Fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani asks Sadhguru why Indians seem to prefer Western culture and attitudes to India's own intrinsic values and culture. Sadhguru looks at the fundamental ethos and thread that binds Indian culture together, and explain how it is only the spiritual process that has kept Indian culture alive, despite centuries of persecution during the British Raj.

Full Transcript:

Tarun Tahiliani: when we talk about being this great society and granted we were colonized and all, what is this great society or culture when we are so willing and with such alacrity we embrace the West, we embrace what our colonizers left behind. We judge our own if they don’t match up to this. When they don’t feel comfortable enough,

So, perhaps you can help me resolve this constant confusion I have in terms of, we as a culture why have we done this to ourselves? (Sadhguru Laughs)

Sadhguru: We need to understand the difference between conquest and colonization. Conquest is to beat somebody down and sit on top of their heads. Colonization is to convert people into your way, so that they will serve you without thinking they are serving you. So, some of the things, which were the strengths of the nation were clear… clearly mocked out by the British. You must see the letters that Macaulay wrote to the parliament. So, he said “There are three things which makes (make?) India to be a place which is impossible to be conquered. One thing is its education system, another thing is its spiritual process, another thing is its family and cultural strength. If we don’t weaken these three things, we will never conquer wherever they went, they had absolute success, hundred percent success. You go to Australia (Laughs), it is another England, okay? The native cultures of those lands are only archival, only in the museums they live. In many parts of Africa, South America, North America, everywhere they have absolute success. The only place where they not… did not succeed though you and me are speaking English language today - they did not succeed entirely here, because one thing is the spiritual process was so strong, the ethos of spirituality,

the only way you could take away the Hindu way of life, which was not a religion per se, it was a certain a millionfold… a million doorway palace of spiritual process, not one kind of process, not one kind of belief. The only way you could kill this was to kill every human being that lived in this country, because there was no one papacy, one focused place where all the knowledge is centered. It’s just happening decentralized, completely decentralized. So, it’s because of this you still have some India left. That’s the only reason. Otherwise, in three hundred… two hundred and fifty to three hundred years’ time is a long enough time to subjugate people and change everything about them. It’s a matter of eight to nine… eight to ten generations of people. Everything can be wiped out in ten generations. The only and only place where they have not succeeded is India though you became a little bit of a sahib.

Tarun Tahiliani: Too much sir, regretfully…