Chairman of Apollo Hospitals Group, Prathap C Reddy seeks Sadhguru's inputs on health, clarity and human capability. Dr. Prathap C. Reddy is the founder of Apollo Hospitals Group, India's first chain of corporate hospitals.

Through the Mystic Eye is a series of episodes featuring Sadhguru in conversation with several eminent personalities. Prathap C. Reddy, KV Kamath, Virender Sehwag, Shekhar Kapur and many more of India's leading celebrities and public figures engage Sadhguru in discussions ranging from business and governance to sports, education and mysticism.

Full Transcript:

Prathap Reddy: . I know it’s in everybody’s mind here, you know. We all want to do so many things in each one of our sectors. We would like to produce another hundred films and each one of us would like to do saying this so much impossibility and we think that we’ve done all of these and somewhere along the line we feel that satisfaction without really achieving our total objective
India is faced with this tremendous… you know there are three gold medals which we don’t want. India is the diabetic capital of the world, it’s the heart capital of the world, it’s going to become the cancer capital of the world. We don’t want these gold medals. If I can I would like to put it in Bay of Bengal. How do we… we get this… you know each one in their profession how do they get this… as you just says it’s all in us as humans, but we want to think that we can only be super human to achieve this.
Sadhguru: No, when I said the immensity of being human, if suppose I can take a banana in my hand and turn it into a human being who would you think I am? I must be…

Prathap Reddy: The Creator.

Sadhguru: …the Creator himself, isn’t it? Isn’t that happening in every human being? So when the source of Creation is throbbing within you, what are you looking up or down? When the very source of Creation is throbbing within you, where are you looking for help? There is no better place.So whatever work one maybe doing, it does not matter what area of life we have chosen to participate in, everything that we do can be transformative both for yourself and everybody around you. I am saying it is not even about finding satisfaction with your work,
So doing something is not towards… at least what I do is not towards my satisfaction because if I close my eyes and sit here I’m ecstatic, not just satisfied. So I don’t have to do something in the world to be satisfied or to be happy. It is just that there are things that need to be done in the world which have not been done unfortunately. Particularly in our country, so many things that we should do, have not been done.

So in our lives if we do not do what we cannot do, that’s not a problem. But in our lives if we do not do what we can do, we are a disastrous life. My effort is to see that nobody turns into a disaster. That everybody does what he can do in his life. Prathap Reddy: Guruji, I must say, you’ve been abroad, and have traveled so many days and you landed here yesterday. If we had done this, all of us would have jetlag, ‘Let me take a day off, let me take two days off.’ Here you are, you know, coming with, you know, something phenomenal which we now try to understand, saying this is the capacity that you’ve brought in and bringing this change and we want to be… you know, see that change that happens to our country and since you’re talking worldwide, you know, you have an impact wanting to change the world and bring that better environment all over. I hope that formula is there, prescription for that?

Sadhguru: (Laughs) About the jet lag…

Prathap Reddy: Fortunately I am on the other side. If I… I can’t even answer half of your questions but fortunately because everybody wants to knows so many things, I can ask Guruji freely because you have that extraordinary capacity of expression, extraordinary perception (Sadhguru Laughs) and to be able to express.

Sadhguru: That’s what, my… my mission is to make this ordinary. It’s extraordinary because lot of people have denied themselves the possibility of knowing the immensity of being human. This is not about being super-human, this is about realizing that being human is super. So if every human being realizes what it means to be human, I would not be extraordinary. I want to be normal. I want to live in a world where I will be perceived as normal, not as extra…Extraordinary is also another word for ‘He is a freako.’ Isn’t it? (Laughs)So extraordinary is not always a good word, somebody can say, ‘He is a freako, he is a freak happening.’ I am not a freak happening. Every human being is capable of this, it is just that they are identifying with their limitations, they are not identifying with the possibility of the immensity of being human, where… They are always referring to human as a limitation, as a compulsion, not as a liberation
If you are moving towards liberation, you will experience many levels of freedom. Right now, what you call as ‘myself’ for most human beings is a bundle of compulsions, that they can only be like this, they can only do this, they can only do that, any number of limitations. Unfortunately they are beginning to decorate their li… limitations which is a - ’This is how I am,’ you know. (Laughs) This is not how you are, as a human being you can be any way you want, this is the freedom that nature has giving you. If you were born as a dog or a cat or a tiger or an elephant, that is how you are. Once you are human you can be any way you want. This is the beauty of being human.

See, let’s say a tiger is born, a tiger is not sitting and worrying itself how to be a good tiger. (Laughter) If it just eats well, it will become a good tiger. It just has to find food. It is never feeling insecure about its tiger-ness. It is never worried, ‘Will I become a tiger? Will I end up as a house cat?’ (Laughter) There is no such struggles. Just eat well, you will become a good tiger. But you’re born as a human being, how many things you have to do to become a good human being? After doing all that, you don’t know where you belong still. In comparison to somebody you think, ‘Okay, compared to this man I am better,’ but by yourself you don’t know where you stand. You think you’re doing great, your teenage son or daughter comes up and tells you, you’re no good. (

, what is human is only one end fixed, the other end wide open, in terms of human consciousness. Recently I was talking to a very top level microbiologist and he said, ‘Sadhguru, what you are saying is so uncanny, because if you look at the human cell compared to any other cell of any other creature human cell is somehow open ended.’ So your very cells are open ended, you can do things with it, with your own body, which other… other human beings will think is super human. It is not super human, it is the possibility of being human, which needs to be explored. Unfortunately, not much has been done on this sphere.

Prathap Reddy: It’s a very wonderful thing. I think most of us feel we have reached our limitation. Sadhguru, the way…

Sadhguru: No you have not. (Laughs)

Prathap Reddy: The way you put it beautifully… I know when I started…you know thought of this, doing this health care, they called me crazy, you can’t do this. It’s not a challenge but that confidence says I…we can. I think can we have a mantra or meditation, something like that? A medicine for that (Sadhguru Laughs) so that all of us continuously say, ‘Yes I can, I will do many more things.’

Sadhguru: No, no, no, no. No, no, no. I wouldn’t like to build confidence in people, because confidence is a dangerous thing. I am not trying to play with words. I… I want you to, I mean, understand this aspect. See what is needed for humanity is clarity of perception. Where clarity is missing, people try to substitute confidence for clarity. Confidence without clarity is a disasterous thing. Suppose you want to cross the street, if your vision is clear, you see things clearly and cross, but if you’re very confident… there’re lot of people on the street who are very confident (Laughter), they simply cross. They’re surviving because of… by sheer chance or because of the compassion of the drivers. (Laughter) So what we need in the world is not confidence, we need clarity. This is one thing that our education systems have completely failed to address - how to enhance human perception. Because only what you perceive you know, rest is just imagination, isn’t it? So I am confident about something means, I don’t know what it is but I am just going to do it and it may work. If on a busy highway, if you just… whatever your favorite slogan is - ‘Jai Sri Ram’ or ‘Hail Mary’ or ‘Allah hu Akbar’ you shout and run across the highway, you may make it. (Laughter)

Prathap Reddy: God save us.

Sadhguru: Because just by sheer chance you may make it or I sai… as I said, the… the drivers may be little compassionate. But if you try every day, we know where to pick you up. (Laughter) So what we need is not confidence, we need clarity in the world, and nothing has been done towards enhancing human perception. Individual human beings might have done something to enhance it by themselves, but no systematic approach in our education systems or in our social structure. It was very much in our social structure at one time. In the last generation we have lo… largely lost it, because we think acquiring some information is education. No, enhancing your perception is what is needed. If you are able to perceive something that other people could not see, that is what makes you an entrepreneur, that is what makes you a leader, that is what makes… gives you the necessary edge in the world.

So perception… enhancing perception is the whole dimension of yoga. When I utter the word ‘yoga’, because today, most of the yoga that people have known in this country also unfortunately is rebound from the American coast.

Prathap Reddy: Import… we are importing it.

Sadhguru: Yes, very unfortunate. Lot of people are beginning to think yoga was invented by Madonna. (Laughter) This is the science of perception. With these two eyes you can only perceive the physicality of what is here. The physicality of who you are, is just a piece of the planet, isn’t it? We are not going to know you by… Every day as doctors in your hospital must be reading somebody’s heart, but you don’t know what’s beating in their heart. You know whether they’re going to live or die (Laughs), but you don’t know who they are, isn’t it? What they are as a human being? The complexity of their humanity is not there in their liver or kidney or heart or anything; only their physical structure is there. This is just a piece of the planet that you have gathered. So who you are is much more than that, that perception is beyond physicality. So developing your perception to a dimension beyond physical is what is needed. That is when you will produce human beings who look like gods. They’re not gods; they’re full-fledged human beings. Because others have not strived to do that to themselves, when they look at somebody who has flowered to a certain level of competence and capability, they think either they are gods or gods are favoring them. It is not the truth of success in life. Somebody is successful because he’s perceived something that others missed.

Prathap Reddy: It’s so wonderful Sadhguruji; you know I know everyone in the beautiful auditorium here and there’re thousands of people who are watching live on the internet, they all want to know if there a prescription for good health (Laughs), spirituality, yoga meditation. (Laughs). Because I have seen, you know, some of the impossible things that you have done for other people when they were not well. But more importantly when your health took bad, no doctor and no medical dictionary or directory could ever detect it. So is there something else to stay well?

Sadhguru: See, the whole world…

Prathap Reddy: (Addressing the audience) I hope you all have the same question on your health, you want to stay healthy, right?

Participants: Yes.

Prathap Reddy: And I know everybody who is looking at us today they want to know if Dr.Reddy never asked this question (Laughs) ___ (Unclear). (Sadhguru Laughs) I want their business, but I want them to stay well, Swami. (Sadhguru Laughs)

Sadhguru: The thing is we created this body from inside. So the manufacturer of this body is inside. So if you have a repair job to be done, would you like to go to the manufacturer or to the local mechanic? (Laughter/Applause) If you had access, if you had access you would like to go to the manufacturer; if you’ve lost access, you will go the local tinker to do this and that. I am not trying to belittle medical science by saying this. If there was no medical science as it is, I would say even half the people would be dead by now, here in this audience. Yes, because the average life expectancy of an Indian in 1947 was twenty eight years. Today it has risen to sixty four, one important factor is medical science the way it is. So I am not trying to belittle or make fun of medical sciences. It is very significant; what has been achieved in the last thirty to forty years is phenomenal. The question is just this - if you had access to the source of that which creates this body, definitely every problem that you generate within the body could be handled.

Now there are two kinds of ailments - infectious and chronic. Infectious ailments happen to us because of an external invasion from an organism. You must go to the doctor, don’t try to meditate on it. (Laughter) But seventy percent of the ailments on the planet are self created. I am saying self created because it happened from within you. So what is happening from within you can be very easily fixed from within you. What comes to you from outside you need outside help for that. So you have to fight an organism then you need medicine. All you’re doing is poisoning them. We call it medicine, but actually what you’re doing is poisoning the organisms which have invaded our system. I am sorry for using such language.

Prathap Reddy: No, this is a (Laughs)… we’re being blamed for this. (Laughter)

Sadhguru: So the rest of the ailments, almost seventy percent are self created. Why would your body work against you? This body is essentially programmed for health. Every cell in this body is programmed for health. Why would it turn against to you? Because somewhere you are not keeping it happy. To put it in a very simple language - why would your own family turn against you? Somewhere they’re not happy with you, isn’t it? (Laughs) Yes or no? They’re not happy with you, with something that you’re doing. So similarly, some cells in the body, some parts of your body are not happy with you for some reason. You must pay little more attention. There is a way, a systematic way of paying attention to this one, because everything in this body was created from within. When it is so, can’t it fix from within?
So this is not a miracle. I want people to understand. this is not a miracle. What is a miracle is… Suppose you did not know what is electricity. I came here and I just press that part of wall and lights come on, who do you think I am? Must be the messenger or the Son or Himself, isn’t it? (Laughs) You would definitely think so. Suppose, you know, a thousand years ago if I had a cell phone, tch, I could just pull out the cell phone and talk to somebody in America, you would think I am God, isn’t it? We didn’t get one, thousand years ago, but today too many people have, so it doesn’t work. Otherwise (Laughs) just imagine, even hundred years ago if you had a cell phone, you could claim you are God, isn’t it? People would believe for sure or no? Yes or no? If you could just talk to somebody somewhere and they don’t know what it is, people would definitely believe you’re God, isn’t it?

So what is a miracle is, that which you do not understand, that which is not fitting into your un… your logical perception, seems miraculous to you. As your logic evolves, so many things which were miracles hundred years ago are normal things in our day to day life today, isn’t it? Isn’t it so? So it is not a miracle, it’s just a deeper understanding of your… your… of your own, the way you’re constructed. So this is something that we need to pay attention to.