, what is happening? Now there is no sound or there is a sound but it is not bothering you at all. There is something else that is going on. That is the state that sahaj takes you to. And we will do a refresher on sahaj also. It's a technique. You just follow the technique and the meditation just happens. You don't have to do anything. That is why it is called sahaj.

Now there is a different kind of meditation, also guided but guided by a master like Guruji for example. When he does guided meditations, it is so amazing, isn't it? Guruji guided meditation is like the bomb. You sit and poof gaya. Now this is amazing. You have to figure out how this works. So now we are at this level of consciousness. Guruji is giving instructions from a really high level of consciousness. So let's say 30,000 feet. Now when you hear the instructions coming from 30,000 feet, your mind is pulled up. Your mind pulled up to the level of the instruction and when this pulling up happens, you zone out from your level and you think I was gone.

This is your experience, isn't it? You are here, your normal level of experience is here. Your mind zones, your mind is pulled up by the high level of consciousness and you zone out from this level. That's because it is Guruji who is giving. If I the guided meditation, nothing is going to happen because I at your own level. It will be like putting your head under the water for 2 inches. So that's the difference between guided meditation also. Who is guiding? From what level is the guidance coming from? All this stuff.

Now the problem is you want to go from your level to this high level but you cannot do that you do abhyasa, unless you do practice. What is the practice? Sahaj Samadhi. When you do Sahaj Samadhi again and again, Punah Punah, Nairantarya, without interruption, then on your own you can go from this level up to level that the Guruji guided meditation is taking you to. But if you don't do the abhyasa, if you don't do the practice, then you are stuck at this level, then you will say, "यार मेरे को guided ही चाहिये।" But you can do it on your own. This is why Guruji has given the technique. Otherwise, he would not even give you the technique. Why did he give you the Sahaj Samadhi technique? He is not crazy. He wants you to come there on your own. The only way is to do abhyasa— again and again, punah-punah, without interruption. Then you will see, you will automatically go there. That's how guided meditation works.

When pitta is high, anger arises. Suddenly, a knowledge sheet appears after reading which the mind settles down. Likewise, in many emotional states, knowledge brings stability. So can we say that other than the type of food we consume, knowledge also has the capacity to affect or alter the effects of the three gunas or the three doshas on the body and mind? If so, what is the mechanism involved? 

No, it's not the question. Knowledge sheet is not beyond the three gunas. Do you think that your emotions are bound by the gunas, but the knowledge sheet is not bound by the gunas? Come on. Knowledge sheet is in the manifest; you are in the manifest. Everything that is manifest, which is in the Prakriti, is going to be ruled by the three gunas. There is no way out of this mess. You are bound by the gunas whether you like it or not.

So now, what is happening? Gunas are playing out. They are taking hold of you, and then you read a knowledge sheet, and then what happens? You feel settled. Means what? Means what has happened? It means you have let the guna play out without even resisting it. The guna has played out and gone. It would happen anyway. If you had just not resisted the guna playing out, it would have gone on its own. The knowledge sheet is just the nimitta for the lack of resistance on your side. That's all that is happening. Do you understand what I am saying? We are our own mess. We only extend the guna playing out. If it's playing out for three seconds, we extend it to play out for twenty minutes. The pitta will be high for twenty minutes rather than three seconds. We are the problem. Get out of the way of the gunas. It is our problem. The knowledge sheet is just the nimitta to do that.

You know why knowledge sheet? One tight slap will do the same thing. There's a dialogue, "जोर का चाटा अगर बचपन में लगाया होता तो आज ये दिन न देखना पड़ता।" It's like that. It is the guna playing out. You jar the system into letting go of the guna playing out. Doesn't mean you start hitting your kids from tomorrow. This is not the way to do it. I am giving you an example. The knowledge sheet is simply a mechanism for the guna to play out. That's it. And it's a good thing. If the knowledge sheet is working for you, read the knowledge sheet. Be in knowledge. Absolutely. The gunas play out easily when the knowledge is high. When you are in the knowledge, the gunas have less hold on you. That's all it is.

Take it. Take it.

Yes, it works differently. That is your question, right? Whether it works differently or not? Yes, it works differently. Next.

Yeah, so this is a good question. There is a study out of Norway; I don't know if you have seen that. It's a matter of, it comes down to, how do you say, changing the baseline. Let's say your emotional state and well-being and all the stuff are governed by, at the base of it, the expression of the genes. The genes will express and then certain things will happen in your body and all that. The expression of the genes itself is affected by the Sudarshan Kriya to a greater extent than is affected by running. Running does many things, but it is reversible. You run, and then a certain state happens, and then you come back to your original state before you ran. The baseline does not shift much. It changes a little bit but not much. With repeated practice of Sudarshan Kriya, you express the genes and then your baseline starts shifting over time. The feeling of wellness and well-being and mental peace stays for a longer time.

This is what's happening. The momentary effect is the same. You say, "अरे, running किया, feel good, Sudarshan Kriya, feel good." Over 10 years, running किया, feel good is at the same state you were in 10 years ago. Sudarshan Kriya after 10 years, Sudarshan Kriya, feel good, it's at a different state after 10 years. The baseline has shifted, and it's such a slow shift that you will not see it in one or two days. It takes a long time for the shift to be seen, obviously. That's the difference, and it's documented. Go read this paper from Norway. It is a clean study.

They did exactly that. They had some people do the Sudarshan Kriya and another group do nature walks and listen to music. I don't know if running was involved, but some of these other activities were done. They found that the gene expression for the Sudarshan Kriya group was significantly higher than the gene expression for the other group. If you don't have the paper, let me know. I can text it to you. It is available. These studies are there. Actually, you don't have to contact me. You can go to research.artofliving.org, and that paper is right there. It's published, so read that.

Let's say you're digging a well for water. The water table is 100 feet below the ground level. Now you dig, dig, dig, and you have dug for 75 feet and still no water. What do you do? Do you say, leave it, there is no water, let's go? What do you do? You keep digging. Another 25 feet, and you'll hit water. Sometimes it takes time for the effect to come because some of them are slow-moving processes.

There is a person in the United States. He's the head of VVM in the United States. He's the top guy of VVM. He has been doing Kriya for 30 years, almost from day one. He has been doing Kriya for 30 years. He asked a question. I was fortunate to be in the same room when he asked the question to Guruji. He says, "Guruji, मेरे को क्रिया में अभी भी एक भी दिन कुछ experience ही नहीं आया है।" This is a guy who has doing Kriya for so many years. He's the top fellow of VVM. It is not about experience, buddy. It's not about experience.

He says, "मेरे को कुछ आ ही नहीं रहा है।" For me also, it took me many years to get even a small experience. This tingling, wiggling sensation, it came after like a couple of years. Maybe I am a slow learner, maybe I am an idiot. I don't know. It's quite possible. It's not about experience यार। I know we sell it as experience. We say, "Oh, when you do kriya, you will feel this, you will feel that." It's not about feeling. It's about indirect action. What is it doing to your state of mind? Sometimes you need time to work on the mind also. So don't worry about it. Just do your practices.

Because what's the alternative? Not do your practices. That's the alternative. Do your practices or not do your practices. Do you want to risk not doing your practices? Take the risk. Don't do your practices. You know that, I'll tell you a joke. In the airplane, there was a Sardarji and a parrot. Each time the air hostess would walk past, the parrot would tap her on the backside like this. So that's the hand. The air hostess would look and nothing. Second time the air hostess walked by, the parrot tapped her again. Sardarji again looked, air hostess also looked, nothing. Third time the air hostess walked by, the Sardarji tapped her. This time the air hostess got enough wild, she took the Sardarji and threw him out of the plane. And the parrot also jumped out of the plane at the same time. And then Sardarji कों पुछ रहा है, Sardarji उड़ना आता हैं क्या? Do you know how to fly? Sardarji said no. Then the parrot said फ़िर risk क्यों लिया तू? Why did you take the risk? You know, it's like that. What are you going to do? Are you not going to do your sadhana? Are you going to take the risk? I would not take the risk. Just do it. Eventually, you will see the result. Takes a long time.

Who asked this question? This has come in chat also. Oh, this is Dr. Gopal, you are watching the Patanjali Yoga Sutras, right? Recording of it? यह Patanjali का question मेरे को Chai and Why में पुछ रहा है तू? Frictional interaction. Frictional interaction is where the effect of one interaction continues on to the next interaction. That is frictional. When the effect of one interaction does not continue on to the next interaction, then that interaction doesn't become frictional. It's just an interaction. You understand?

Frictional interaction leads to vruttis being formed. Non-frictional interactions don't lead to vruttis being formed. This is the basis of, this is the insight from Maharshi Patanjali that interactions in the mind level are frictional. Because of this thing called memory. Anyway, this is all Patanjali stuff. So we will talk about that on Patanjali. If it's not clear yet, so Gopal, if it's not clear yet, so message me on WhatsApp. We'll talk.

No, no. Why? No. See, there's a dog somewhere. This is almost like an Ashtavakra session, right? The last three days there is a dog. Remember? No, so what's happening is, in your intro talk, you just want them to get an experience of the settling of the mind, which will happen. So when you give a guided meditation during intro talk, they will feel the settledness.

See, the intro talk is simply a trailer, right? You don't want to give them the whole movie. If you give them the whole movie in the trailer, why will they come to watch the movie? देख लिया सब। So in the intro talk, you don't do any of this stuff. You simply give them the experience and you tell them why it is needed and then it is up to them. So do it. Do your Panchakosha, whatever you do. In the intro talk, do your live, means you lead the meditation. Okay, good. See, you have to think of it this way. If Guruji didn't want you to lead the meditation and give the participant the experience, he would not even allow you to do an intro talk, isn't it?

He would say, you play my cassette only and I will do the intro talk. You just sit there as a tape button player. He doesn't want you to do that. He wants to empower you. See the Shakti in your own voice. When you say, accept people, there is a Shakti that comes. When you say, mind vacillates, when you say four sources of energy, whatever, it is from your experience that you are sharing. Otherwise, Guruji can do everything. You just sit there and say, listen, there is this bearded guy, play the tape, he will do the intro talk. What's the fun in that? There is no fun there.

That also requires practice. Every intro talk doesn't happen on the first intro talk. You will crash and bomb it. People say, what is this? It makes no sense. Then the next one you refine it, the next one you refine it, the next one you refine it. Over and over again, the refinement happens and then your intro talk becomes such a blast that even before you start talking, जनता says registration form कहा है, I want to sign it. Then you have arrived. Then it is only your presence that is the intro talk.

[SK] You are confused. So which means I am doing my work very efficiently. If I don't confuse you, then what's the fun of it? Are you talking about tea or chai? 

[Participant] Tea. 

[SK] Tea or chai? 

[Participant] For me it is the same. 

[SK] Oh, Dada, it is not the same. Tea is like a dip in water. That is not chai. It is like a boiled tea with ginger and cardamom. Sugar, milk, boil it and filter it and call it chai. 

[Participant] Sorry, chai. 

[SK] No, no, it's not sorry. So here's the difference, I'll tell you the difference between tea and chai. So it depends on how the leaf, the tea leaf, how does the leaf get to the place. If it comes to the place over land, then it is called chai. If that same leaf comes to the place via the sea, let's say if it goes to the UK, it is going by ship. So it is going over sea. In those countries where the leaf reaches over water, it's called tea. This is how it has come. If you look at the map of the world where it is called tea, where it's called chai, this is how it is. It's the same thing. This is just the technicality of it.

When I'm doing chai and why session, the only instruction is that there has to be a cup. Now you can put anything in that cup. I'm not going to come and see if it has tea in it. You can put water in it, turmeric milk, chamomile tea, whatever you want to put. The thing is to have a cup. That's the only requirement. Now why we call it Chai and Why? Chai is simply an excuse. It is something that brings people together and just discussion happens over a cup of chai. That's it. So this is why it's called Chai and Why. I'm not saying that you start drinking tea or chai. No, no, it's nothing like that. If you drink it or not, it doesn't matter.

Don't defame chai. नशा शराब में होता तो नाचती बोटल। Chai is just an excuse to sit and think about what we did at IIT. We used to have cutting chai. We didn't even have enough money to have a full glass of chai. We would do half, one by two. But so many memories and so many experiences have come just on chai. It's an excuse. It's just a method. So it's okay. You don't have to drink tea. I'm not telling you to drink chai from tomorrow.

Chai is just a catchy name. It's again marketing. Then I realized that I thought I had come up with an innovative name for Chai and Why? Then I realized that there are people who have used Chai and Why.

One of them is a good friend of mine. He's from IIT. He works at TIFR. He has a series that started maybe one year before I started Chai and Why. He also calls his series Chai and Why. In that series, he simply talks about everyday things from a point of view of science, meaning he's a TIFR researcher. He's a physics guy. He did a show on railroads and the Mumbai rail network and how the locals are shunted to the maintenance station and all this stuff. He did a show on that. He did a show on the effectiveness of masks for COVID. Then he did a show on the nature of paint. When you mix paints, how do they interact with each other? It's for kids to get interested in science, everyday things. And he called his session "Chai and Why?" So I texted Arnab, he is in our IIT WhatsApp group. So I texted him saying, "Yaar, I am very sorry कि I also came up with this name. I did not know की तु already कर रहा है तो don't mind it. I am not stealing your idea." He says, "Nah, nah, nah. Chai is in our blood." He says, "हम लोग  IIT में गये तो chai is in our blood. हम लोग we have to say chai and why?"