In a recent Darshan at the Isha Yoga Center, Sadhguru talks about the brutal gang-rape that happened in New Delhi on December 16 and triggered nationwide protests.
In Part 2 of the talk, he describes how humanity has started serving commerce instead of the other way around. "It is disheartening to see that on national news channels, the discussion is whether we should castrate the rapists. Instead of reacting, we need to find a deeper and more profound solution. As long as people feel inadequate and seek fulfillment through possessing something, this will find all kinds of ugly expressions."
Sadhguru's words offer insight and come at a crucial time as the Delhi gang rape victim dies in Singapore hospital.
Full Transcript:
So, the important thing is this is not about rape; this is about what kind of human beings are we raising. Commerce has taken precedence over humanity. Commerce is not about serving humanity; humanity is serving commerce - it doesn’t matter what you can sell; as long you can sell it, you’re doing great and you have to scale up. (Laughs)
So, there is a lot of looking at that humanity has to do. One particular case of rape has brought the consciousness of the nation to a certain brink. Using this, it’s time that we look at the essentials of life. Whether the crime or violence or forceful acts are committed against a woman or a man or a child, it’s the same thing. It’s not… one is not different from the other. If we approve one forceful act, the other one will naturally evolve out of it. This must start from the home situation. If you can force feed your child, you can be forcefully sexed also tomorrow. I want you to understand this, this is how it starts. If you think you can force feed your child - force is okay as long as you get to do what you want to do, then everything else follows. These are the offsprings of that. We don’t want to attend or destroy the root; we just want to prune the surface because right now it hurts us - that is not a solution.
It’s… It is disheartening to see on the national news channel, the discussion is - ‘Should we castrate them or not?’ So, today if you castrate a rapist, tomorrow cut off the hands of a thief, cut off the head of somebody else who uses his brain… (Laughs) there is… there is no limit to this. This is not the solution. Whatever sympathies you may have for the person who suffered, the victim, we must look for more profound solutions… more well thought out solutions; not simply reacting - reacting to one violence with another violence is not going to breed a right kind of society. Now is this in one society? It is not. It is just that in some societies, the law enforcement may be little better. Don’t think people are better, no.
Law enforcement is little better so it’s little more contained in certain societies, little less contained in other societies. One way - yes, protection by law enforcement is needed. No question about that but still a transformation where law enforcement can be limited to a small percentage of criminals is the society we want to live in. We don’t want a big segment of population being curtailed by law enforcement alone. ‘If there is no policeman, they will do something else.’ It’s a dangerous situation to live in. The statistics say that ninety-six percent of the rapes happen within the home. Law enforcement never ever gets involved in this. Ninety-six percent of the rapes happen within the four walls of the house. So it never goes to the law. So this cannot be contained by law. Maybe the super-violent rape like what happened in Delhi could be controlled to some extent by law enforcement but not the other things.
The fundamental thing is that you want to possess, humiliate, and subjugate another human being. This is happening because of a certain level of inadequacy… a certain level of incompleteness within you that only by possessing something, you will feel little better. Whether to fulfill this possession, you go shopping or you go raping - it’s the same thing. Something is inadequate; you want to fulfill this by getting something. This will find all kinds of ugly expressions. Some of them you may think is harmless but if you do this today and fulfill yourself - tomorrow, you would like to step it up to something else and something else and something else. It will not stop at one thing.
So the solution is not in just containing it. The solution is in transformation of the individual human being and nobody is willing to invest any time or life to make this happen. Everybody wants an instant solution - go on the street protest for two days and world will change. World will not change. If world has to change - first thing is willing to invest time for my own transformation. Only if you are willing to invest time for your transformation, you are willing to invest time for other people’s transformation because you understand the value of what it is. If you are not willing to invest time upon your own transformation, where is the question of doing anything for anybody’s transformation? If you do not know the value of what it is experientially, you will never invest.
You… (Laughs), you see this every day; maybe you don’t, I do. Every day - well you have also seen - morning you get up; you want to do your yoga but everyday there’s something more important to do than yoga. Yes? Look back in your life. What great things have you done which are so important? There will be nothing great but when you want to do your morning meditation, you will see there is something more important to do. This means, you do not hold human transformation as a very crucial thing. You think it’s an entertainment. You think it’s a side thing to do. It’s not the side thing to do. It is the main thing to do; transformation is the main thing to do. If we do not transform individual people, you just have to do with a world full of criminals. Some will commit, some will not commit. Some will do it on the video game. Some will have the courage to do it on the street.
Closet rapist or street rapist, not very different, isn't it? Maybe for the victim, it’s different but for the world that we live in, it’s not different. You’re still living with such people, isn’t it? So if this has to change, we need to understand that individual transformation is the most crucial thing. If we are not willing to invest on that, we just have to do with what we have and worse will come; not that it’ll not come, the worse will come. Every time there is no law in a certain place, every time a war happens; what happens there? Apart from the killing, what happens there is worse than the killing, almost everywhere.
So, these are all the same people that you live with. These are your sons and husbands, and brothers. They are so nice but if… if nobody is watching them, they are something else. Transformation means just this - that who you are is not determined by other people’s opinions or other people’s presence. You are like this - whether somebody is there or somebody is not there, this is the way you are - this is transformation. If this… in this direction humanity does not make an investment, in this direction if every parent does not invest upon their children to transform them into a more inclusive human being… Inclusion just means this - technically… to bring it down to a very technical level - inclusion, don’t teach it the name of love, embracing the world, this and that; inclusion just means this - that who you are is not limited to the absolute boundary of your physicality. It is little more. If it’s little more, the very way you walk on this planet, the very way you breathe upon this planet, the very way you exist in this planet will be different; simply because your idea of who you are is beyond the boundaries of your physicality. If this one thing happens to the human being, suddenly he’s different in every possible way.