Memory, Consciousness & Coma [Full Talk] | Sadhguru at Harvard Medical School

sushupti means it is a dreamless state but there are dimensions of Consciousness that you're aware of the neurological system in the body if we have a way of monitoring that I think the entire art of anesthesia could raise to a different level at a very minimum interference when you disengage with memory suddenly there is no past present and future so there is no time because there is no time there is no [Music] space so um I will I'll tell you why this started 2 years ago um we were in a conversation with sguru and I

asked him um we all know that anesthesia works but we really don't know how it works and can you can you shed some light on it and he talked me brief and then he said a statement which is anesthesia um correct me if I'm wrong sguru because sometimes I may be wrong if I'm quoting you specifically anesthesia cannot touch Consciousness it can only take away memory I was blown away by that answer because that's not the way we think consciousness of and um maybe I thought several days I've had sleepless nights thinking about maybe it's

time for us to redefine the term Consciousness itself and having gone through several programs within I think some glimpses here and there to know that there's much more than what we know of that's how this started and um so Emory you are the one who has been doing a lot of work in this area so you can probably start off telling me what we know now of how anesthesia actually causes um loss of consciousness okay so I'll start and so again it's a it's a pleasure to share the stage with s Guru and with Nico

um um so you know how does anesthesia work actually how many people here had anesthesia oh great topic right yeah right right lot of clients out there exactly right all right right fantastic so so so what happened to you um you know some people say we turn the brain off or we you know we make you unconscious we put you in a coma but I think the so we've tried to really understand what's happening and we've done this by doing a number of studies in humans as well as in animals and so I'll just give

you the the quick back of the envelope way to think about it when you take the anesthesia drugs or when they're given to you by the anesthesiologists the brain isn't turned off you know it's not like all of a sudden a switch flips if you look at what happens to the brain it's actually in a highly highly Dynamic State it's really the actual circuits in the brain are oscillating they're creating waves and to give you some sense of this if you look at my hands like this and they're oscillating now this is the way your

brain is in a normal state of forgive me Consciousness right all right all right right as I understand in my little limited way all right right but then what happens is the drugs take over the circuits and now the circuits oscillate like this and as long as you keep the drugs there they're doing that now what does that mean it means that if this brain area was communicating with that brain area so that you could be conscious it can no longer do that when you turn the drugs off the brain returns to as long as

you keep the drugs on it it does this it it creates these oscillations it's very much like this YouTube video which I'm sure some of you have seen where uh you have a bridge in Tacoma Washington I don't know if you've seen this the bridge in Tacoma Washington and all of a sudden you know it starts to oscillate in a perfect sine wave just like this and no traffic can go across the bridge it's the same thing that happens under anesthesia and what happens is is that these oscillations because they're so strong they take over

the brain they're not natural and you remember one of the things that Bala mentioned was that after anesthesia our brains often don't work the way they they did beforehand so now you can see if you've been in a state like this for 4 hours 6 hours 8 hours and you know look I got my a RP card about 12 years ago myself so I'm in that category too right you know you you can understand why your brain may not work right so and and basically that's it and and what's good about that what's good about

what I'm telling you is that we as anesthesiologists can see this state we can see it on the EEG of patients in the operating room and we can use it to change the way we deliver our Drugs That's the Practical the Practical implication of this and then the other practical implication of it is that as we take anesthesia seriously in other words don't say oh we just give you drugs and you go away and you come back as we take it seriously and study it then we can start interacting with our neurology colleagues and make

links between problems that they're working on we can actually begin to have conversation with you know distinguished individuals like like sadguru who can help us understand what is it we're actually doing on a deeper level but if we haven't taken what we do seriously in terms of how what's happening in the brain we're not in that position and that's where I'd like to think that we're trying to move the you know the research now to in other words use anesthesia the study of anesthesia to help us connect with some of these deeper ideas about the

brain the mind and also consciousness D do you have any thoughts on that do I do you have any thoughts on how we are doing how how we're connecting uh anesthesia to the so what what we work on as neurologists or what I work on is very related and very very connected in that we're trying to understand how patients who lose Consciousness because they've had a structural brain injury or a cardiac arrest or some other kind of problem can reestablish the process of a conscious state in in in a brain that's been injured and what

are the rules of the recovery and what are the ways in which it can happen and what are the limitations and how do people get stuck along the way and could we help them and it turns out that there's um a lot of you know variation said Guru oh uh Dr Brown and Dr Skip highly accomplished uh doctors in their areas of uh proficiency that I'm completely unschooled so uh because for me the only way I know anything I know is uh from my own experience so my language and my expression could be a bit

abrasive or if it seems abrasive uh please pardon me because uh I'm nearly illiterate so this first of all the nature of the language that we are speaking I'm talking about the English language this language is very good for describing and defining external things that is very limited when it comes to internal dimensions of many aspects of who we are so if we have to use yogic terminology for this what you're referring to as Consciousness is considered as jagti that means wakefulness we do not consider wakefulness as consciousness wakefulness is the state of the body

wakefulness is the state of the mind wakefulness is the state of the bio energies within us but that's not Consciousness what you're seeing as physical body well one thing I would like to clarify is we do not look as brain as a very significant aspect because we see intelligences right across the system mhm generally in most people's understanding I believe a combination of memory and intelligence is considered as mind am right on this if you take this as a definition it is a fact that every cell in our body carries millions of fold much more

memory than the entire brain can carry because these cells and the body remember even what happened a million years ago it remembers the skin tone of your forefathers from a million years nothing has changed it never gets confused so what you can carry in the brain as conscious memory what every cell or every DNA is carrying is phenomenally more and the chemical dimension of what is being conducted in every cell is far more complex than you could ever figure with your entire brain so both in terms of intelligence and memory the spread is much more

I think this entire focus on brain has come mainly because somewhere probably uh pre- renisance time we broke into this because that region largely we're talking about Ura where it was hugely dominated by very dogmatic belief systems when people broke through that nobody was supposed to think for themselves everything was already said and dumb when people broke through that and started thinking for themselves thinking little freely looked like absolute Liberation for those people and I think that hangover still lost in our education systems in our medical Sciences in the very way we approaching even fundamental

sciences that hang over the thought is everything is very profoundly influencing our social structure and our way of exploration in in the yogic Sciences we don't attach any significance to your thought whatever you're thinking it's of no consequence to me this is why I whatever somebody is saying we don't listen to them we we just feel them we just feel them what is the chemistry what is that how they are right now I don't care what they are saying this is how maybe it's an evolutionary problem with me because I've been in jungles by myself

and I've seen most creatures judge you just like this I've you I think they showed a picture of me having a king cobra I've been very closely involved with all kinds of creatures particularly cobra and things their sense of our chemistry is so Keen you can just go in the wild and just pick up a cobra as you saw I'm not holding him by his head he's not a pet Cobra he's a king cobra if he bites you he won't give you more than 20 to 40 minutes before you're done but I'm just picking him

up like this he will do nothing because he is feeling my chemistry if I show little agitation he'll go for me mhm if if I'm just okay he's fine with me so we don't attach any significance to thought because thought is recycling of the data that we have already gathered no thought can come which is Absolutely Fresh permutations and combinations of the data that we already have right now a lot of people coming up to me very fearfully and saying sguru this artificial intelligence is coming if they come they will take over the world and

said if they take over and run the damn thing you on a holiday isn't it but it is a fact that everything that we can gather as information analyze and express and use it in many ways all these things machines will be doing it better than us in the next 10 to 15 years time everything that is datab based processing machines will do way better than us so there is this sphere I think it's a very good time this is the time we need to explore an intelligence Beyond intellect because we have become so intellectual

we have become so brain oriented in our approach to everything as you rightly said nothing is really turned off we've just broken the communication after all the purpose is to go through something which is generally extremely painful without pain that is how the entire anesthetic uh Sciences come up so you're just breaking the communication and that's not happening it serves that purpose so being wakeful and being conscious are two different things this is described like this for wakefulness we have a word called jagriti Jagr means you're awake if 10 people let's say we take example

of 10 people they all fell asleep don't do it okay they all fell asleep and they came awake when they come awake all of them will not be equally awake one person may be instantly awake another person may two to take 2 minutes as you have noticed with anesthesia also another person will take an hour to wake up another person needs a strong coffee otherwise she won't wake up am I right like this different levels of wakefulness is also there professors must have noticed yes yes in fact in fact the first few minutes of the

day can be like that different levels of wake wakefulness in a classroom so this is jagra so we are calling wakefulness as Consciousness now the next dimension of Consciousness is called uh swapna this means a dream state a dream state is far more Vivid than wakeful state for most human beings it's like going to a cinema if you go to a cinema the key factor of the impact of the cinema on you is turning off the lights this is something most people don't understand if you don't turn off the lights Cinema will be no good

it doesn't matter how well it's made turn on the lights and watch the cinema you will see a great Cinema becomes nothing so turning off the lights is important so turning off the lights in our experience is the eyelids you down the shutters the world is off now you start your own world so dream state is like a cinema it's far more impactful people love their Cinema Stars more than the people that theyve lived with for 25 years but they have not even seen them all they saw was play of light and sound but that

is far more impactful simply because lights are off so eyelid is that if you roll it down light should be off world should be closed but right now the problem is this mental faculty has not been taken charge of so it's running wild all the time with eyes closed so this dream state is considered a more powerful State than jag jag or wakefulness is important for performing action in the world but for human consciousness in terms of profoundness of experience dream is always more profound than walking on the street yes most of you have experienced

this the next state is called a suup susti means it is a dreamless state but there are dimensions of Consciousness that you're aware of it's a totally dreamless sleep state but you are aware there is no picturization there is no video running in your mind there's no pictures there are no people there are no words but you're conscious in your sleep this is a very powerful state if you really want to manifest something in your life this is something to be explored and the next one is called as tya this is consciousness where there is

no memory involved of any kind essentially in The yogic Sciences we are looking at Consciousness as an intelligent Beyond memory if there is memory memory is considered a boundary in the sense uh this is one person this is another person simply because this embodies one kind of memory and that embodies another kind of memory this has become one kind of person this has become another kind of person essentially it is in the memory memory does not mean just what I remember and you remember genetic memory is there evolutionary memory is there Elemental memory is there

Atomic memory is there karmic memory is there inarticulate and articulate memories are there but generally we are thinking memory means consciously what we can remember but today if weat dog food will not become dogs something within us remembers no matter what you eat this has to be only transformed into a human being it doesn't matter what you eat if you and a cow every day eat a mango no merger will happen Perfect Memory is established evolutionary memory is absolute so these different dimensions of memory are playing on a daily basis people are thinking their thoughts

are free it's a joke because your memory is determining everything so largely in one single word we call this karma karma means the residual impact of all the memory that you have how it is impacting every thought every emotion every action the very way you sit and stand M see if you if you see somebody walking far away let's say half a mile away you see someone walking if he's your friend just the way they're moving their body you say oh that's him there are 7 billion plus people but this particular man walks in a

unique way all right just do leg walking everybody walks but still it is so unique so this is what we are referring to as karma that the residual impact of memory varieties of memory we recognize memory as eight basic forms of memory which are determining how you are right now the very way you sit stand breathe understand perceive life is determined by this memory but there is an intelligence Beyond memory which we call as tya or chitta this is consciousness now every one of us is conscious the question is only of degree even a rock

is conscious a dog is conscious a pig is conscious the question is only of degree how conscious even Among Us how conscious is different from person to person so this degree of Consciousness determines everything now if we have to give an analogy what is memory is like I'm sure every one of us at some stage in our our life I don't know if you're still doing it we blew soap bubbles did you hello come on everybody raise their hand for anesthesia so when you blow a soap bubble the soap part of it which is very

little just a tiny drop a large part of it is air that it captures so how how big a bubble when you were children who can blow the biggest bubble was a big deal and it's a certain amount of technique how you do it somebody blew this big bubble somebody got only this much so how big a bubble this bubble is like this the kind of soap and how it gathers is your memory it forms a it gives it a form but when the memory bursts there is no such thing as your air and my

air there is no such thing as your Consciousness and my Consciousness there is something called as your body and my body there is something called as your memory and my memory there is something called as your intellect and my intellect but there is nothing called as your Consciousness and my Consciousness how much of it did you capture how big is your bubble will determine the scale of your life the scale and possibilities of your life are determined by how big a bubble did you blow okay well let me pose you a question sagur so um

we can perhaps work as individuals to now that I know I take away wakefulness and not Consciousness right make to move towards Consciousness and that's an individual's decision to maybe train in this particular way so is there some way that we can harness these insights like you have harness these this understanding and use it as anesthesiologist to take care of patients because if we can reduce it to or if we can adapt it I shouldn't say reduce if we can adapt it in that way you know that would be very very helpful because we would

be using the powers in a way that would control have to use the word the brain in a way that would be perhaps more more physiologic uh I'm not the expert in the subject but uh because you're asking me the question I'll say something but uh you are the expert in anesthesiology is it yeah I'm sorry I in my simple understanding anesthesia as a process has come into being in this world or is existing right now because there is pain pain when it happens to us is a bad thing nobody wants pain but at the

same time if there was no pain most people would not even know how to preserve their own body see wherever there is no pain in how many ways they've cut it suppose there was no pain in your nose they would have cut it in various shapes it's is part of the fashion there's no pain at all believe me they would have pulled out intestines and swing it on the street and go do you have any doubt about that none whatsoever so essentially because there is pain in the body and pain is a protective mechanism because

most human beings still don't have the necessary intelligence even to preserve themselves if there was no pain even if a bicycle comes people step back don't think this is out of civilization consequence of pain because no pain even if a truck comes they would just walk yes they would so because of pain so pain is essentially a protective mechanism for us without it people wouldn't know how to stay alive how to stay in one piece they would have cut themselves into pieces so but sometimes as what is called as a surgery is in some way

cutting people up sure so you it has become a necessity to cut someone how to cut them with minimum amount of disturbance to the system that's the whole effort so in this effort as you said essentially you're disengaging different parts of the brain I don't know if it's an exact science or it's generally getting disengaged whichever way it is it getting effectively disengaged that people go through surgeries without even knowing what happened when something major was done to them their ribs were opened up happened rib cage was opened up heart was opened up brain was

opened up they don't even know what happened very innocently they wake up after a day or so whatever amount of time so this is anesthesia how could we use see one one dimension because uh when when you when we were speaking in the room when you said essentially if I'm wrong please correct me you monitoring the the physiological systems of heartbeat blood pressure and temperature brain waves whatever else the physiological factors if I don't know if it's even a possibility but if if you find a way to monitor the neurological system ignoring the physiological system

completely see the concern may be the moment you put somebody on the table and start opening the body the concern of a doctor or a certain may be that you don't want him dead on the table so you're watching his heartbeat you're watching his pulse and you're watching his all the other parameters I understand and appreciate that concern but instead of okay let's leave the physiological uh monitoring as it is but if we have a way I don't know if there is a way in the Medical Science if we monitor the neurological system not just

the brain the neurological system in the body if we have a way of monitoring that I think the entire art of anesthesia could raise to a different level at a very minimum interference it could happen because why I'm saying this is there is something called as MMA in yoga and also in what is called as color in South India it's a certain form of martial art mhm MMA is a way of creating killing the pain completely at certain moments when we want to just by touching certain parts of the body handling body in a certain

way so essentially what we are doing is the neurological system we shutting it off and there is no pain at all we can go ahead and do what we have to do and only when we release it the pain will come back mhm so using that as a basis I'm saying if Medical Science has a way of monitoring the neurological impulse as it's happening and if there is some way to introduced introduce anesthetics in whatever form that you use I don't know all the cocktails that are used but if it is done properly probably I'm

just guessing I'm not an expert on this probably with 2% or 3% of your medicine you could still have the same effect on the patient mhm because how you use any medicine on the body and how you use it on the neurological system I would say 1% of what you use on the muscle if you use it on the nerve it will produce equal effect but it's interesting cuz I I think what you're saying has contact also with the work that that we do in the recovery phase and there people not looking very carefully at

cardiac and brain interactions and and they do signal some of these changes and it it's suggestive I mean that maybe more more the uh body could be engaged in in the way we think and measure and that that makes a lot of sense to me actually can I ask you another question so so um I did a little reading about you and and and and uh he he he's not as uneducated as he would have you believe he he's actually quite quite educated that's pretty clear and uh I was curious because I think it was

back in 1982 when you had like your first Enlighten Enlightenment experience I think and uh there's there's a story here so so you you mentioned how it seemed like only 10 or 15 minutes had gone by but what had happened is that you'd been out in this in this state for like maybe 4 hours or so when you actually looked when you came to and looked at your watch the analogy is is this is what people under anesthesia report all the time in other words they have the sense that no time has passed you were

not around that day maybe I'm reaching but but but they they report a very similar phenomenon you know that it seems like they'll wake up sometimes from anesthesia and they'll go um you know have you started yet you're done they're actually quite surprised so whatever our timekeeping mechanism is right it's actually it's different from sleep it's it's it's noticeably different from sleep because often when you sleep except in some rare instances you you have a sense that you know time has passed you know you went to sleep you woke up up you know you may

not be able to judge it exactly but characteristically under anesthesia when people come too they feel like no time has passed any thoughts M see our sense of time the only way human beings know time is by the cyclical moment of things that are happening if the Earth spins once we call it a day if the moon goes around the earth we call it a month if the planet goes around the sun we call it a year year or if the clock goes around we call it an hour MH so only by cyclical moments we

know time what cyclical moment means is all physical dimensions of the existence from Atomic to Cosmic exists only because of cyclical movements anything physical in the universe is naturally cyclical mhm so the entire yogic process is just about this how to transcend the cyclical moment of our existence because cyclical moment means we are going in circles if I tell somebody you're going in circles what does it mean it means you're not getting anywhere so this is the fundamental ethos that once you're attached to cyclical moments of life you are not really getting anywhere but it

feels like you're going somewhere today everybody knows this experience because most of them walk only in the [Music] treadmills I was I was in conversation with Ed Bagley who an environmentalist and he said uh if somebody from another planet comes here some aliens come here and see we drive to the gymnasium and then cycle inside the gymnas on a stationary bicycle they what will they think right so cyclical M signifies physical existence MH physical existence as today fundamental physics is talking about it forever The yogic Sciences have been saying this it is a minuscule of

the larger space mhm it is just some some percentage negligible percentage all of us together and the planet and the universe and everything the physical universe is just way below 1% of the cosmic space that is true even with the individual atom even in the individual atom the substance is way below 1% so this minuscule is our engagement how I see in my experience is it's only the footprint we are so engaged with the footprint you uh this is uh you know I have been in the jungles of South India for long periods of time

at one time I was involved in Tiger census so for days on end we followed the tiger Footprints we saw only the footprint we' have not seen a damn tiger so till you see the tiger by Footprints whatever imagination you have tiger breaks it for you when it growls at you yeah it's all gone all the you know you studied the footprint you thought you understood and how he does things his behavior everything you understood by his Footprints how he moves what he does but when you see him all this knowledge you GA vanishes in

one moment fortunately he didn't make breakfast out of you but even just seeing him everything vanished so right now we are just studying the footprint Consciousness the remaining 99 Point whatever a percentage that is there in the atom that's there in the cosmos this is consciousness an atom has captured a minuscule of Consciousness you and me have captured the largest amount compared to any other creature on this planet that's why we are at the peak of evolution that we have C captured the largest but time we know only because of our involvement with cyclical moments

once there is no cyclical m or in some way if you get disengaged with the physicality of your existence when I say physicality everything that is physical about you is accumulated over a period of time isn't it sure it's an accumulation now everything that's mental about you is also accumulated the content I'm saying the framework may be there but the content is all accumulated what you accumulate cannot be you isn't it it can be yours but it can never be you so once there is a little disengagement with the physicality of what you have gathered

suddenly there's no sense of time nor space mhm what is now is then what is then is now what is here is there what is there is here everything get like this it's very beautifully expressed the ADI Yogi the first Yogi over 15,000 years ago he said this people his disciples squeezing him asking what is the nature of this existence where does the cosmos begin where does it end he laughs at them and says I can pack your Cosmos into your Mustard Seed wow so so this make sure we understand if I understand the experience

that you had that Em's asking about and perhaps the experience that might not be passed through in memory and language of the patient and anesthesia from this point of view would be one in which it's outside of time maybe interior as it said in the video but space space has sort of a Tim likee aspect where present and future are in the same uh distance is that kind of a restatement in any way this is a this this could seem contradictory to what is generally believed in fundamental phys physics modern physics is looking at space

and time the yogic Sciences look at only time there's only time there is no space because there is time there's a consequence of space okay if there was no time there would be no space so time is the basic not space interesting space is an illusion that's been created because we are engaged with our physical natures so if you disengage with your physical nature suddenly there is no time so there is no space so suddenly what is here is there what is there is here people think something miraculous has happened nothing miraculous happened it is

just that you kept your accumulations aside for a moment that's all what you accumulated and who you are sat separately the very basic program what we're teaching as inner engineering is just this what we're training people for is if the down here body is here what you call is your mind is somewhere else what is you seems to be little away once there is a little space between you and your body between you and your mind suddenly there is no time once there is no time there is no space there's no possibility of space this

needs to be understood we have a common word both for time and space we call it kala kala means time kala also means emptiness mhm so emptiness means space so this Hall is empty that means there is space here we say when the hall is full we say there is no space here that's what we mean in a in a simplistic way but the same word is employed both for time and space because space is readed by the time if there is no time there is no space right now we are understanding time as cyclical

moments so we are looking at time in two different dimensions kala and mahakala the greater time the greater time has no cyclical moments cyclical moment is because of physical nature because of physical nature there is time in terms of birth and death in terms of initiation and expiry of everything that happens every atom every electron every proton somewhere has a age even the very planets and the solar system and the sun has a age sometime it is B and sometime it's going to end whether it's going to be a bang or it P us out

is is something we can debate but physicality is not Perpetual it begins and ends because of that we are looking at time in that sense but there is time Beyond cyclical nature this we call mahakal is there some logical way of explaining it no it is just that when you disengage with physical nature which is the main purpose of yoga because otherwise you are when you engaged with your physical nature you engage with your memory your body is just memory variety of memory eight different dimensions we are talking whether we see eight or four or

one it doesn't matter this has taken a particular form only because of memory it is functioning in a particular way only because of memory so when we disengage with physical form we are disengaging with memory absolutely when you disengage with memory suddenly there is no past present and future so there is no time because there is no time there is no space there is no distance there is no possibility of this and that since I have you here I'm yours thank you um Prof sir no no no no no no you know I the world

has a lot of problems right and you know one of the things that we we need to solve and we were talking about some of this you know just as we were sitting down there um before the program started can I correct that question a little bit sir sure mhm the world doesn't have too many problems it has only one problem human beings okay so if we could focus on that one issue all right uh what do we do how do we use like you know the insights the understanding the enlightenment that you have to

go after some of these issues because they're very real and they they threaten us say uh by every definition that we have made we have defined ourselves as the most intelligent creatures on the planet mhm these are all our definitions I don't know if the insect agree with us but by our own definitions we are the most intelligent of the species so our understanding is right now whoever dominates must be most intelligent mhm so for which we are paying a lot of price whoever is right now in Domination is the most intelligent if you go

by that we are the most intelligent maybe we are the most intellectual yeah yes of all the creatures but we are not the most intelligent because we don't even know what to eat after these millions of years hello even now research is going on what is the best thing to eat if you put something in front of your dog one sniff he knows whether to eat or not to eat [Applause] so this is mainly because this is a new happening this cerebral activity is a new happening we're a bit too excited just like uh you

know people are all engaged with their smartphones all the time they're walking like this everywhere they're not looking at the Sunrise even that they look in the phone screen they look at the whole customers in their phone screen MH because the instrument is new Next Generation may not even look at it probably right now it's new everybody's engaged with it and they're calling it a smartphone generally someone will refer to someone else is smart when they find that person is smarter than them right so unfortunately for a whole lot of people the phone is the

smartest thing about them so this is a new Gadget this you should know more about these things if you have the right names for this the brain no uh in the brain this cerebral development cereal cortex and yes yes this is a new happening so we're little excited about this this can boom boom boom you know they all those figures of blue lights flying all over the place and we're excited about those things but fundamentally intelligence always has been all right it might have found expression in the form of thought which gave us the the

capability of language and many other Arts and Music and things it gave us various capabilities there's no question about that so only a very few very small percentage of people used it that way rest of the people are using their intellect just to freak the hell out of themselves M you're only handling injuries or you're also handling people going off I'm you know I I only do neurology I'm not certifi in Psychiatry that's question if they're neurotic you don't deal with them not train for that they not professionally train a lot of them come to

me you're lucky so this is essentially like you have a new Gadget but you have not read the users manual mhm you're doing something with it human suffering that you see human beings is suffering on various levels uh as a doctor you probably seeing physical suffering in terms of ailments and surgeries and whatever they go through injuries and stuff but I am seeing a different level of suffering people who have no ailment to complain about but they suffer deeply people without any ailment suffer far more than people with ailments at least if you have ailment

you have a good excuse most people don't have an excuse simply sitting standing they suffer everybody has found a reason why or somebody is suffering because they are poor they're suffering their poverty you make them Rich they'll suffer the taxes they're not educated they couldn't get into the school they will suffer get them into the school you've seen them suffering here to the best school they will get in and suffer they're not married they suffer get them married so they are not suffering their life this is something that needs to be understood they are not

suffering their life if you ask them what they're suffering they're capable of suffering what happened 10 years ago yes or no 10 years ago something happened they can still suffer and they are capable of suffering what may happen day after tomorrow already so essentially their suffering is not about life they are suffering two fantastic faculties that only human beings have no other creature has such a vivid sense of memory as we have no other creature has a kind of fantastic sense of imagination that we have they're suffering their memory and their imagination they're not suffering

their life isn't it they're only suffering their memory and their imagination if you take away a part of their brain you definitely know which part it [Laughter] is if you take out some part of their brain whatever that part they will all sit very peacefully maybe even happy I don't know because I find you know I I just met a lady a few months ago I was in my my hometown I just went to visit someone and I was just entering a building a very a very small built old lady maybe she's over 75 she

came smiling at me so sweetly and just asked me how are you I said ma'am I'm well how are you and then I went up I I never forget faces but this is not a face that I know MH then I went up and after half an hour I came down again she came to me with a very sweet smile and she said how are you I thought okay and then I said okay I'm doing well how are you doing then somebody came and said poor lady she's just lost her memory but I said it

seems to have done wonders to her she's just so exuberant and joyful so a whole lot of people a whole lot of people when they lose their faculties they become better this is the unfortunate nature of our existence M that our capabilities have become our problems if our incapability is our problem that is understandable mhm but when our capabilities become our problem we are heading for a disaster MH yes or no this is a tremendous capability the cerebral development is a tremendous capability but now that is what we are suffering our fantastic sense of memory

and Imagination we are suffering this and no wonder so many people are losing their their memory because many many times in their lives consciously unconsciously they're wishing they could forget something and they will forget one day when they forget suddenly it becomes an ailment but they were always wishing for it every day a whole lot of human beings are continuously wishing and praying I wish I can forget this but when they forget it then they become a case mhm so this dimension of what we are looking at is not about forgetting it is not about

reducing your thing see every day people are taking their own anesthesia they call it Whiskey they call it one they call it their own thing they kind you know just dull your memory dull your imagination simply sit there it feels peaceful next day morning again everything is back anyway and unless you have a hangover uh but people have found their own ways of anesthesia for sure and people are using many things of course more advanced developments have happened in that level of anesthesia also yeah in recent times right so essentially whether you pray I want

to forget all these things and live happily or you drank a glass of wine or you doed yourself or you are an LSD or you put them on anesthesia M essentially they're all moving in the same direction you doing it for a specific purpose for a limited period of time but they trying to do it to their life and one day when they lose their memory in a way unfortunately they've succeeded their intent this is a misfortune because people are driving themselves towards that they people are trying to think I mean today in the world

people think there is something called a sanity and in sanity there's no real line there it's a line that you manage by yourself with your own discipline and your own perception is there really a line called sanity and Insanity tell me you is [Laughter] there see now it's like this what you think is normal somebody else thinks is crazy is it not happening all the time older generation thinks younger generation is crazy younger generation thinks old people had for sure lost their marbles everybody is making these judgments one culture thinks another culture is crazy so

it is just a line that we artificially create and manage because we know if we cross that we will not be able to control ourselves even when people get angry the term that they use is just always I'm getting mad so they know it mhm mhm so they they know that they've crossed their line the line is not same for everybody what is my line and what is somebody else's line is different places people have drawn their lines somebody thinks it's all right once in a way at least three times a day I shout at

somebody it's okay if I ever shout at somebody then I will withdraw probably for many years because such a thing cannot happen if it happens I lost it mhm so what is your your line where is your line is something that you have drawn there is no existential line that this is sanity this is insanity there's no such thing the question is just this if you're in control of your me mental faculties this is called sanity if you're not in control of your mental faculties this is called Insanity suppose right now I'll we can make

an experiment with all of them can we sure I'll give you 10 seconds next 10 seconds nobody you should all simple thing what you have to do is you can think of anything in the universe you want only thing is don't think of monkeys for the next 10 seconds okay 10 seconds No Monkeys you will count Millions only monkeys so our faculties are not totally in control the question is only how crazy are you MH okay you are little more crazy than me that's about it but there's no such thing as somebody's absolutely sane and

somebody is absolutely insane what means a lot to me looks like insanity to somebody else is it not happening every day what means a world to you somebody else thinks this is insanity what means a world to them you may think it's Insanity all kinds of things are being done in the world and it looks perfectly normal for that person it's only others who are making this judgment that he is insane only thing is if what is out of control goes to a point where he causes active harm to himself or to people around him

then we are diagnos diagnosing him as totally insane but there has to be some sort of agreement I'll just call it that so that we can have a a functional social structure right so you saying sanity is a social thing I'm asking I'm afraid tot here it is so see even even in terms of sanity and Insanity what is crime and what is not is a social thing isn't it right it's a very social thing so when we're talking about social things social things keep on evolving from generation to generation it keeps changing what you

think was what you thought was wrong has become right what you thought was right has become wrong mhm in in one generation it happens isn't it so social realities we don't have to debate because it's a flux that all of us create what it's it's called generally called culture culture is not some something that dropped upon us what mess we create today is tomorrow's culture what the previous generations did they did not do everything consciously they did some mess that's our culture right now so so so so okay so if I understand the answer it's

a very hopeful answer because no matter how bad things look they present to us a problem we can solve is that in the next generation is that is that sort of the point you have do children or something [Laughter] I'm not trying to Define that all I'm saying is do what you want you cannot Define this because as you said it's a social process MH social process today we are democratic countries so it's decided by the majority as to what is Right mhm what major what majority decides may not always be a perfect solution but

we have agreed that if the majority says this we do that right or wrong works or doesn't work we do just that when the majority says that at least with certain aspects of life with certain other aspects we have retained The Authority in some kind of experts let's say in anesthesiology if you say something maybe that's the right thing some let's say somebody has come up just today he passed his medical exam and he's come if he says he will be put through thousand tests but if you say it people will accept it simply because

of a certain record and a certain reputation and whatever but it may not always work reputation and Records may not always work but we are looking at largely what works so these are all social processes without going into that when we talk about anesthesia when we talk about disengagement or when we talk about meditativeness this word meditation in English language has to be cleared because uh we've been going through that see the English word meditation does not say anything specific I know it's become a popular word but it doesn't describe anything specific if someone sits

with their eyes closed in English language we say they meditated see with eyes closed there are many things to do you can do japa tapa dhana samadi Sam there are many many things or you might have just mastered the art of sleeping in vertical postures no it happens in the universe ities in spiritual programs in people learn to sleep with their spine erect so meditation doesn't say anything specific somebody is focusing on something and they think they're meditating somebody ising a mantra and they think they're meditating somebody is thinking about something and they're saying they're

meditating about something essentially if we translate meditation as danana which is what generally at least in India what people believe when we say the word meditation people expect that you are speaking about what is called as D or danana or Dam depending upon how far south you are if you're up in the north it is danan if you come down it becomes danana if you come to Tamil Nadu everything becomes Dam so the same word the same word went to China and became Chan and somewhere else it became and became Zen the same word we're

expecting when you say meditation you're talking about danana if that is so what danana means is if you sit here there is a clear space between what is you and what is not you in the sense what is you and what you accumulated body you accumulated content of the mind you accumulated if there is a little separation between these two if you can maintain that awareness now we say you're in so this is meditativeness this is not something that you can ever do if you create the right conditions this will happen as a consequence it

is like flowers in a plant if you go sit in your garden and do flower meditation flowers are not going to come if you want flowers you need to handle the soil manure water sunlight if you do these right things flowers will happen well the soil doesn't look like a flower manure doesn't smell like a flower water or sunlight doesn't feel like a flower but only if you do those things right this will happen if you are right now this whole thing has become convoluted because we have become such a goal oriented society that means

we are interested in the consequence we are not interested in the process [Applause] [Music] so we have um we'll move on to the question answers for the audience and also the um researchers here we began this conversation with a discussion of levels of consciousness of maybe I'm taking us down to a lower level that be fits my character but but I'm wondering one of the things Dr skiff you asked is as people are recovering from certain kinds of processes maybe they're entering different states of Consciousness that science is not yet you know learned about I'm

wondering if that theory is necessary because we know about the plasticity of the brain I think Baki Rita is that the gentleman who talks about plasticity of the brain and extraordinary things that the brain can do to recover functions in different parts as uh uh as it's damaged that's one and maybe that's a more technical question I I have a larger question for sguru you you spoke very eloquently about memory intellection asking us to put those aside and I'm trying to understand exactly what you mean because I haven't caught it I'm sorry to say because

it seems to me those are the unique or extraordinary things about us as human beings right the fact that we have this historical memory going back to Mesopotamia and Beyond you know in India thousands of years and also as individual human beings and intellection which allows us to build space ships in addition to sit here and listen to you so I so I'm not quite sure how you mean for us to leave those aside or or place less value on them uh I did not talk about devaluing them or leaving them aside what do you

think is this planet round or flat I suspect it's quite round really you suspect it's around you're not sure no I think no yes I am sure it is round in fact in fact I think that is how matter has to collect around gravity no no don't go there that's gravity is another thing but today we know it is round though if I walk up and down this place in my experience it feels flat mhm but we know it is Round We debate did this for thousands of years all right but we couldn't figure it

but it became very clear to us only when we took off we created some distance from the planet you flew up there and looked very clearly it looked round you went and stood on the moon and looked around 100% it's clear it's round so what gave you this Clarity is the distance when you were in it you thought any number of ways but you couldn't figure it but the moment you had distance you had Clarity so only in that context I said you must know how to keep your accumulations aside if you're carrying a bag

when you don't need it you must be able to keep it aside if all the time if you carry it it'll become a torturous process that's what is happening to people nothing wrong with your mind it's just that all the time it's on and it's becoming torturous not knowing how to do they're suling it out with alcohol or drug or something else essentially they are unable to Bear the activity of their own mind isn't it if they could keep this bag aside for some time all we have accumulated it would be nice you won't lose

it because nobody's going to pick it up and go it's there for you but once there is a little distance you have an ABS absolute understanding of the nature of what it is only then you can handle it the way you want right now you're handling both your body and mind accidentally accidentally when you do things accidentally anxiety is normal and that's what is happening because everything is accidental because there's no clarity about anything because the nature of intellect is such if I ask you would you like your intellect to be sharp or blunt you

must choose right now I'm going to bless you sharp or blunt Shar sharp so you understand intellect is a cutting instrument It's Like a Knife the sharper the better if somebody is very sharp you will say oh he's a razor Shar intellect very sharp so cutting instrument cutting instrument can be used for dissection with dissection we know know many things did you do science in your high school you cut open that frog and saw how the heart was pulsing how do I mean the Frog didn't think much about it that's another matter but you came

to know so many things in this world slicing a human body slicing a flower slicing an atom we discovered so many things but is this a complete way of knowing can I know you by dissecting you fully is it possible maybe I will know you better by including you by engaging you rather than dissecting You by dissecting you I may know your heart liver kidney and spleen but I will not know anything about you only by inclusion I know so you are using a cutting instrument or let's say you take your knife and try to

sue your clothes you will have tatters so this is what is happening with approaching everything intellectually everything is going into TUS we are trying to Sue with a knife it's not going to work there are other dimensions of intelligence we in the yogic way of looking at things we look at human intelligence as 16 Parts out of the 16 parts to make it simpler we can make it into four categories it's called budhi ahankara Manas and CH buddhi means the intellect the front end this is a essentially a survival kit without your discriminatory intellect you

wouldn't be able to survive on this planet you have to discriminate now here a deer came and here an elephant came you should know which way to go otherwise you would survive discrimination is constantly on which is keeping you alive right now otherwise you wouldn't know whether to walk into the you know whether to walk on the sidewalk or in the middle of the road you wouldn't know so there is a discriminatory Pro process which is keeping you alive it's a survival instrument without it you cannot function how does this survival instrument function what is

its nature we will not go too much into that because they're eke Keepers but it is something that everybody knows the next Dimension is called ahankara ahankara means identity what kind of identity you fix that is how your intellect will work right now you sit here and say I'm an American this thinks and acts like an American all the time or I say I'm an Indian it thinks and acts like an Indian in India there's a classic thing happening in our own generation it was all one nation somebody drew a line and said this is

India this is Pakistan suddenly some line that somebody drew and nobody knows where exactly the damn line is till the dispute is going going on all right but suddenly if you're on this side you have one kind of emotion and thought if you're on that side you have a completely different emotion and thought just a piece of cloth I mean a flag if you look at it tears will come to you people are willing to live for it and die for it all right so that is how it is Identity the moment you identify with

something your intellect serves that identity always if you say I'm a man it always functions as a man if you say I'm a woman it functions that way if I say I'm this or that or whatever race religion nationality anything the moment you identify with something your intellect is striving only to protect that identity and support that that's how your intellect is functioning in modern societies we've done nothing about this people are getting identified with football clubs their Nations by themselves mhm yes oh yeah football club is a nation by itself people are willing to

fight for it and die for it because we have not cultured an identity when a culturing an identity means in India there was a system now unfortunately it's largely gone though still some part of India still has this first thing before we start education this called vam before you start education the first thing is you must take an Universal identity Cosmic identity only then education is given to you because education is empowerment you should never Empower a limited identity if you Empower a limited identity violence is a natural consequence of that so just tell me

what is it that we are fighting for on this planet my identity versus your identity it may be race it may be religion it may be nationality it may be region essentially my identity fights with your identity because I'm identified with this you're identified with that so before you Empower a human being with education and knowledge first thing is you must fix a cosmic identity for that per person this used to be called as aam brahmasmi first thing is a child must say my identity is Cosmic I belong to the Cosmos not to these parents

who are sitting with me right now I love them they have nurtured me but my identity is Cosmic the child has to utter this only then first alphabet is T to him because it was education as seen as an empowerment just tell me today in the world are uneducated illiterate people causing more damage or educated people on the planet causing more damage to the entire planet [Music] [Applause] so it is just unfortunately empowerment is happening without fixing the identity with my limited identity if I study all kinds of nuclear science what am I going to

do I'm going to bomb you that's all I'm going to do to you what else will I do to you that's all I will do to you because this is my identity you stand against me suddenly I have to do something about that so whatever capability I have I'm going to use it that's what is that's what is happening so identities have not at all been worked at that's a big problem but intellect functions according to your identity this if you have to use an continue the analogy intellect is Like a Knife is a knife

suppose we don't give a knife to a child's hand why knife is not dangerous child's hand is not steady that is the problem isn't it you are in the surgery room rooms all the time tell me on this planet are knives taking more lives or making more lives hello really it's taking more lives are you a surgeon it is making more lives both in the kitchen and the surgery table it's making many many lives here and there in a irresponsible hand it's taking a life isn't it sure knife is not dangerous it is the hand

hand it is the identity which makes the knife dangerous if there is no knife just with the hand we will kill yes or no sure so the third dimension of intelligence is called as Manus this Manus is The Silo of memory which we were talking about eight different dimensions of memory Elemental memory Atomic memory evolutionary memory genetic memory karmic memory inarticulate memory articulate memory and conscious memory eight dimensions of memory everything that's happened from the beginning of creation here on this planet from amiba to now everything the memory of it is there in the body

in some form and every day you're using this memory in an unconscious way you're using this memory otherwise if you forget one day suddenly you may start going like a reptile no it remembers the entire evolutionary process and do not underestimate this now that you also said the planet is round simple thing with two legs to walk on a damn round Planet which is spinning it's not an easy thing do you know how much is involved the physics of it is very very super complex those of you who are un binges of alcohol you understand

how difficult it is to walk on a round planet or if you have a vertigo or something then you understand mhm because it's a very very complex process to walk on a round Planet which is spinning but we are doing it effortlessly because of this Evolution it's not a simple thing moving from four legs to two legs is not a small development a whole lot of neurological development has happened only because of that we are able to walk on two legs so now this memory is acting all the time and the excess point is the

identity how you are identified that is how you choose the memory whatever kind of memory both of us may have same kind of memory but if I am identified one way and he's identified another way we will choose memory differently organize memory differently and act differently for the same education are aren't people going different ways in the same house two children are born same genetics same food same school are they not going in different direction like this because depends on what kind of identity one has chosen this disciplining of or Limitless setting a limitless identity

not a small limited identity must happen at an early age if this doesn't happen our intelligence will work against us that's what is happening in the world today the fourth dimension of intelligence is called chitt this is unsed by memory this is an intelligence unsed by memory there is not an aut of memory in this this is what normally in English language is passing on off as Consciousness so where there is no memory there can be no boundary memory is the basis of boundary this is me and that is you this is my memory versus

your memory this is me and this is a table this is only by memory if there is no memory there is no boundary so going Beyond those states of memory is necessary for every human being whatever capabilities you have right now because of our Explorations our knowledge our science our Technologies well this this is what is eating up the very basis of our life also isn't it so the planet is going away we have no solution for that but we're going on simply because we have explored bits and pieces without grasping the entire dimension of

what it is consciousness means that you went beyond the bound boundaries of your memory and grasp life as it is now it doesn't matter how much knowledge you have you will do what is needed and nothing more than what is needed and that's what needs to happen in the [Applause] [Music] world so I want to hear about your uh thoughts on near life death experience and a lot of people have in surgery said that you know middle of the surgery they could come out out and see what's happening see the conversation what the doctor is

doing so just a thought you know when do people really die at the time or they reach some MOA or Heaven Come Back near you mean near death near life so I was wondering what so when I saw you I saw life near-death experience okay there's near-death experiences where let's say someone is um about to die very often we we you know we've heard read these accounts like Dr sanj gupta's book talks about these like cheating death in which case they then have these experiences where they may see lights or what have you so I

just want to distinguish that because they're two different what I want to know okay all right anyway when we say death the definition of death on one level is you lost your body that's what this so uh I mean let's not go into other areas there will get you into very fuzzy places uh about near death experience it's uh what what is being referred to as meditation we have a certain type of meditation called shun that means shunya literally translates as emptiness that's not the right translation but there's no appropriate word in English so it's

emptiness or nothingness so if you settle down into shya meditation it's not near death it's actually death but conscious death suppose you're riding a bicycle you are a new Rider with little balance so you will go like this some other kid is riding he leave his hands free and whistle and look here look there and ride and do all kinds of things stand up on the handle barar and turn around jump all this why it's a certain Mastery certain balance and Mastery now you can jump off the cycle and again jump back and do all

these things similarly with your body if you have a certain amount of Mastery you can jump off and jump back quite effortlessly now it is happening accidentally because of some medication or for many people during 607s the LSD time there were a whole lot of people people talking about this thing sir it's your time it was your time oh okay metaphorically so a whole lot of people talking about this and it really happened to them it's not that they were imagining things it actually happened to many of them but it was also because it was

hallucinatory nobody knows whether it's this or that there's no way to for sure say it actually happened to them or not but I've met many people of those times who genuinely experienced things with which their lives got transformed in many different ways MH in a crazy way but suddenly everything about them changed simply because somewhere they perceived this you can yo-yo this body a little bit if you wish it's not a permanent thing just that little awareness Chang the way they perceive life and they behave and they do things in their life so this near

death I I'm not really looked at any of the thing but some people have told me some popular books they were saying they see angels and there's a tunnel going see one thing is you must understand when somebody is going on the surgery table the doctors may be confident the patient always fears that he may die hello doctors may be confident they know the case they know what they're doing 99% of the time they're confident what they're doing but the patient once he closes his eyes and hands over his life to somebody he always fears

what will happen so every small thing he thinks is death it happens to people if you put a gun to somebody's head and just shoot and miss them or it's a blank they almost died near death experience they'll blank out for some time and then they come back they really think they went away and they came back and they saw the scene also from the top because that's because of the Hollywood so human mind is capable of creating many dimensions of experiences it need not be ConEd as death it's life first of all anyway I'm

coming out with a book on death an inside story I'm doing this for 6 and A2 years it's not complete yet okay hope in the next year or so I will come out with this why I'm saying this is in in reality there is no such thing as death it's life life and life alone moving from one dimension to another another dimension to another so if if I lose one dimension it looks like that is dead right now it is a medical fact that they say approximately every Fortnight you're losing 7 kog of your existing

body and something new has coming in one fortnite whatever your weight you must just calculate in how many fortn nights you completely lost everything that you have in your body is being lost continuously and something else is coming in but you don't experience as that every meal and every day you empty your bubbles you must experience it as near death but that doesn't happen to you but this happens to you because there is some disengagement in your experience first particularly because of anesthetic impact the dis engagement with various faculties that you're normally used to suddenly

makes you feel you're dead nobody died it's just it's a completely wrong perception yes every moment of your life if you are willing if you are not entangled with situations and your own thoughts and emotions there are many many things you can perceive right here right here sitting here you can look at your life from there okay this is not near death this is life but because as I said loss of faculties works out well for a lot of people unfortunately it's not a good thing this happened a man met a close friend of his

that he knew very well when he was when they were in the University together after 25 years break so he invited home for dinner he went and uh being an Indian household the wife was serving and these two men were eating and every time he wanted to ask for something from his wife he said my honey my sweetie pie my boo boo boo my koku my bull bu and whatever else your Tamil so my tangum and my Chu all those things so after the dinner was over uh the friend was leaving and he said you

are having an amazing life aren't you I'm married with my wife for 15 years if you can't even look at each other face the way the endearments you're showering upon your wife is truly fantastic said what are you talking about he said you called her bullbull you called her tangum you called her this said oh man I forgot her name 7 years ago lots of faculties unfortunately work very well for a lot of people because they are suffering their faculties the greatest faculties that have come to us after millions of years of evolution unfortunately we

suffer because we have not read the US manual [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]