NDTV​ ​Consulting Editor Barkha Dutt engages Sadhguru in a conversation during the Penguin Random House “Spring Fever Festival” in Delhi. Sadhguru looks at how, in today's world, it is sense and not goodness that is most needed.

Full Transcript:

Barkha Dutt: I know (Laughter). Now, you were thirteen… In Arundhati’s book, I read that you were thirteen when you first quite accidentally discovered yoga. You were children playing in… at the bottom of a well, that’s what the book says (Sadhguru laughs). Tell us, how did you discover yoga?

Time 64:05

Sadhguru: Oh (Laughs). I told that because that’s how it happened to me, I said that to her, I don’t know how she’s written, I’ve not read it (Barkha Dutt laughs). I said that to her because I want people to understand - the nature of the universe is, even if you do… for the wrong reasons, you do the right thing, still it works. If you do the wrong thing even for the right reasons, it still doesn’t work. People need to understand this because the whole world has invested on goodness. The goddamn goodness is killing the world. There’re too many good people and these good people are the biggest problem. It’s always a good Indian who wants to fight a good Pakistani, good Hindu wants to fight a good Muslim, good American wants to fight with just about anybody (Laughter). The more good you are, the more fighting you are. The more good you think you are, because goodness is always in comparison…

Barkha Dutt: Don’t forget the good journalists who promote these fighting everyday on channels (Laughter).

Sadhguru: I… I think… because your goodness comes by comparing yourself to somebody. If you were alone on this planet, you wouldn’t know whether you’re good or bad. What we need on this planet is sensible human beings. Little more sense we could do with, isn’t it, for sure, in every aspect of life? Engineering essentially means you could have built this structure whichever way you want but you’ll have to keep looking up, when it’s going to crash on your head. Engineering means you put it up in a sensible manner, the way it stays, without anxiety about it. Similarly, Inner Engineering means you engineer yourself in such a way, you can go through the process of life without being anxious about your suffering - “What will happen to me?” There is no such thing because you engineered yourself well. Whatever the hell happens around you, within yourself you are the same thing.

So every time I launch one mega-project, you’ll say, “Sadhguru, if it doesn’t work?” If it doesn’t work, what (Laughs)? If it doesn’t work, what? If everything that I’m doing, if nothing works, I will still die blissfully. This is guaranteed. I want to make sure it’s guaranteed for every human being so that they can live their life without the fear of suffering. Right now, instead of seeing how suffering should go, people are busy romanticizing suffering. The moment you romanticize suffering, it’s very clear you are not interested in human well-being, you like drama.

Time 66:41

Barkha Dutt: Hmm. You often spoke about how economic leaders are going to be the future of the world, you’ve been interacting with CEOs. It’s rare to find a spiritual guru who’s also quite openly capitalistic. Are you a capitalist?

Sadhguru: What is that?

Barkha Dutt: Who believes that wealth creation is for the greater good (Sadhguru laughs) of people and society.

Sadhguru: See, a whole lot of people are attached to poverty right now because without poor people, without hungry people they cannot survive. I am not one of those. I want to see that… six hundred million people on… in this country are postponing their dinner tonight. But we are postponing major decisions in the Parliament every day, all right? I am not a part of that, I want things to happen because I know what it means to postpone a dinner. I don’t want that to happen to pe… people. Children are postponing their dinner tonight, probably a hundred million children in this country have postponed their dinner to tomorrow and that’s not a joke. So, these jokers who identify themselves with this or that are going on playing their joke on the people, every day.

So capitalism is an ancient word, it no more exists. We are talking about a market economy. When only a few families had access to capital, it was capitalism. It is no more capitalism. Any… If you have a good idea and you know how to execute it, there is capital for everyone, all right? So, we have tried communism, it’s a wonderful idea but that must happen willingly. If you enforce it, it’s the ugliest thing. We have seen it… We have seen a major demo on the planet, when a… most ugly things happened, you tried to enforce it. Karl Marx might have known lot about economy. You know, I was… I… When I was fifteen, I was all gung ho about Engels (Referring to German social scientist Friedrich Engels) and Karl Marx and stuff. But he did not understand human nature, I realized that when I was sixteen. Thirteen, fourteen, I was all fired up reading up all the communist literature from Russia (Laughs) but by the time I was sixteen, I realized these people don’t understand what is human aspiration.

Without understanding what’s human aspiration, you try to build a society, you try to build a nation, it’s a disaster, okay? Cruel disaster. But maybe it will work when really a country or a society is in total dumps. You have to force it out. When you have to force it out, it works but after that it won’t work. In a way, if you come to the ashram - nearly four thousand people are living in the ashram – well, you can say it’s communist but by willingness, it’s not by, “Okay, I did so much, so I get so much” – no. Everybody gets what they need. So this is not enforced, this is by choice. If by choice you’re willing to share, how fantastic it is; but “I have nothing, you have something, I want you to share” - how ugly it is!