Indian spiritual leader and yogi Sadhguru will arrive in the UAE on May 17 as part of his global campaign Save Soil to create awareness on preserving soil, sources close to the campaign said. He will be spending three days in the emirates.
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#UAEnews #Sadhguru #SaveSoil
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello Sadhguru, it's always a pleasure meeting you and we know that you are on move.
00:08You just said you reached Berlin and I hope you will end up your hundred days tour for
00:16this Nobel cause, safe soil.
00:20And we wish you a very good tour and a successful one and also we wish to see you in Dubai also
00:29soon.
00:30Thank you very much for joining us and for your time, which is I think it is precious
00:38now and we need just to shed some lights on the campaign, safe soil, which you initiated
00:47from 21st March.
00:50But first let me ask you about the idea in fact, how you got the idea, the idea of soil.
00:58We usually think of environment in general, think of water, think of many things, but
01:04soil, why soil and how you got the idea?
01:09So how I come to this, it's not my idea, it's just that, you know, I'm a… people describe
01:16me as a yogi.
01:17What a yogi means is, consciously you obliterated the boundaries of your individuality.
01:23That means what's happening around you, you feel it all the time.
01:26So I'm like a, I'm, you know, I've lived here for six and a half decades.
01:33So I know what's happening with my life and what's happening with the life around me,
01:37because I'm like a worm on the planet.
01:40Everybody lives in their head, I crawl on the planet.
01:43So I know what is happening there and it's been quite distressing to see what is happening.
01:48Last twenty-five years, we worked for this in various ways, in different projects to
01:53revive the soil.
01:55What I see is individual projects are fine, they make some difference, but the real challenge
02:01of where the soil extinction is going, if we want to confront that, unless the governments
02:08enshrine this in their policy and act upon it, it is not going to be a solution.
02:13It is only going to be small, small projects here and there.
02:16However big we think our project is, in the global scale, it's too small, unless the governments
02:21get engaged.
02:23So soil as a entity, one thing we must understand is, I've been speaking to various agriculture
02:29ministries, what I see is most nations are treating soil as an inert substance.
02:36Soil is not an inert substance, it is a living system.
02:39It's a life system, it's the largest living system that we know in this universe.
02:44We do not know any other system that is as large as soil, because a handful of soil in
02:50a tropical country has eight to ten billion organisms.
02:54So eight to ten billion organisms in a handful of soil, without that activity, we cannot
02:59exist.
03:00I'm saying even in the evolutionary scale of things, it is the activity of these microorganisms
03:06which has produced us the way we are, we look so different from them, but sixty percent
03:12of our body itself is microorganisms.
03:15Only forty percent is from our parental genetics, sixty percent is actually microorganisms.
03:22Will we... if we recognize this, if we are conscious of this, naturally taking care of
03:28the soil would have been natural.
03:31But now, because people have become so intellectual, they're living a high heel life.
03:37When I say a high heel life, I'm not talking about women's fashions.
03:40I'm talking about people are all away from the ground, they're all up in the head and
03:45they want to live somewhere else.
03:46There is no somewhere else to live.
03:49Without the living systems being active in the soil, this life and any other life on
03:54the planet cannot exist.
03:55For eighty-seven percent of the life on the planet, the whole source is in the first fifteen
04:02to eighteen inches of the soil.
04:04This is a fact.
04:06This is something we have always recognized.
04:08Even today in India, because of the yogic culture, before a farmer steps on his land,
04:14he bows down to the land and then only steps on it because he treats the soil as his mother,
04:19because it is the source of our existence.
04:22Whatever race, religion, nationality, caste, creed we may have, essentially we all come
04:28from the soil and we live off the soil and when we die, we go back to the soil.
04:35Today we have found so many aspects of our life, how to differentiate ourselves, how
04:41to confront each other, how to conflict with each other.
04:44We call this nationality, we call this race, religion, every kind of thing, how to differentiate
04:49between human beings.
04:51But if people do not understand what is cosmic consciousness which unifies us, at least we
04:57must understand soil is a unifying force, which is most needed, not only as an ecological
05:04process, also for human beings to come to their senses that there is… we have to touch
05:11base with common factors among all of us, otherwise our very intelligence and our very
05:16competence will destroy each other in the end.
05:19Because this is very important that soil is a unifying force, soil is one aspect that
05:24we cannot disagree, soil is one aspect that all of us come from the same source.
05:29So with this in mind, we launched this Safe Soil Movement.
05:34This has been on… actively on for last two years, especially for last six to eight months
05:40I have been very actively communicating with lots of government officials, ministries and
05:45various things.
05:47What I have found is, almost everybody knows what is the problem.
05:51They all know the seriousness of the problem.
05:55And generally they all know what is the direction of the solution.
05:58They may not know the details, but they know the direction of the solution.
06:02And what I saw from this observation is, everybody knows the problem, everybody knows the solution,
06:09but everybody is waiting for somebody else to do it.
06:12So I realized that they're just waiting for one who will… who will come to bell the
06:17cat.
06:18So here I am.
06:19Thank you very much.
06:20Thank you very much for this.
06:22But I saw one video for you, Sadhguru, you mentioned in that video that the soil has
06:2940 to 50 years if we keep treating it like this, and after that there will be no more
06:36agriculture or whatever, then we'll… the world will go into wars, shortage of food,
06:42whatever.
06:43Is that realistic or built on what you've…
06:46Well, whatever I'm saying in terms of facts and numbers is not my facts and numbers.
06:51This is all by UN agencies, which are well verified by the most responsible scientists
06:57in the world.
06:58UN FAO clearly says, we have soil, agricultural soil only for 60 to 80 harvests, which approximately
07:07translates into forty-five to sixty years maximum.
07:10So apart from that, every responsible scientist is pointing out by 2045, we'll be producing
07:16forty percent less food than what we are producing right now, and our populations will be over
07:21nine billion.
07:22That's not a world you want to live in.
07:23That's not a world where you want to leave your children and go.
07:26Everybody knows this, but everybody thinks somebody else will do it.
07:30So I thought we must awaken ourselves and as a generation of people, we can do it because
07:36we are in that cusp of time right now, that if we act now in the next ten to fifteen years,
07:42maximum twenty years, we can make a significant turnaround in the soil condition.
07:46So we can be that generation which turned back from the brink, or we can fall over.
07:52If we fall over, or let us say we allow another twenty-five to forty years to go by without
07:57doing anything, the loss of biodiversity per year is so high.
08:02UNFAO says that per year, the loss of microbial life both within the soil and around, you
08:10know, upon the soil is approximately twenty-seven thousand species, not organisms, species,
08:17twenty-seven thousand species are going extinct per year.
08:21At this rate, in about thirty-five to forty years, if we attempt to do the same thing
08:26that we are trying to do now, it will take hundred and fifty to two hundred years.
08:31By then, the tragedy would have struck and there is nothing much we can do.
08:34Hundred and fifty years is not even a time of action that we can think of.
08:38But right now, if we act in twelve, fifteen, maximum twenty years time, we can make a difference.
08:43That is why it is urgent.
08:45This is a generational responsibility.
08:47This is a great challenge and also a great privilege and opportunity for this generation
08:53to show who we are.
08:54This is our time on the planet.
08:56What are we going to do?
08:57Are we going to be a responsible generation or a generation that sleeps through everything?
09:03Sleep is not a crime, but if you sleep through your life, your life will be a disaster.
09:07That is a fact.
09:08Now, you have taken to the roads, you are going to drive or to ride your motorbike for
09:18nearly thirty thousand kilometer, more than twenty countries.
09:23So what's your hope?
09:24What the hope to achieve from this initiative?
09:28See, for example, in UAE, it's a very proactive and enlightened leadership.
09:36The moment they understand what it is, they will act.
09:38Already I think they are drawing up plans to act.
09:41It is great because there the decision making is very quick.
09:44In most other nations, it has to go through the parliament, endless debates and arrive
09:49at something.
09:50So, the important thing is to assure elected governments.
09:55Why I am saying elected governments is, an elected government has a span of four to five
10:00years.
10:01So, most of the time, their activity and their budgets and everything are focused on four
10:07to five years.
10:08I see in UAE, they are thinking in terms of next fifty years, hundred years, what are
10:12we going to do?
10:13That's the way to look at a nation.
10:15But unfortunately, because of democratic processes, we are generally aiming at four to five years
10:22of activity because people want to achieve things in their time.
10:26And it is also the mandate of the people because people have never stood up and said, we want
10:31long-term policies.
10:34Everybody is asking for one tax benefit, one this relief, that relief, they're getting
10:38those things.
10:39People are asking for small things, government are giving small things.
10:42So, this is a movement to... to move about three to four billion people to say that we
10:49are concerned about the soil.
10:52If sixty percent of the electorate on the planet says they're concerned about soil,
10:56most... most governments in the world will act upon it, no one... no one will reject
11:01it.
11:02For example, in India, just our school students have taken this challenge that they are going
11:06to make ten million children in India, write to our Prime Minister.
11:12There is no way he will... he will reject that, there is no way he will ignore that,
11:15he will definitely act.
11:17We are doing similar things in Europe and other democratically elected countries because
11:22it's very important that leaders get a mandate from the people, otherwise they cannot act.
11:28They cannot invest long-term if people don't say so.
11:32So this movement is about that.
11:34The most important aspect of this movement is this is not against anybody.
11:38Normally environmental movements means they're against coal, they're against oil, they're
11:43against automobiles, everything that all of us are using, they're against all that.
11:48Now, the important thing about soil is just this, the policy that we are asking for is,
11:53see in a city, if you have a piece of land, if you want to build a building, if you have
11:5910,000 square feet, you can't build 10,000 square feet, you can only build six, seven
12:03thousand square feet, whatever.
12:05But if you look at old parts of the cities in every nation, if you look at the old cities,
12:11you will see most homes are built without a concept of a window.
12:15There's only one door entry, one door out, because people have built all over the place.
12:20Why did this happen?
12:21Because there were no laws as to how to build.
12:24Today if you build extra, the authorities will come and demolish your building.
12:28But if you have agricultural land, if you have hundred acres of land, you can plow every
12:33inch of it.
12:34In ten, twenty years, you can make a desert out of it.
12:37Nobody will ask you, why have you done this?
12:39See, we need to understand soil is not our property.
12:42Soil is a legacy we've received from previous generations.
12:45We must pass it on as a living entity for future generations.
12:49If we don't do that, we are failing in a fundamental responsibility.
12:53But right now, every scientist is pointing out, the food that we are eating, the soil
12:58that we are consuming in the form of food, is actually the food of the unborn child.
13:03In my emotion, consuming the food of the unborn child is a crime against humanity.
13:09That's how I feel.
13:10How is now, Sadhguru, you're touring, you're meeting during the tour, Britishers, members
13:19of parliament, for example, or people in the streets, and how has been the reception so
13:25far?
13:26The reception has been spectacular in the three nations we have covered now, UK, Netherlands
13:32and now in Germany, it's been very, very enthusiastic.
13:36Only thing is the members of the parliament, we have contacted many of them in UK, a lot
13:40of them met us.
13:41In Netherlands, also a few met us.
13:44In Germany, we rerouted our whole tour to be here when the parliament is in session.
13:50But unfortunately, there's a budget session going on.
13:53So today evening, we should be meeting some of them.
13:57But unfortunately, the whole European, this thing is very right now focused on Ukraine.
14:05And there is a huge refugee influx.
14:07So everybody is trying to battle with that.
14:10So that there is a little bit of distraction.
14:12But definitely this moment has come to their attention.
14:16And because thousands of people or hundreds and thousands of people are going to write
14:20to their members of the parliament, so they will act.
14:24We will also form, we have not yet done that, we will also form in the next ten days, I'm
14:28planning to form citizens committees in all these nations and go and meet their parliamentarians
14:33and insist that this must come for a debate in their parliaments.
14:37So it will happen that way.
14:38And above all, when I'm in Saudi Arabia, I'm flying to... for two days, I'm taking a break
14:45and going to Ivory Coast to attend COP15, which is done by the UNCCD, which is combating
14:52desertification.
14:53Hundred-and-seventy nations are there.
14:55I will be addressing them.
14:57We are quite certain there will be a positive response because already they have been primed
15:01by UNCCD.
15:02Apart from that, the Commonwealth nations have come through and made a statement that
15:06they will go with this Save Soil movement, which is fifty-four nations with two-point-five
15:12billion population.
15:14And we have already signed agreements with the CARICOM nations in the Caribbean region.
15:18With six nations, we have signed, another eight are in the pipeline.
15:22So nations are coming forth by themselves because they all know the problem.
15:27They all know the real problem of the soil.
15:30Because for example, in Africa, the average organic content in the soil is point-three
15:36percent.
15:37Sixty-two percent of the Indian soil, it is below point-zero-five percent.
15:43In Europe, Southern Europe, it is around one percent.
15:47In Germany, it is one-point-four-eight percent.
15:49This is not good for a temperate climate.
15:51In a temperate climate, it should be much higher, but everywhere it is low.
15:56So people know that the agricultural input cost is going up year on year to a point in
16:02most nations, farmers are not making any money.
16:06In United States, fifty percent of the farmers have not seen a single dollar of profit in
16:10the last twelve years.
16:12And the highest number of suicides among all professions in USA is among the farming community.
16:18The same is true with India.
16:20A whole lot of farmers have committed suicide because they are not able to grow anything
16:24on that land.
16:25Rich lands have become like this.
16:27Do you… do you have any support other from your fans or any people in social media or
16:37whatever?
16:38Social media…
16:39Or you can get alone?
16:42Social media influencers are coming together in a very big way.
16:46Right now, we have about… from yesterday's account, what I see is about seven-hundred-and-thirty
16:53celebrities and influencers who are supporting us right now through their social media and
16:59other things.
17:00All of them put together, could be already over… well over two billion people following
17:05for their… for them.
17:06We are trying to get, you know, football stars and others today, I am supposed to meet one
17:12of the European Football Union Presidents because we want FIFA to come in because football
17:17stars, individual stars have over five-hundred-million following.
17:21If you can also assist us in this, it'll be great because this is a generational thing.
17:26If we don't move now, if we sleep through this time, we will be a regretful generation.
17:31This is not about me.
17:32I am not even asking them to support me.
17:34I am just saying this is our planet, you take it up.
17:37These hundred days, everybody talk about soil.
17:40You don't have to talk about me.
17:42Just talk about soil, that's all that matters.
17:45Because this is not about me, this is not about you.
17:48This is a fundamental humanity that we should have for future generations.
17:54Be sure that we are supportive of this.
17:57That's why we are here, to talk and to highlight your tour, your campaign, your initiative
18:03so more and more people will be aware of it and aware of their responsibility.
18:10This is something to do with the man, with our existence and our future, in fact.
18:17Now if I ask you, how you spend your day during the tour?
18:26One thing is there is a lot of riding to do.
18:30So right now, the last stretch was nearly six-hundred-and-ninety kilometers, but we
18:37broke it at five-hundred-plus and then yesterday morning we came into Berlin.
18:42From here on, an average ride of maybe four-hundred-thirty, four-hundred-forty kilometers I have per day.
18:49Apart from that, the whole day is full of meetings.
18:52Every day is going to one-thirty-two a.m. in the morning.
18:56And again, we are up in the morning and doing this.
19:00All the teams are working very hard, traveling with me and in different nations, we have
19:04separate teams which are working with us.
19:07So media interviews, social media interviews, influencers, trying to meet the parliamentarians.
19:14This is how the day is going.
19:16I don't know how the day goes by.
19:17It feels like ten minutes and the day is over.
19:21No, that's too much effort you're putting in.
19:27I hope I survive till I come and reach Dubai to your care, sir.
19:36How do you think we can reach the young?
19:38You know, you touched on this young generation.
19:42They need to be aware.
19:43No, they are very busy now with the gadgets, I don't know what.
19:47They don't think of things like you and me might think about.
19:52How we can really reach the young generation and get them involved more and do environmental
19:58issues, soil, safe soil, these kinds of issues.
20:02So see the thing is, this is the reason why I'm on a motorcycle and also we are activating
20:09a lot of music which is yet to come out in the next few days.
20:12Music will come out.
20:14Motorcycle and music we are using just to activate the youth.
20:17And you spoke about the gadgets.
20:19These gadgets are the powerhouses, sir, right now.
20:22Never before in the history of humanity were we able to sit here and talk to the entire
20:26world.
20:27See, both of us are on some gadget right now.
20:29You are in Dubai and I'm here in Berlin and we are talking to each other.
20:33So the youth are, you know, they can do things with their phone that you and me cannot imagine.
20:40They are doing all kinds of things.
20:41So inspiring them to use their, you know, gadgets, which are real powerhouses that if
20:49one person is really determined, he can reach the whole world within a limited amount of
20:53time.
20:54And today we have activated over...
20:58I wanted to activate one million earth buddies.
21:01The earth buddy means every day they spend ten minutes of their time on social media
21:07enhancing the message.
21:09I think today we have nearly about 400,000 earth buddies.
21:13It will reach one million in the next few weeks.
21:16And even in Dubai, if young people take this up and become earth buddies, all they have
21:20to do is learn how to operate social media for which we have toolkits.
21:24We have lessons as to how to enhance the message on our website.
21:29And there is enormous amount of scientific data and information.
21:33From our website you can take it or they can do their own research.
21:36They don't have to support me.
21:38They just have to talk about soil.
21:40That's all they need to do as earth buddies.
21:43They are not my buddies, they are earth buddies.
21:45They must talk about the soil and the dire situation, especially youth.
21:50They may be ignorant right now, but if they read this material, if they access this material,
21:54one hundred percent they will act, I'm very sure.
21:58And youth are capable of reaching more people than anybody else because they are good with
22:02their gadgets.
22:04And these gadgets are not negative, till now people might have used it just to do some
22:08social contact, but this is the time to use it in a responsible way.
22:14Technologies are powerful means for us to reach, because in the past many great men
22:18have come, many wise men have come, but when they spoke, hardly ten people could hear them.
22:23This is the first time we can talk to the entire humanity.
22:26If we do not do what we really want to do, when this kind of capability and technologies
22:32are in our hands, it shows that we don't care enough.
22:36In our lives, if we do not do what we cannot do, no problem.
22:40But if we do not do what we can do, we are a disastrous life.
22:44I want to make sure all of us, especially the youth of the world, do not live a disastrous
22:49life.
22:50We must do what we can do.
22:51This is something that we can do.
22:55You touched, Sadhguru, on the government a bit, and you sound also not happy about the
23:01democratic governments that come because of their program.
23:05Five years, I don't know, a new government will come.
23:08But in general, what do you have to say for the government, whether they're democratic
23:11or not democratic?
23:13Because that's where the responsibility really comes from.
23:16They have a responsibility towards the soil, towards the environment, towards our life,
23:22in fact.
23:23No, I'm not...
23:24I'm not having problems with the democratic process.
23:27I very much for democracy.
23:29But what I'm saying is, it is a certain process.
23:33Unless people mandate it, they cannot do it.
23:37See, in a... in a country which is ruled by one wise man or one active, proactive person,
23:44things may happen very quickly.
23:46But in a democratic process, people have to mandate it, because every country has...
23:52no matter how rich they may be, they have limited resources.
23:54Where to allocate the money, how to move the government machinery, this is always a challenge.
24:00They will only do it the way people want it.
24:03So people have never really expressed concern about these things.
24:06If people mandate the governments, then they will act quickly.
24:10People have not mandated.
24:12So all I am trying to do is give them that support so that people who are doing the administration
24:18feel confident that they can plan long-term, invest long-term for the long-term well-being
24:23of their nations.
24:24This must happen.
24:25And especially when it comes to soil and ecology, national boundaries mean nothing.
24:31National boundaries are only in our minds.
24:32For the life on this planet, national boundaries mean nothing.
24:36So we need to act as a global force.
24:39Okay, before we end this interview, I would like just to... if you have any message, for
24:46example, for our readers in Dubai, in UAE, United Arab Emirates and the region, from
24:52you, Sadhguru.
24:53See, the UAE and the region is a unique kind of, what to say, terrain and ecology.
25:01Well, they have become deserts, but if people do not know this, for example, the Saudi Arabian
25:06desert over 10,000 years ago was a rainforest.
25:10I'm saying that is how drastically geography can change.
25:15Now in the last twenty-five years, the desert lands in the world have expanded by ten percent.
25:23Ten percent of the world's land has become desert in the last twenty-five years.
25:28That's a serious challenge.
25:30And I've been speaking to some of your leaders and they were telling me in the previous generations
25:35before all this economic development happened, how hard life was in the desert, you know,
25:40how harsh the desert can be on the human person and how harsh it is to get food, to get shade,
25:47to get, you know, to live there, how hard it was.
25:50Now this phenomenal development has happened in the last fifty years, your country is only
25:55fifty years old.
25:57In fifty years, what's been done there is so phenomenal, but you have the advantage
26:02of being small nations that you can turn this around like this, with determined and
26:07wise leadership this has happened, it's very wonderful to see that development.
26:12But in that region, what we do, see wherever, whichever region it is, the simple thing we
26:17are asking for, agricultural lands must have three to six percent organic content.
26:23How you do it is left to you.
26:25But we have made a policy document for each region, considering... considering the latitudinal
26:31position, soil types, economic conditions and agricultural traditions of the region.
26:38Considering all this, for every nation, we have made a separate policy document, which
26:42we will be presenting to every nation.
26:45So similarly for UAE and that region, we have made this document, which we will be presenting
26:51to your leaders when we get there, or maybe ahead of our time, we will present it one
26:56way or the other.
26:57But the important thing about this is, see in a country like yours, slowly creating agricultural
27:04lands is important.
27:05It's hard.
27:06It will take a lot of investments, it is unlike India or Europe where with little investment,
27:12you know, land will bounce back here.
27:14But there it needs much more work.
27:16But if you can create a, you know, if you go on any of the golf courses in Dubai or
27:22in Abu Dhabi, you don't know it's a desert.
27:27So if you can create a golf course, you can also create agricultural land, I'm saying,
27:31but it's expensive.
27:33So there are simple methods with which we can extend, wherever there is little vegetation
27:37from there, year on year we can extend.
27:41This must be a long term, twenty-five year, fifty year policy, that in fifty years' time,
27:46at least any one aspect of what you need, let's say the fruits that you need or vegetables
27:51that you need, something you must be growing by yourself, because without food growing
27:56in the place where people are, it is always a dangerous thing for any nation to completely
28:02depend on some other region.
28:04Because geopolitics can change, you know, many things can happen over a period of time.
28:09Fifty years, so many changes have happened.
28:12From World War II to now, just see how many changes have happened.
28:16So I would say we must aim towards that.
28:20Let us say any one product, at least vegetables we are growing or fruits we are growing, whatever
28:25is suitable.
28:26We have made a policy document for UAE.
28:28Based on that, we can have the whole discussions.
28:31We have been talking to your environment minister, she's been super positive.
28:35She has established a team to work with our teams, they're working together.
28:40I will appraise myself of that before I come there and I will talk about this when I'm
28:45there.
28:46Thank you very much, Sadhguru.