Just show with hand. It can be like this. You're good. It can be you're doing like totally what a heck of a day it is, or it can be like this, whatever, blah, anything is okay. Right? Doesn't only have to be like this. If it's always like this, it's so boring in life. Everything is good. Then there is no value for the good. It can be like this. Oh my God, I'm having a horrendous time. Which is fine too. It’s okay to be not okay. It’s okay to be not okay.

Okay, so the decision is not predestined. The situation is predestined. Because it is an inevitable present moment. It has already happening because of other things that have happened in the past. That's the situation you are in, in front of you. What is in your control is how you respond to that situation. That much control you have.

Now if your vruttis are stronger than your ability to manage the vruttis, then your action is also predestined because it's your vrutti that is driving the action. Right? So now it's a catch-22 situation. You make an action from your vrutti that makes a future situation predestined and it just goes on a predestined roller coaster. You have got no freedom at all. Zero. The only freedom we have is to get over the natural push of the vrutti to get us to do what the vrutti wants to do. And that discriminatory no, saying no, I am not going to have my fourth piece of chocolate cake. That no comes from having the say on going beyond what the vrutti wants you to do. That choice is ours. There is no other choice. If you don't make that choice, it becomes an inevitable present moment series of them in an unending loop. There is no freedom. You understand?

Which is why these practices are very important because they are working on the vruttis. They are thinning out the vruttis. And then we have some say over how the future movements will be. Cannot do anything for the present moment, but only you can affect the future moments. 

No, no. It goes back to vruttis again. It goes back to vruttis again. You have to be aware of your vrutti first. So that awareness is necessary. It might seem that you are helpless. If something happens you yell or you shout or you whatever. It might be in hindsight you say, oh I should not have yelled. I should not have.

So what happens is the vrutti takes over then the action happens. Then the awareness of the action happens after. So vrutti takes over, action happens, awareness of the action comes after. But if you don't pay attention to the awareness of the action, you will never bridge the gap between vrutti and action. It will always be vrutti first and action.

Once you are having awareness, awareness, then what will happen is eventually the awareness will come before the vrutti kicks in. That this whole gap will reduce. Awareness comes first and then the vrutti kicks in but then the vrutti is not allowed to kick in because you are already aware it is happening. You understand?

So that is Abhyasa. That is practice. So that is why the practices have to be done without interruption. Otherwise, this bridging of the gap between vrutti and the action does not happen. Vrutti keeps dominating and then you are just stuck.

Vrutti means conditioning. Vrutti means conditioning on the level of the subconscious. Every action leaves an impression. Have you watched the Physics of Pranayama talk? No? Okay, fine, so somebody put the link in the chat, so just copy the link for yourself. There is a Physics of Pranayama talk where I explain all this. Vrutti means that every action leaves an impression on our subconscious, and that subconscious impression stays with us over lifetimes. Right, so you got an impression from when you were a cockroach—that vrutti is still inside. When you're a dog, maybe you're a, I don't know, lizard, snake, tiger, whatever—all those vruttis are there. The yoga sutras are the method—the Patanjali Yoga Sutras—where he gives all the actionable items that we can do, are the method to thin out these vruttis.

Vruttis means impressions that lead to tendencies, okay, and unless the vruttis are thinned out, you're stuck. There is no freedom, really; the freedom is only an illusion because the vrutti is driving the action. The tendency to shout at people is inside, it's like an ingrained vrutti, and then something happens—that shout will come like that. But after you do the sadhana practices and all the Advanced Meditation, etc., those vruttis start thinning out. So now you've got some control; the vruttis thin out, and now the awareness comes before the vrutti kicks in and you can say, "Oh, this shout is coming," but then you stop it. That's the meaning of vrutti—they're just impressions in the subconscious  and that drive everything. The subconscious drives everything. If you watch the physics of pranayama, you'll understand it's an inside-out process. You think that the mind is driving, but it is the subconscious that is driving the mind, which is driving the action. It's all driven by the subconscious.

There is no such thing. Astrology is not a fatalistic science; there is no such thing as predestined—it's only tendencies. Astrology just tells you that these are your tendencies, and then there are ways to get out of those tendencies. Astrology is not a fatalistic science; it is predictive. It's like saying, okay, there's a tendency of 60 percent rain. Now the choice is yours whether you want to go out without an umbrella or with an umbrella. It's just telling you that there's a tendency of 60 percent rain. I mean, now you can take an umbrella, but if you choose to get wet, you choose to get wet. But that's not a fatalistic thing. Astrology is not fatalistic.

Yeah, so there are two types of vruttis: what are called klishta vruttis and what are called aklishta vruttis.

So, klishta and aklishta have one distinct difference—one of them is conducive to spiritual evolution, and the other one is conducive to bondage. There are two types of vruttis.

Like, if you have a vrutti of doing meditation every day, it's also conditioning, but that vrutti is leading to elevated levels of consciousness. So those are vruttis that you keep.

But the klishta vruttis, like, "Oh, instead of meditation, I'm going to drink a beer," you know, something like that—those are the klishta vruttis. They are going towards bondage—doomscrolling on Instagram, that is a klishta vrutti. Fight it.

You know, per se, Instagram is not bad, but your addiction to the infinite scrolling—that is the problem, you understand? So there are two types of vruttis: one of them is good and one of them is not so conducive.

The abhyasa is to get rid of the klishta vruttis—not get rid of, but thin them out.

Okay, do you know the origin of this question? "Who am I?" Where does it come from? Do you know? Who knows? Tell me. Nobody knows. Okay. You're asking the question all the time: "Who am I?" It's like you're making a drama of it. "Oh, who am I?" Where does the question come from? Okay, I'll tell you the story. So, there was some Yaksha. Yaksha means people who are like eating other people and just like destructive people.

And so, one yaksha brought one person home. I don't know the exact details of the story, but I'll tell you the essentials. So, this yaksha somehow became friends with this human and brought that human home. But then the other yaksha came, and they were not friends with this guy, so they said, "Yeah, I'm going to eat this person." There were many, many dismembered body parts because they were yaksha. So now, what happens? This other yaksha takes this human and rips off one body part. But the first yaksha, who was the friend of the human, takes an available body part from the previous carnage and joins it so that this body part becomes whole. You understand? And this goes on many times until the other yaksha, who wants to kill this person, goes away. Now this person doesn't know which body part is his and which body part is from the other dismembered body. So, this is the source of the question, "Who am I?" This is where the question comes from. You understand? This is the story behind the question, "Who am I?" So, this is the thing that comes from inquiry.

This leads to the inquiry: This mind-body complex that we are with, where does it come from? Who or what is it? That's the first step towards introspection. So, it's okay to have this question, but don't make a drama of it because this question, if you don't have an evolved understanding or an evolved—how do you say—sadhana practice, becomes a hindrance because you just get stuck in the noise. The wheels are spinning, and you're just in a cloud of dust. You're not going anywhere. So, forget this question, I'm telling you. This question is relevant only when you are coming out of the depths of consciousness to elevated levels of consciousness, where distinction between you and the other is becoming more and more feeble. To resolve that distinction at that level of consciousness, this question becomes relevant. If you are not at that high level of consciousness, this question is a hindrance. This question prevents you from making progress. This is the problem. Okay. So, be okay with this question, but don't be like, "Oh, what a great question I'm asking." Don't do all that.

See, the feeling of loneliness has nothing to do with how many people are around you. It is about how much connection you have with others. It is from your side outwards. Loneliness is not about having 100 people around you. If you have no connection, you will be lonely even in a crowd of millions. You will still feel lonely. How connected are you? And if you have connection, even if there is nobody around you, you are fully connected. So, loneliness is an inside-out process. It is about how much connectivity you have and how many connections you are maintaining.

So, the antidote to depression is not Kriya and meditation. Many people say, "Oh, somebody is depressed. Can I ask them to do Kriya?" I say, no. The antidote to depression is not Kriya and meditation. The antidote to depression is connection. You have to establish a connection with them, and you have to get them to establish a connection with other people. That automatically pulls you out of depression. The antidote to depression is connection, and the spiritual practices just help with that. But if that connection is not there, you can do as many spiritual practices as you want. It's useless—not useless, but of very little use, which is why I say it's useless. Connection is the first step. Kriya and meditation come after connection.

So, it's a feeling, right? So, it's a feeling of happiness. Feeling of happiness comes from its chemistry. It's the secretion of dopamine and serotonin, all these things, endorphins in your body. And there is a conditioning that when you do altruistic work, when you do a helping service to somebody else, the body secretes these chemicals just by programming. It's an evolutionary trait. It's an evolutionary trait.

See, the race had to survive, right? So, if you don't help other people, the race will die out. Because there are so many predators in the old days, even now, there are so many predators. So, people have to help each other. How do you get to help each other? When you help each other, if that feeling of goodness or well-being happens inside you because of these chemicals released, then you will more and more help each other. So, the evolution will lead you to survival. That is how it all started. And then the chemistry just takes over. So, when you do a selfless act, or you do some service, not service, just helping other people, then the dopamine and serotonin and the endorphins get secreted in your body and then you feel good.

Connections make difficulties, then make better connections. I cannot tell you. I mean, you make a connection with the snake, the snake is going to bite you. That's the vrutti of the snake. So, you make a connection with the mongoose and then you make a connection with the snake. The order of connection is also very important. So, then there is a mongoose to protect you from the snake. You have to be a little bit smart.

Who said? Spirituality relies on faith, who said? Spirituality is the keenest science. First, it comes from spirituality, only then it comes from material science. The spiritual science has evolved years and years and years before material science has evolved. There is no faith in spirituality. If you are doing spirituality on faith, you are wasting your time, I tell you. You have not understood the first thing about spirituality.

Spirituality is the most critical analysis of things that are intangible with rigor and verification. This is spirituality. Physics is the same thing. Physics is the critical analysis of what is external with rigor and verification. That is physics. And the critical evaluation of the internals, the mind, the emotion, the intellect, all of these levels, ego, critical evaluation of those with rigor and verification is spirituality. There is no conflict between them. They are like train tracks. They are parallel, and they intersect. Where do they intersect? At infinity. Parallel lines intersect at infinity. There is no conflict between spirituality and science.

Because they are the same process. One is outward-facing, one is inward-facing. That's it. 

[SK] There is no better or worse. It just is. Both are leading you to the same infinity. You are just coming at it from different directions. That's all. There is no better or worse. Both are equally difficult. Both are equally easy. 

[Participant] How to choose then? 

[SK] Flip a coin? There is no choice really. They are the same. Why do you want to choose? You want to choose only if there is a conflict. Is this or this? There is no conflict, so there is no choice. It is the same.

[Participant] So, how will we make a connection with these different peoples? 

[SK] There is no conflict. I don't understand the problem. This means your understanding is itself superficial. If you are not able to make a connection between either or both of them, your understanding is superficial. You must raise your level. Forget about others. Raise your level first. Only then can you pull somebody up. If you are only in the gutter, who will you pull up? You are itself in the mud. What will you do? Nothing. You are just stuck in conflict.

I don't have any conflict with that. I can speak with a spiritual person on spirituality. I can speak with a physics person on physics. There is no problem in my head. They are the same. 

[Participant] How to come out of the gutter? 

[SK] That's a self-effort. You have to do some effort there. Have you watched the Physics of Pranayama? 

[Participant] No. 

[SK] Then you are already in the gutter. Come out of it. There are so many knowledge series I have done. We have done Ashtavakra from the point of view of physics. We have done Narad Bhakti Sutra from the point of view of physics. Love. I have introduced physics in love. We have done Patanjali Yoga Sutras deep dive from the point of view of physics. We have done Ishavasya Upanishad from the point of view of physics. We have done Shiv Sutras from the point of view of physics. We have done all of this stuff. It's available for you to watch and come out of the gutter.

But you don't want to do any effort. You just want easy things. It's not going to happen. Self-effort has to be there somewhere. 

There is no such thing as God's will. Why do you say it's God's will? It is only self-effort, I tell you. If it was God's will, God would have done it by now. You think God is a lazy bum? No. God is everywhere doing everything or doing nothing. Both are equally correct. God is an enabler. Does the space do anything? No. The space only enables this cup to exist in three dimensions. The space is an enabler for this cup to exist. It's not doing anything. But without space, this cup is useless. It cannot exist. That is the meaning of God. It's a field. But the action has to come from the doer.

If there is a failure, you have to think like a farmer. What does a farmer do? A farmer plants the crop and then he waits, and then there is monsoon. Then he has a harvest. Next year, what does he do? He plants the crop again. And then if there is no monsoon, what does he do next year? He plants the crop again. And he keeps doing it. It's relentless action. This is what you have to do. You have to keep acting, and as you recognize the vrutti that is preventing your growth, you pluck out that vrutti and then you keep going. And that vrutti will come back. It's like a weed.

The most important part about doing gardening is to remove the weeds. If you have not done gardening, start gardening. You will understand this. It's not enough to just plant the flower trees and vegetable trees, etc. You have to remove the weeds, boss. If you don't remove the weeds, forget about it. The weeds will take over your garden. There is nothing you can do unless you remove the weeds. And it has to be action again, action again, action again, action. Every Saturday. Today I didn't do it because today I have got this session. But every Saturday I put on my torn jeans and all that, I go outside, and I do weed plucking for one and a half hours. That's all I'm doing. Plucking bloody weeds. Why? Because the flowers have to look like flowers, not like a jungle. So I'm plucking weeds.

Every week you have to do it. I cannot say I won't do it today. The weeds will take over. The vruttis will take over. That is why the sadhana practices have to be done nairantarya. Nairantarya means what? Again, again, again, again without interruption. Otherwise, the vruttis will take over. Vruttis are like weeds. They will just keep on going. The vruttis are bloody strong, I tell you. It takes a lot of effort on our side. So when you have a failure, just analyze the failure and drop it next time.

When the situation comes, don't think, "Yeah, I already fell in the gadda once. I'm going to fall in the--" No. You have to circumvent that pothole. And I tell you, once you figure out a way to circumvent one failure, that failure never comes back in your life because you have learned the lesson. The actions in your life are happening again, again, again--failure--because you're not learning the lesson. Once a lesson is learned, it's gone. Forever. It's done. But you have to learn the lesson. So don't worry about failure. Failure is there. Unless you have failure, there is no success I tell you because knowledge comes only after action. Unless you fail, you never learn. If you sit on the side on the edge of a swimming pool, do you think you're going to learn swimming? You will learn--you'll read like 10 volumes on how to learn swimming. You still--or you jump in the water, you're going to drown. Only after action comes knowledge. Failure is OK. Fine. It's just a failure. You learn, you move on. That's it. Done.

[SK] How to find the purpose of one's life? Yeah. How old are you now? So all this live, you're just wasting your time. Khatam, end of story, you already lost. You already lived more than you have left to live. You understand that, right? 

[Participant] No, I'm asking this question so that those who didn't find out can find out for that. 

[SK] There is no purpose to your life, boss. If I tell you this, what will you do with that? If I tell you it's just a random fluctuation that created this whole mess that we see as the universe, and it is like that. It's a random--that's it. Everything just happened. It's a matter of just various levels of energy cooling. Now, if I tell you this, you'll say, "Oh my god, there's no purpose to my life." No. You decide what the purpose for your life is. There is no one answer for everybody. And in the process of finding the purpose for your life, you will find that that is not the purpose. It is called the principle of indirect action.

A.R. Rehman's purpose is not to make music. A.R. Rehman is undergoing many other things when he's making music. Those many other things are the hidden purpose of A.R. Rehman's life. Einstein's life purpose was not to invent physics. Einstein's purpose was something else. He already did that. In the process, he invented physics, relativity, Brownian motion, photoelectric effect, all of this stuff. Tendulkar's purpose is not to hit the perfect cover drive. No. But in the process of hitting the cover drive, other things happened to Tendulkar. That was his purpose in life. But that was his way of getting to the purpose. Everybody cannot be made to be like Tendulkar, Einstein, or A.R. Rehman. Somebody has to be like me, a joker. That is my purpose. My purpose is to make jokes. And in the process of making jokes and understanding all this stuff, other things are happening to me. Everybody's purpose is--there's no one purpose. You understand?

Through the eyes, that's the only way to view the world. There's no other way to view the world. What is the meaning of an enlightened person? Do you think that an enlightened person is something different from a normal human being? No. Your concept of enlightenment itself is muddled up. When you have the keenest discrimination of what is unchanging truth and what is changing truth, that discrimination, when it comes, you're done. But to get to that discrimination takes a long time. So the viewpoint doesn't change. It is how the signal is processed that is what changes. When you screw up in life, which I have done many times, when I've gone to Guruji and said, "Oh, I screwed up," he doesn't judge me because for him, at that point in time, I'm a new person. There is no connection between the joker who screwed up and the joker who's in front of him right now. There is no connection. 

So what has happened? The signal has been processed differently by the enlightened person, and not only Guruji; you go to any enlightened person, and they will treat you as if they are meeting you for the first time, which is true. Everything happens only for the first time ever. When you realize this, you're done. Not realize it as a thinking thing, realize it as a feeling, where you know that whatever is happening is happening only for the first time. It has never happened ever before. Every moment that you have lived is a unique one. There is no same moment ever in any of our lives. Nothing has ever been duplicated. Imagine that. You don't even have the same self that you were born with.

Yeah, you already did. 

I can get to do these sessions. I get to meet so many people. I get to make so many connections. My decision-making has improved. I have an intuitive feeling of where the issue is in a complex problem. I have an intuitive feeling where the issue is, and then I have the skill sets to do the math and analyze. I can say, "All right, my intuition tells me this, and my math is telling me this." If they are the same, then it's okay. But if they're not the same, then I analyze the math again. If it is still the same, then I know that my intuition was wrong. But most of the time now, my intuition is correct. So that's what happens after doing Kriya practices. But it happens only if I do the Kriya practices daily. If I just do it regularly. Regularly means what? Once every seven days? That is also regular; then it has no effect. So, daily, you have to do Kriya practices daily.

You have to do Seva. You have to go out and help people. Seva doesn't mean only enrolling people in courses. Do you understand that? That is not Seva at all. That is business. When you're enrolling people for a course, you're only doing business because you feel good. "I brought them to the path." Who cares about you, boss? You have to do something so that other people don't even know that you have helped them. Simply going and sitting next to somebody who, you can intuitively feel, is going through a hard time in their day. Simply going to their cubicle and just making a joke, sitting there and sharing your sadhana space with them without pulling them into your space. This is service. Can you do this? Then you are using your practices for some benefit. Otherwise, you're just doing business. If you're enrolling people for courses and you think that's the end of your Seva, it's useless. Stop doing it. Because you're just doing business at that point.

Why do people have to give an intro talk? Tell me, why do you think people have to stand up and give an intro talk? Because there is nothing in your life that other people want. That is why you have to sell it to them. I never give an intro talk. People say, "How do you do all the stuff that you do?" Now you're talking. When you can get your life to that state where you don't have to do it. Does Guruji have to do an intro talk? No. He just walks into the room, and people say, "Dude, how can I be as happy as you are?" Done. Finished. His life is an intro talk. Get yourself to that level. Forget about all the noise. Elevate yourself from the noise. This is my suggestion to you.

[SK] Yeah. Everything affects everything else. How do you know it's a mistake though? 

[Participant] How to get rid of that? 

[SK] How do you know it's a mistake?

[Participant] Suffering. 

[SK] Suffering is not a mistake. Suffering is simply the complementary opposite. So, you see, you already put a label on something. When you say somebody else's mistake, you already put a label, and the problem is putting the label. The problem is not in the action. The problem is the labeling of the action. Think about this: there is no such thing as a wrong action, just action. "Good" or "bad" is a perspective.

It's my talk. I can call it whatever the heck I want! It sound so cool like "the Physics of Pranayama." See, you are already intrigued. You don't know whether to put it in the physics basket or the pranayama basket. You are all jumbled up. That's the whole point of the thing. The Physics of Pranayama. It's all about why we do the counts in a certain way. Why is it 4, 4, 6, 2? Why are the hands in the right position? All of this stuff, all that I explained from the point of view of physics. You go watch it; you'll see. Is it there on the thing? Yeah, it's there on the thing. There on the app also. Is it on Udemy? It's in many places. 

No, it doesn't. How can it? It is your individuality. Nobody can take it away from you. Spirituality doesn't mean that you have to conform to the crowd. If I wear a white dhoti, angavastram, and have a big black beard, it doesn't make me any more spiritual than I am now. It makes no difference how you dress up. You understand this? Spirituality is not a joke. Spirituality is a keen analysis of what the subtle is doing. It's a method. Just like science is a method to understand what the external is doing, spirituality is a method to understand what the internal is doing. And wearing a white shawl and having a long beard and all doesn't make you any more spiritual. That's just a, whatever, dress code. So, no, it does not change. Spirituality does not take away individualism.

So, the brain is in the physical body. It's in the sthula sharira. "Sthula sharira" means gross body. That's the brain. And the mind is in the subtle body. It's in the sukshma sharira. And there is a mapping between the subtle body and the gross body. There is a mapping. So, prana is in the subtle body, and breath is in the sthula body. It's in the gross body. Like that, there is mapping. So, that's the difference between brain and mind.

By doing it. If you don't do it, it will never be incorporated into your daily routine. You simply have to do it. Find the 20 minutes in your life, sit and do the practice. Done. It's not so difficult. 

I already explained it in the Physics of Pranayama. Go read that. Go listen to the talk. 

Go watch the Physics of Pranayama talk. All this is covered there. 

Feelings are subtle, subtler than thought. They are registered in the brain and they are labeled. So, feeling is at one level, feeling is an intuition that is coming from a really subtle source. But the problem with that is—not problem, that's where it's coming from—it gets lost in the noise because the system is so noisy. There is so much chatter in the mind and brain. There is so much baggage in the memory. There is so much bias in the intellect. So, that feeling that comes, that intuition that comes gets distorted and it sort of disperses, and then it registers a feeling which you cannot pinpoint what that feeling is saying. You just have a feeling because of the dispersion.

So, when your mind-body complex is purged out from all the vruttis, then it becomes crystal clear what that intuition is. It's all about signal processing. 

Healing stories, oh yeah. Okay, so meditation. Okay, yeah. I'll just tell you what happened in one of the courses I taught. This was for veterans. Veterans means what? People who have fought in war and come back. So, these are veterans and they are carrying trauma with them. So, we did a—it's called Project Welcome Home Troops, PWHT. So, we go to veterans' group and we teach them Kriya over five days.

So, we taught them. I went and one other person was co-instructor. So, we went, we taught them Kriya and there's this one guy. I mean, he was a Marine. Anyway, he would sit in one corner of the room. He would sit in the exact same place every single day for five days. We would get people to move around. He would not move. He would sit in the same place, that's it. So, anyway, we did the Kriya over five days. We taught them everything—not taught them, we offered whatever, instructed them. Then, at the end, I said, you know, we are going to continue this. Once a week we will come, we will do the home practice. I mean, we will do the guided SKY together as a group with Guruji's voice, you know. Everybody said, yeah, yeah, they will come. This guy, the guy who was sitting in the corner, he said, I'm not going to come. I said, okay, it's your choice. You don't have to come.

So, then that's it. Then I started doing the weekly follow-up with them. After four or five weeks, this guy came. I was like, shocked. I said, oh, he said he's never going to come. And there he was. He again sat in the same place, his place in the room. So, after Kriya, I would get some snacks, etc., for them just so that they can eat something and go. There were some bananas and cookies, etc. So, everybody ate, they left. This guy hung around. And when everybody left, he said, I want to talk, I want to talk to you, something like that. I will tell you something or something. I don't remember exact words. I was standing and he came and stood like two feet from me. This guy is a Marine, okay? Six foot five. And his forearm is bigger than my thigh. He's well-built. I said, okay, last day.

So, he said, I want to tell you something. I said, with his finger like this. I said, yeah, please. He said that in his house, there is a back porch. So, it's like a mesh door. And if the latch would not be engaged, if he would find the latch not engaged, he would get into a panic attack. Something must have happened during his service. Some bad things must have happened, but that would trigger a panic attack. And he told me that yesterday—so the day before he came to see me—he found the latch not attached. And the panic attack did not come. So, he told me, I want to tell you this, that this shit works.

I said, "Oh, I'll tell Guruji that your shit works. I'll tell him." Because he was doing his home practice every day. Even though he would not come for the weekly Kriya, he would do his home practice. So that panic attack stopped. And then he said something that I still cannot process—I'm getting goosebumps even now. He said, "Tomorrow I'm going for surgery." So they found some tumor at the back of his ear, something, and he was going in for surgery. And he said to me, "I want you to tell me that everything will be okay." Who the heck am I to tell him anything? It is the Guru's grace. So I told him, "Yes, Steve, everything will be fine." I mean, this kind of shift happens to people, and I've seen this so many times. People who are chain smokers give up smoking. I mean, there are lots and lots of stories. So this shit works, I'm telling you. I mean, I got it from the source. And I told Guruji, "Guruji, your shit works." He said, "Yes, I know."

[SK] Yeah, so I get this question a lot saying, 'Oh, that person has an effect right in 15 days. I'm doing it for 10 years. I'm not seeing anything.' You don't know how much practice or sadhana or whatever they have done in previous lifetimes. You don't know the merit that they are bringing into this lifetime. You don't know that. You see, so when you take the sum total of all the merit, everybody is at the same place. When the merit becomes equal, the results become equal. Problem is you don't know the area under the curve. Why? Because you're living under a memory freeze. You don't know what happened before this active birth. Why active birth? You don't even know the process. You don't even remember the process of your birth. You don't remember. You don't remember being pushed out of your mother's womb. You don't remember a goddamn thing. So there is a memory bank that you don't remember, but the vruttis are coming. The merit of your past actions is accumulating in the subconscious. And then when the accumulation reaches a certain peak, the result manifests. So you don't have to feel jealous or something of anybody else. There is nobody else. It's only about you. You do your practices. Forget about the result.

[Participant] Yeah, yeah. Totally not about jealousy. It was more like maybe I'm not doing something right. So it is about getting my performance up.

[SK] Maybe there is not… You could still be not doing something right. I'm not saying that you're doing anything right. You could still not be doing, but it does not matter what the other person is going through. It's only about you and yourself. That's it. There's no other person. I'll tell you another story. So there is this, we call him Nilendu uncle. He's like the head of VVM. He's the head of VVM in the United States, Nilendu Srivastava. He has done so much seva. He has done the course like 30 years ago. He was one of the first people to learn all of this stuff. In one Guru Purnima, he got up—I was there in the room—and said, 'Guruji, I have not had a single experience in any of the Kriyas that I have done. Zero.'

People say, Oh, I got tingling sensation, I got this, I saw vision, I saw blue light. Nothing. Nilendu uncle has not had a single experience ever. And Guruji looked at Nilendu uncle and said, it is not about the experience. Done. It is about the indirect action. Always remember this. It's a principle of indirect action. It's not about how you feel. It's not about any of this stuff. It's all very superficial. It is the indirect chipping away of the samskaras. That is what is going on. 

[Participant] Does it kind of manifest the progress or the chipping away? It should manifest in our vrittis are getting less stronger, less prominent, less frequently appearing, something like that. 

[SK] Yeah, but you're wanting for this manifestation is a hindrance for the manifestation to happen. Because you're stuck to a certain result. Something bigger is happening to you, but you're stuck to this small little nonsense thing. And then that other thing you cannot do, your hands are fully occupied with this minuscule thing, a full आसमान is coming in your hand, your hands are not even free to take it. Come on. Most people are living like this. I want to do. I don't know. The whole world is coming to you. 

See, dispassion is very important. Dispassion. There are two things. There is passion. There is dispassion. Right. What problem happens when people do Art of Living courses, they become dispassionate in the world कि गुरुजी करेंगे। And they become passionate about their sadhana. Oh, I want this. I want that. Boss, flip it. Be passionate in the world. Go get that red Ferrari, whatever. But be dispassionate about your sadhana. Whatever happens, happens. I'm going to waste my 20 minutes every day. Done. Now, when you put dispassion in your sadhana and passion in your action, you see the progress. It is infinitely fast. Problem is you're doing it ulta. That is your problem.

Yeah. So it depends on the level of your, what I would call spiritual awakening. It depends on how much the flower has opened to, it's a very bad analogy, but so the flowers fully bloom like Guruji, there is no difference between his inner and outer is the same. But most people, the flower is not even fully bloom. It is like, like 10% bloom. Okay. In 10% bloom, you have to fake it. In the outside world, you have to live like conform to the outside world, but, but with a barrier. So all the crap that is the world is throwing at you, don't internalize it. Keep the crap on the surface and then with your evening meditation, that crap will wash up. So you have to, yeah. For example, I will not wear a dhoti and go to office. No, I will wear like proper shirt, pant and go to office, right? But Guruji will wear a dhoti and go everywhere. He has no problem. It's not about dhoti, it's about, Guruji will talk about, oh, so and so, Gita says that, you cannot talk in the middle of the meeting, oh wait, wait, Gita says this, who the heck is Gita? Gita, I mean, you understand, so there you, you have to live your life properly. So that's why I'm saying be passionate in the outside world, be dispassionate in the inside world and don't confuse the two. Don't confuse the two.  

Okay, so this is the problem. Feelings as defined by what? Feelings as defined as how we experience feelings which means all the endorphins and all this other chemistry stuff. What do you mean by feelings? 

So, if you say that, "Oh, I have a feeling of not very pleasant; I don't have a pleasant feeling when somebody shouts at me." Let's say you say it like that. Now, if you put a plant in a loud, harsh music environment, that plant is not going to do very well. But does that mean that the plant has the same feelings as you in a harsh environment? No, you cannot say that because you don't know how to even define "feeling" on the level of a plant. So, if you are saying that feelings are defined by, "As my outside world changes, my inner response feeling changes," if that is your yardstick that you call feeling, then yes, the response of a plant will change depending on how the environment of the plant is. So, does that mean that it has a feeling? If you define your feeling like this, then yes, the plant has the same feeling. But if you say, "Oh, I feel a feeling of pain," there is no such thing for a plant because pain is a neurological thing from the brain, and the plant does not have that structure. So it's a little bit of a goofy question. I don't understand.

So, the aging happens because of the unraveling of the end of the chromosomes. It's called the telomeres that unravel. That is why aging happens. But there is one part of the body that never ages: muscle. Muscle never ages. Did you know this? There is no aging of a muscle. The muscle of a 90-year-old and the muscle of a 16-year-old have the same capacity. No difference. Other supporting things of a 90-year-old are not conducive enough to exercise the muscle. That's the problem. Crocodiles don't age, for example. So aging is a little bit of a complicated thing. And the plant shedding all its leaves and then coming back in the spring, etc., that's just an evolutionary benefit. It has nothing to do with aging. That’s how the plant is evolved.

[SK] No, you can't do it. At your level, you can't do it. You need to be an advanced yogi for that. At our level… 

[Participant] Can you elaborate on what advanced level means? 

[SK] Super advanced level. Have you reached any of the advanced meditative states that Patanjali has listed in the Yoga Sutras? Have you had, for example, Nirvikalpa Samadhi experience? No, right? So forget about it. You are not qualified for this. When you are an advanced yogi, there is no connection between physical and there is a full disconnect. But you are not an advanced yogi. So forget about it.

Yes, only after doing it for a sufficiently long time. 

When I see a gulab jamun and I say I won't eat it today. That is dispassion. 

Why do you want to know all this stuff? How is it going to change your life? It's not going to. All these are words many people use to… You know the story of the donkey. There is a donkey. There is a guy sitting on the donkey, and he wants the donkey to move. So what does he do? He puts a carrot and dangles it in front of the donkey with a stick. You know that story, right? Then the donkey wants to eat the carrot, and it moves, and the carrot is moving with the donkey. So the donkey is moving. All these things are given as carrots so that people move. They don't get stuck in their mundane life. So, essentially, those Gurus who are telling you all this stuff are thinking that you are a donkey, and you are not going to move without the carrot.

So they say, so at least you move; otherwise, you just stand there. Don't worry about all this stuff. It will happen, yaar. You don't have to do anything. Everything will just happen after a sufficiently long time when the vruttis get thinned away. All this just happens. There is nothing to do. Nothing to do.

Okay, what is your level of qualification? What do you understand about quantum physics and Young's double-slit? What is your level of understanding? Then I can answer. See, because the answer is given at the level of understanding. When you are like Janak, who is on the brink of enlightenment, then you get an Ashtavakra in front of you who gives you the answer that pushes you. When you are like Ram, who is already highly elevated, then you get a Vashisht in front of you, who answers the questions as a Vashisht's yoga. Vashisht will never come in front of Janak because Janak is not capable of understanding Vashisht's answer. And Ashtavakra will not go in front of Ram because Ram already knows what Ashtavakra is telling him. So it's useless anyway. Then, for mundane people like us, Patanjali has to come. "Oh, you jokers," I am going to tell you a prescribed step. You do all of this stuff, and I will guarantee that you are enlightened. Then Patanjali will come. Then these people who are doing the Patanjali stuff eventually get stuck because their understanding is only this much. Then Narada will come. He will remove all the obstacles from inside out. So depending on your level of understanding, the answer is given. That is why these scriptures are specific for specific types of people. So when you ask me what is the role of the observer in Young's double-slit experiment, what is your understanding of physics? How much time have you spent learning quantum physics? Unless I know that, I cannot answer the question.

[SK] Karma is a very important thing. So you know how karma starts. Patanjali explains this in the Yoga Sutras. If you have not done the deep dive of Patanjali Yoga Sutras, I am telling you, do it. It is very hard. Even though I gave the session, I am telling you, in the interest of full disclosure, it is very hard. But once you go through the discomfort, you will understand. You can feel it; you can touch and feel it. Patanjali gives the definition of a Kshan. Kshan means it's the smallest amount of quantization that happens on the level of the mind. And then two instances are quantized. But that only happens when the mind is ultra-stabilized. There are no more vibrations. So when the mind is ultra-stabilized, you can discern a Kshan. Now, most minds are not stabilized. So those Kshans merge into one another. So one Kshan continues into the other one, and there is an appearance of continuity. This appearance of continuity over many, many, many, many Kshans, billions and billions of Kshans, develops into karma. It's an action that is left unfinished and continued. That continuation action that is finished; every action is complete because, at the level of the Kshan, every action is complete. But with an unsettled mind, that complete action morphs into the next one. So you get intermingling actions, and this accumulates as karma. That is a source of karma. And then it has been distorted over the years, saying, "Oh, it is all the good you did, all the bad you did." All that is just a carrot in front of the donkey so that you keep doing good things. That's all it is.

[Participant] How does one know that whatever actions you are doing are related to the past karma, present, or future? 

[SK] You cannot. There is no way to know. There is no way to know. You simply are given the free will to decide what the next action is going to be. That's your only free will. How that situation has come in front of you, you will never know. That is why the ways of karma are unfathomable. But your action, your today's action or this moment's action, sets into motion some future events. That is under your control. Nothing else is under your control.

It depends on your means of communication. Time is defined by how you choose to communicate. So, the fastest method allowed by physics to communicate is the speed of light. So, you can define time like that. And then a consequence of putting an upper limit to the speed of communication is everything else. The special theory of relativity comes from there. You say that I cannot communicate faster than C. C is the speed of light. What is the consequence of that? It is the entire physics of relativity. So now, if you elevate your mind to a state where C, the speed of light, is not the limiting means of communication, but the means of communication becomes something else, I don't know what that is. Then other things will happen as a result of it, like the universe knowledge, the knowledge of the planets will come, and knowledge of the stars, and all of that will happen. But for that, you have to transcend the limitations imposed by vision. Vision is the fastest communicator, the speed of light.

Yeah, there are methods to do it. But finally, the drive has to come from themselves. So, we can introduce them to specific techniques. There is a de-addiction program, I think, Art of Living Bangalore Ashram has a de-addiction program, which is very specific. Guruji designed it. I don't know how that program works because I'm not a qualified teacher of that program. So, ask them, ask a de-addiction program teacher. There are specific things. But, at the end of the day, the drive has to come from the person because they are bound. People who are addicted are actually bound; they're not free. It's a little bit difficult.

Why are you putting labels on all of this stuff? If your family is smiling when you enter the door, and everybody smiles, you're doing good. When you enter the door, everybody says, "Oh, yeah, this person is here." Then, you're doing फालतू। That's it, done. You know, people's faces tell you how you're doing. You don't have to guess anything. Don't worry about all this. "Oh, am I doing this spiritually advanced?" All that बकवास, all those labeling. This whole problem is coming from the need to label everything. The sticker. Throw away the labels, I tell you. Just take it as it is.

[SK] Yes. 

[Participant] Is making art a Kalishta vrutti? 

[SK] No. You can make fine art. AR Rehman is a totally fine artist. So is Sachin Tendulkar. So is the joker. We're all artists. No, it's a principle of indirect action that art is doing something else. 

[SK] Yes, it is in the taking. How you take it determines whether you are living from depth or from surface. A lot of people are living from surface because they take everything. It is not necessary to take the present moment; it is equally necessary to say no to the present moment. Then you are living in depth. Otherwise, you are taking everything, and everyone's nonsense is going inside. Then what is the point? You have to do double Kriya. All that nonsense has to be removed. So, you do double Kriya.

No, no. See, the present moment is something to be recognized. After that, inaction usually happens to people. When they hear all these words—the present moment, inevitable, accept people, all this—they become very superficial. They become very, not superficial, they become passive. Passive means what? Oh, this is like this. I accept you like this. Oh no, that's not called acceptance. Acceptance means you recognize that this person is like this. And then, after that recognition has subsided inside your body, there is no more trigger. Then the action has to be done. People don't do that next step. They don't act. Then it becomes passive. Then it will be superficial. Once the action is done, then it is deep action. 

[Participant] Like, I mean, we are acting according to the situation. But is it okay, or does something more profound have to be done? 

[SK] Yes, so this is a little bit complicated to give a general answer. But according to me, the first step is accepting a situation and recognizing it, whether it is conducive for growth or not conducive for growth. If it is not conducive for growth, then you act to make it conducive for growth. That action has to be done. And if it is conducive for growth, then you act to make it more conducive for growth.

For example, if you have a center, it is conducive for growth. But you say, okay, it is a center. You say, how can I make it more conducive for growth? You put yoga mats. You put a blanket. You put a pillow. All that. Now you make it more conducive for growth. People will come and sit on the yoga mat. There is a pillow. They can do Kriya properly. Then you say, this is also fine. Then you say, how can I make it more conducive for growth? You can put, I don't know, some fan. So when it is summer, you can start the fan like that. Earlier, there was no fan in the room. So, at each level, you have understood. You have done a complete job. It is perfect. And then you say, what else? How can I make it better? This action has to be continuously done.

Also, for yourself, today I am here. Your 100% today is different from your 100% tomorrow. It is different from your 100% the day after tomorrow. Nobody can tell you, you are not doing your 100%. How does he know what my 100% is? Nobody knows. Anybody who tells you, you are not doing your 100%, don't ever talk to them in your life, I tell you. Don't talk to them. Because they don't know. Everybody's 100% is at their level. Nobody can make you do anything that you cannot do. That's just nonsense. 

[Participant] Beautiful. The growth has to go on. So what would be the next step to go deeper into that session? 

[SK] Leave it, man. Depth will come later. To go deeper, if you put action just to go deeper, then never go anywhere.

[Participant] Means, as it comes and goes, keep walking through it. 

[SK] Yes, keep doing Silence courses. Once a year you do a Silence course. You will understand everything there. Later you learn some. Do the hard deep dive sessions. Learn some knowledge. And you have to do it again, again. Just listening to the knowledge once is not going to be enough. Because every time you listen, some new aspect will open. 

[Participant] Defintitely. That does happen.  

[SK] That's it. Then it's all fun. "Juice pivanu karam rambanu. Majjani life." Like that. 

And what will you do with this answer? Tell me, if I tell you the 15-step mechanism of memory transfer, are you going to do anything to change it? No, right? What are you going to do if I tell you this happens, this happens, this, and memory is transferred? What are you going to do with this information? Tell me—nothing. These kinds of questions are only forming concepts in your mind, and this is again a vrutti. When people ask questions to Guruji like, "Oh, how does the soul leave the body? Does it leave through the left nostril, or right nostril, or through the ear?" Who cares? What are you going to do with that answer? Nothing. This tendency, you have to recognize, is preventing the flow from happening. You're getting blocks even though you think you're asking a very brilliant question. It's really not a brilliant question because you cannot take action on the answer; you cannot do anything with an answer.

See, it depends on how weak your sankalpa is. If your sankalpa is weak, then even a ruffling of a tree leaf will shake you, forget the black cat, you know? 

"Oh, I saw a shadow of a bird on the ground. Oh, my day is going to be horrible." That is a thing in your head, right? So now that you're kriya-enabled, you're out of the clutches of all this other nonsense. वोह black cat को बिचारा एक mouse दिखा, वोह road को cross करके mouse को खा गया। तुम्हारा action पे उसका क्या असर है? Nothing. Nothing is happening to you, and Guruji already said that once you are enabled with kriya, all the power of all these planets, etc., on you are already loosened up. You don't have to worry about anything.

[SK] Where you take a long breath, and you hold, and there is no instruction to release? That's deep dive? No, deep dive means it is rigorous. So when I do the deep dive courses, I make people fill out Google Sheets of what they understood from the session when they watched Guruji's session. Then we do an hour-long discussion. Then they write afterward in a separate Google Sheet what they understood after the discussion. Then, at the end of the day, I will send them both their versions so they can see how the before and after happened. So it's a little bit rigorous. It's just not just watching a video and doing some five-minute discussion and finishing; it's a deep dive. You invest one hour to watch Guruji's video, then you invest another half an hour or one hour to come with me to discuss. Then we do all this analysis.

[Participant] Is it part of an AMP? 

[SK] It is beyond part two course, baba. It is a graduate-level course. No, we will send you the links. They are all discussion sessions that are recorded like this, and it will shake your foundation. Some people here have done the deep dive sessions, and the foundation is shaken, yeah, now, but they are still back, which means something good must have happened to them after the foundation shook, so yeah. 

[Participant] Any eligibility criteria? 

[SK] Just you should have a little bit of a brain, that's it. No, you should be okay with not understanding. You should be okay with the discomfort because the ideas will change, so that will create a feeling of discomfort. Some people cannot take that feeling of discomfort, so it's not for them. But if you can take the discomfort, and if you can a little bit withstand, "Oh, my foundation is now shaking," then it's for you. And at the end of the day, you will survive because, look, people are here; they have already survived.

Yeah, so to learn pranayama, you go to any Art of Living course. Like, what's it called in India? Happiness Program or SKY Breath Meditation Workshop, whatever. You learn the three-stage pranayama there. Then there are other things. You can learn the Sahaj Samadhi meditation. You can take advanced meditation courses like the Silence Program. In India, you call it AMP or something. People will tell you all this. But the yardsticks—what will happen to you over the course of time—the yardsticks are laid down by Maharshi Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras. So he says this will happen: vruttis will start getting thin. Then you will identify the blockages in your life. There are so many things that you have to overcome and the methods of overcoming them. And then, after you overcome them sufficiently, you will reach this state of settledness of the mind. Then you reach the next state and the next state. He gives a whole breadcrumb. So you can follow that, but that requires deep practice. For now, you just start off with learning the basics and then go from there. 

Yeah, yeah. But if you are epileptic, I mean, or if a person is epileptic, the best is to get a qualified physician to evaluate whether that person is okay to do kriya or not. It has to come from the physician. I cannot tell you because I don't know the patient. But a physician can tell you. So go talk to a physician.

Fulfilling means what? Fulfilling means do something. Okay, I'll tell you an actionable step: learn something new every day. One. Okay, learn something new every day. Do something for other people every day without expecting anything in return—not even acknowledgement, not even a thank you, nothing. Do that. Those two things are enough. Learn something new every day and do an action that nobody even knows you did. There is no expectation of thank you. Those two things you have to do.

ज़ोर का चाटा अगर बचपन में लगाया होता तो यह दिन ना देखना पड़ता है। Like that. That's the only way to deal with it. No, no. You have to deal with them with compassion. You have to deal with them from understanding at their level. So go and learn these techniques from the teachers or the facilitators of the kids and teenagers program. There is a certain choice of words that is better to use. For example, don’t say "no" like that, but instead say, "Can we do it this way?" You know you have to change the way you speak—don’t say "no," but say, "Can you do it this way?" So there is a whole way of doing it, and in the US, we have a whole series where we instruct parents on how to do it. I don’t know if it is in India, but we'll find out. I'm sure it's in India also.

I'm also very tired of facing challenges and fighting all the time. Okay, I give you a choice: either you face challenges or you die. Which will you choose? You will choose to face the challenges.

See, facing challenges means what? You think that you have an option to do something else. If the other option is to die and one option is to face challenges, only two options exist. Which will you choose? You will choose to face the challenges, and you will choose to face them in that situation, and you will face them willingly because the other option is even worse. You're just dead. So right now, you're having difficulty because you think there is a third option available. But maybe there is no third option available.

My warranty period is over for marriage. It will be 25 years— all warranty periods off, done. No, it has been ups and downs yaar. Every marriage has big ups and downs, so don’t worry about that. But yeah, some marriages have a little bit more downs than ups. That is possible.

See, you have to decide. You have to evaluate the opposite. Patanjali says this. So when you're stuck with something that you cannot resolve, you look at the opposite of it. So let's say you're stuck in a marriage that you're not very likely to continue, then you ask, "What will happen if I don't stick with this marriage?" And if that is more conducive than sticking to the marriage, then you know your answer. But you might find that not sticking to this marriage is less conducive than sticking to the marriage. Then you have to make the best of the situation. You have to have some yukti, something like that.

Like, okay, this is worse. How can I make it a little bit less bad? No, no, you cannot make it directly good. It's already horrible. How can I make it less bad? And then how can I make it less bad? Like this, you keep moving from less bad to lesser bad to least bad. And then it becomes okay. Then it becomes good and better and best. Small steps. But without knowing the details, I cannot say anything else.

Coffee is a drug. So what is coffee? The caffeine molecule is the only molecule, one of the few molecules that go across the blood-brain barrier. So there is a blood-brain barrier, so blood doesn’t interact with the brain. The caffeine molecule goes across the barrier. That is why it's a stimulant. It's the same as the other, like LSD and all these drugs. All these drugs do the same thing. They go across the blood-brain barrier. So yeah, coffee is a drug. So use it with caution.

I already made an Instagram reel on all the books I have read. So go on, there's a website, so [sandeepkarode.com](sandeepkarode.com). If you go to that website, you can search for all the reels topics, all the Instagram reels that I've done on physics, spirituality, all this other stuff. It's called A Little Something About Everything. You can search by topic and you will get that on the website and then you can click it and it'll take you to Instagram and you can watch it. So I did a reel on all the books that I've read. So that doesn't mean that those books are for you. They are good for me. But if you want that information, it's out there. 

How will you remember the session? You'll say, oh, that session where I had to show the cup to this joker. Now you'll remember me. See, I already made an impression. This is called vrutti seeding. Oh, it's a fun thing.