us find the answers to these questions who am i anywhere anyway why am i in this world what should be the goals of my life and beyond that ranveer no matter how good we may be we still want to be better the urge to improve and be the best version of ourselves is common to everyone and what are the tools for self-improvement spirituality hands us such wonderful tools that they can completely transform people's lives so when it begins to blossom we get to realize the interconnectedness of ourselves with all of life and that really makes a huge difference to our happiness to our effectivity the quality of our relationships professional life self-growth all this comes into place so you said something about purpose right now i have a simple but complex question for you is the purpose for everyone the same or is it different depending on who you are at one level it's the same and at another level it's different now behind everything that we want and seek is the urge to be happy we all are looking


is the urge to be happy we all are looking for happiness and no matter what we decide as our goal the only reason we strive for it is because we think it will give us happiness but what is the way to get that happiness so it is important to define the goals of our life and that is where people become confused what should be my goals so i explained to people that look supposing you are having a soccer game where there are 11 players on this side and 11 players on this side and there are two goal posts the game is intense but in the middle of it if the goal posts are removed then what remains so likewise in life if we don't have clear-cut goals then life becomes purposeless so the need to define these goals one goal that all of us have is to try and improve and be the best version of ourselves so this is a auto program written in our soul because creation is striving to take us from our mortal imperfection to immortal perfection and the


our mortal imperfection to immortal perfection and the whole universe is designed to nurture the soul in that journey and take it to that ultimate perfection so the auto program in our soul tells us that i need to be a better child a better parent a better citizen a better engineer better doctor better human being so until we feel that we have reached that urge will remain so this is one goal to be the best that we can be and beyond that is our other urge we want to do the best that we can do we want to see that our work is making a difference it could be in the life of one person but we want to see the chips fly you may have heard that story of the wood cutter he used to cut wood for 400 rupees a day and a social researcher went to him and said i'll offer you 800 double salary will you work for me he said sure i want the money okay come over then so they went over he said here is the axe you


they went over he said here is the axe you will be cutting the trees in my garden but you will be hitting the tree with the round side of the iron head the woodcutter said it will never cut never mind you're getting double the salary so he said all right now he went about hitting the tree with the round edge naturally it was not going to cut and after a week he came and threw the axe at the researcher's feet sir i quit the researchers said why you're getting double the salary he said this is no fun i want to see the chips flying right you are having this channel and what gives you the most satisfaction when you see the chips flying when you see people telling you it's making a difference so all of us want to do the best that we can do and that results in feeling the best that we can feel so these are the three goals you can crystallize for everyone to be good to do good and to feel good the details would vary


do good and to feel good the details would vary for all of us because everyone's at a different level in their own spiritual journey not only a different level everybody is unique this world is full of variety so for example no two trees are alike no two leaves of any single tree are alike we have 7.5 billion people on the planet earth and everybody everybody's biometrics are different so this world is full of infinite variety likewise each of us has our unique potential and the way we have evolved over a millennium of lifetimes we all have different temperaments different propensities different talents so we are all unique individuals and that's the beauty of creation so the idea is not to become like somebody else but to become the best version of your own self i'm actually just getting back from a trip from banaras uh we explored it we absorbed it um we went to a place called manikarnika on uh the banks of the ganga where it's it's basically like and


the ganga where it's it's basically like and i mean for lack of a better way to describe it it's sort of an ancient crematorium where uh bodies of people are burned the one thing i noticed about seeing death there was that people didn't have a negative association with death in banaras for some reason i wasn't specifically on manika nega god there was emotions flying around there was sadness but there was also this kind of strange emptiness i can't exactly explain maybe that's the way i absorbed it so so when i went around asking people i asked a friend of mine who's very well read uh i was told that there's something very humbling about that place manikarnika and anyone who goes there realizes that you know this is what your all your efforts all your goals all your uh journeys end with you end on a funeral bio you end being cremated um so my question is one what do you think of the moment of death and two what do you carry


the moment of death and two what do you carry beyond death like i know you know spirituality says that you carry your karma beyond death but there has to be some other stuff that you're taking beyond death is the reality of life and it's the only thing that is certain in life that is why they say in english as sure as death and life is literally a dead end because we're going all going to end in death so people are disturbed about it because they don't accept because they don't accept that reality however when the sun rises we know it's going to set one day and when it sets we are not disturbed so when we see the phenomenon of death rather than be shocked by it or be troubled by it we should accept it and adopt it into our worldview that is what the buddha did you know he was living in a palace in the midst of so much of luxury and astrologers had told his parents don't let him see life or he will


his parents don't let him see life or he will become detached so they tried to protect him but then one day he went out walking and he saw a dead person he said oh so death is a reality of life i will die one day and we all know he's a sick person an old person so death is a fact of life but our scriptures teach us to understand it from the perspective of knowledge so the bhagavad-gita says every day when you wake up in the morning you take off your old clothes have a bath put on new clothes but you remain the same person likewise death is merely the soul-changing bodies and somebody in knowledge is not disturbed by it so if actually our body is changing in this life itself we had the body of a little child then a youth then an adult likewise at the time of death we will again change bodies so we should decide that it is not something to be disturbed about but what are we going to carry with us


about but what are we going to carry with us at the time of death the gross body is left behind and there are two other bodies that are enveloping the soul that it carries along with it the first is karna sharir our causal body it has our sun scars our karmas of endless lifetimes and the second is the subtle body so astonishingly the mind the intellect the ego these constitute the subtle body they continue with the soul so our mind is not of one lifetime it's coming from past lives and that is why in childhood sometimes you get the feeling of deja vu oh my god i have seen this before why does this seem so familiar right so the french have this term deja vu and we have an explanation for it that the mind is continuing from the past so some of the images etc from the past are embedded in the subconscious so that is also continuing with the soul um what what do you think um what do you think your past


do you think um what do you think your past was that you that you've chosen this life now it's so interesting you ask very few people ask that question i don't know but i can guess sure as a child i just love the hills there was it was such a thrill any time i would go to the hills and that makes me think that i was possibly somewhere in the hills and then just share one episode when i was doing engineering after engineering i got admission into a college in calcutta i am that's right so my parents used to go to a numerologist and he told them that don't let him go to calcutta or he'll take sannyas they said you know he doesn't look like sannyasi material to us they said they let me go and things happened there that completely changed my perspective it did not take time at all so it made me feel that those sun scars were there and it was all destined when the time came that switch got flipped and i just continued


time came that switch got flipped and i just continued on the journey from there so what is sannyas for people who don't understand this word means to renounce sannyas means to renounce everything so this is our indian equivalent of monkhood where we have the student life where you prepare yourself for the rest of life and then after that you enter into household and you want to enjoy life and then at the end of that grihastashram you decide that the real happiness i am seeking is not in all of this so then you start moving towards detachment towards renunciation to finally take sannyas but if somebody decides from the beginning itself that my goal is not the world my goal is the supreme then the scriptures say that you have that option to take sannyas in youth itself so there are primarily two streams of sannyas one are the gyanis there sannyas is motivated by this perspective that the world is unreal so i'm leaving everything that is unreal


unreal so i'm leaving everything that is unreal and going towards the truth and the other is the sannyas in the path of devotion that is the sannyas that i have taken where you don't view the world as unreal or bad or terrible but you see it from as a part of the divine and you make a dedication then i will use my body my mind and my words everything in the service of the supreme so it is not just a question of renouncing but accepting some higher duties what does it feel like what does this whole process feel like especially when you begin versus now after years of as a person yes well ranveer i would like to express it like this if i was to go back and choose my career again never would i choose anything apart from this and why because there's such a strong sense of purpose that i feel i have a purpose and i'm able to align my life my values my efforts my profession with the purpose that i truly believe in and that


the purpose that i truly believe in and that gives so much of satisfaction any hardships any difficulties that come they seem puny and trivial in comparison to that huge purpose that is motivating from inside so it's been a tremendous adventure i first started off as the saying goes to so i started it off as a personal journey and slowly it became a responsibility towards society towards others who look for guidance and for help and it is a tremendous adventure with so much of potential that i just feel life is a huge opportunity and a huge joy and i feel extremely blessed to have this opportunity by the grace of god and my teacher so you know i think one thing people don't understand about a spiritual journey is that uh especially when it begins or when it starts getting stronger you encounter tests and the tests could be anything from a lot of people getting cut off from your life a loved one getting cut off in some form um you know just


getting cut off in some form um you know just maybe a very big challenge which is sent towards you it could even be a lot of power sent towards you to test your will in terms of will you do the right thing or the wrong thing with that power so i mean while i'm sure that you've had countless tests in your own spiritual journey um i'd love for you to highlight one of your recent tests because i feel where you've gotten in your own spiritual journey is so far down like that the further you get the harder the tests get therefore i'm asking about one of the more recent ones that what's happened lately that you have found maybe for lack of a better challenging for yourself or your mind right see tests we can have different perspectives towards it one is oh my god here comes the test oh no i've got to give another test and the other is this is an opportunity to come in touch with my weaknesses and to improve even further so a


weaknesses and to improve even further so a student studies heart and the teacher who is teaching gives a test at the end of the year now the student says no i don't want any tests the teacher says how will you go to the next class right so tests are opportunities to progress further if our value system says that growth is my priority not comfort so even in that test we find opportunities for growth so i think the biggest test is this that so many people look up to a spiritual leader you know for the wisdom that the leader is sharing and it becomes a duty to actually live up to those values to create integrity within where we actually stand up to what people are looking us to be so you have asked me about a recent test now when this corona virus struck initially everybody was confused you know and people were becoming weak so the test was how to keep the congregation strong how to keep them motivated how to keep them full of faith so we just went


to keep them full of faith so we just went through it day by day and how to retain faith in the grace of god and the journey through the coronavirus was very interesting where there were so many realizations on a regular basis so following the government rules i've been able to continue with my travels all the way through i just came back from a five and a half month visit to the us where i went to 20 cities so of course initially there's a need a little bit of courage but then you say okay god is great he's taking care and then people also they have the courage to come when the government does allow so it's been an interesting experience where our faith and the inner strength got tested um so one thing i'd love to know from you is that now one thing i know from doing research on you is that you've you know done a lot of yoga in your life basically and yoga is not just asanas as most people believe it is uh it is an entire lifestyle


believe it is uh it is an entire lifestyle it's an entire thought process uh but you've also highlighted hatha yoga which is the physical aspect of yoga you've highlighted meditation which is a spiritual practice it's been six years now since i began my own spiritual practices which began with meditation i've taken up hot yoga recently as well and every time i take up a new aspect of yoga like how yoga has an eight-fold part ashtanga every time i take up a new aspect of it within a month or two i start seeing some intense things happen in my life it could be a settling down of my own mindset it could be added creativity some new form of creativity that i've never encountered before uh but often every year i have these few very intense spiritual experiences you know you'll just be sitting and meditating and you'll feel an explosion of light maybe you'll feel an explosion of bliss maybe you feel an explosion of some past memory that you forgot


feel an explosion of some past memory that you forgot you know which had probably hurt you really badly but you had buried it like in your own mind you remember that and you kind of let that go you and you wake up the next day feeling lighter so again from that perspective i've assumed that this keeps happening along the spiritual journey like every time that you think it's over and that you think you've reached some sort of peak it's not even like one percent of everything that's left so so if you're comfortable with it i'd love to know some of your intense realizations or spiritual experiences from recently considering where you are on your own path considering how far you've gotten um has there been any experience has just wowed you maybe during an asana during a meditation the spiritual journey is extremely dynamic and there are so many things that are beyond material perception so when we follow this path we start getting those experiences which are unique to everyone some people get more


experiences which are unique to everyone some people get more of them some people get less of them because we have all come with different bank balances so if you had this much of a bank balance little effort gives you more experiences and somebody needs to put in more effort to reach that point so the experiences of everyone are different and these experiences i've had a huge amount of time i prefer to keep them personal but at the same time the experiences they enhance our faith or sometimes they just they're just epiphanies new realizations or certain weaknesses you find they've just fallen off etc but the biggest experience we want to have is what now we may see a light we may hear we may get aromas we may hear sounds that's all very very thrilling but the biggest experience should be that i my mind has become detached and my mind has developed a deep longing for the supreme so the purification of the mind are the imbuing of the mind with divine love that's the experience which


the mind with divine love that's the experience which is of highest spiritual value so but why are these experiences given to us these aromas these lights these sounds is are these tests like is it given to us to distract us initially when somebody first steps on the path these serve as encouragement so you know like they have beginners luck where somebody starts something new and that person is lucky because the universe is just encouraging that person to discover his or her destiny here come on here's a lollipop so likewise on the spiritual journey also initially we could get an experience that just fills us with inspiration or strengthens our faith and then later on these could become impediments so there are yoga cities when you when your mind becomes focused you may start developing mystic powers now these mystic abilities could become a distraction because the mind finds them very fascinating and then the mind goes away from the higher goal that was available and that is why sincere seekers say that i


and that is why sincere seekers say that i don't even want such mystical abilities if god chooses to give it that's a different matter so mystic abilities like what if you don't mind so the bhagavatam states there are eight major mystic abilities and 18 in all so for example to be able to walk on water to become huge like hanuman did or to become very small or to transport an object from somewhere read somebody's mind things like that so these are the mystic abilities maharishi patanjali in his yoga darshan he has gone into the detail when your mind becomes focused you could develop this power and that power and then he ends the whole episode by saying that if you want the highest treasure then reject these slower treasures [Music] this conversation is getting amazing and heavy uh it's beautiful so and i also feel these kind of messages need to be out there especially for listeners of the show and just on the internet in general because when i began my spiritual journey


in general because when i began my spiritual journey these conversations were not there and there was a lack of reference points and i had to go out and find these conversations in the world the certain conversations you end up having with spiritual seekers not just advanced masters like yourself but seekers which just kind of unlock things in your mind and you feel lighter after those conversations you know and that's what we're trying to do through this show as well so where i am now having a conversation with you and hopefully people are listening to this are feeling some kind of buzz in their head um i have a very silly selfish question for you sir which is that uh i notice and i don't know whether it is because of the podcast and having dived into so many minds and having seen everything or it's also because of meditation also combination of the two but why does long-term meditation gives you the ability to observe another human being so deeply where you can tell so much about them is it


where you can tell so much about them is it because your internal world is calm is it because um you're able to sense the energy of that person is it a combination of all these things that's the one thing i've noticed in myself is it a distraction in my path it's just a question yeah i think what you said that it's a combination of everything is very right we all have our auras we all have our energies and as we become little perceptive as the mind settles down we can tap into those energies you know and we can our sixth sense tells us or intuitively we can perceive something about people and at the same time when we have resolved our own issues from inside it becomes easier to assess where somebody else is so possibly likewise when we grow in spirituality we enhance our quality of empathy so empathy is not just awareness of our own emotions but an awareness and a compassion for the emotions of others and that empathy helps us connect with


of others and that empathy helps us connect with what people are feeling where they are and what they are about so that we can help them and facilitate them yeah and also i think the very very key thing to note here which has been a massive learning for me is that don't make everyone's problems yours because there's too many problems out there and when this started happening to me and i felt the empathy increasing i started feeling extra bad for a lot of people around me or people i encountered and it was a massive learning curve for me not to take their pain and put it in my heart that's right so somebody we should see ourselves as facilitators facilitators means that it's somebody else's journey we cannot control it see parents often make this mistake they want to control their children's lives and then when it doesn't happen they feel disappointed so a spiritual teacher realizes that everybody's on their journey people will make mistakes you give them the best of advice


make mistakes you give them the best of advice they may make the mistake a thousand times before the learning happens so we have to give people that freedom so you just share the advice make the wisdom available to others but realize that they will take it at their own pace we have to be willing to stand back when we stand back then we don't get affected um so i have to ask you a very unrelated question and for the listeners of this particular episode you'll be like why is this question even come up and i have no answer to that the question is popped in my head something i've been studying a lot of lately is astrophysics which is you know the physics of the universe black holes the stars and and the deeper you get into astrophysics you realize that the universe is massive it's just incredibly large you don't even understand how large it is if you think it's a large just read a little bit of astrophysics and your mind will be blown away


of astrophysics and your mind will be blown away by uh you know how much more mega it is than you believe it is since you've read the bhagavad-gita since you've studied it so since you've uh read all these holy scriptures does any of the holy scriptures actually talk about the universe as in you know outer space what's out there oh yeah extremely in great detail so it's so fascinating ranveer the western world about 700 years ago only knew that the earth is flat and they believed that the earth is the center of the universe that was the geocentric theory then it moved to the heliocentric theory that the sun is the center and are the scriptures in our traditions the name they have for geography is bhu gol the earth is wrong they knew it all the while and they have explained in so much of detail that there are five mandals three triloki's seven lokas so the first is the chandra bundle whose locus chandralok it is rotating around the


whose locus chandralok it is rotating around the mantle called the bhumandal whose loke is bhulok the earth planet but this bhumandal is also not fixed it's rotating around the surya bundle whose look is and the anthurix the space in between is bhua so this boob creates one three loki but the surya mundra is also not fixed now this i'm telling you from these scriptures what they have described five thousand years ago that this surya bundle is rotating around paramashti mandal and the loka the planet there is jana lok and the parameshti mantal is rotating around another mandal swayambhumandal whose loka is brahmaluk so all this now science tells us that like the sun in the milky way there are a hundred billion suns you know and like the milky way there are a hundred billion galaxies which means that there are 10 to the power 22 suns approximately in this entire universe however now science is talking about the multiverse theory right that


science is talking about the multiverse theory right that there are other universes as well and the vedas say you know what how many universes are there all of this that you are perceiving is one universe like this there are infinite universes and each with one shankar one brahma one vishnu can i tell you a little story show some it is said that once brahma went to meet lord krishna in dwarka and he asked the gatekeeper tell shri krishna brahma has come to meet him so shri krishna asked the gatekeeper tell him which brahma is he he asked brahmaji was astonished is there any brahma apart from me so you tell him the four-headed brahma the father of the four kumars the gatekeeper said shri krishna called him in so brahmati uncoming he said bhagwan what was the meaning of your question which brahma is there any brahma apart from me so lord krishna smiled by his yoga maya he called the brahmas of


his yoga maya he called the brahmas of innumerable universes and they were all coming and offering their pranams and our brahmaji saw that there is one brahma who's got a thousand heads so our chaturmukhi brahma said how big will be his universe and then there was one brahma who had one lakh heads and one brahma who had one crore heads and one brahma who had one out of one billion heads krishna fell at the feet of shri krishna shri krishna said brahmaji there are infinite universes yours is the smallest that is the extent of god's creation and all of this is one-fourth of creation this is the material realm and beyond this is three-fourths which is the spiritual realm where this maya this car this karma cannot go so that is when we say god is great that's how great he is what's out there in the three-fourth it's indescribable because our words can only compare with the glories of what we see here


only compare with the glories of what we see here right now let us say that we wish to give a comparison we will give it with material things and that is made by a different energy so this material realm is made by an energy called maya the material energy and we see the so much of glory in every aspect of material creation you know from the tiniest higgs boson to the biggest galaxies to cristiano ronaldo sure absolutely if there's glory manifesting in everyone to sachin tendulkar so now all of this is glorious imagine the glory of yoga maya when the computer revolution started one college boy came up to me and said swamiji what computer does god use to keep an account of our karmas so i said you know computer is made by the material energy and god has a superior energy called yoga maya by virtue of which he knows everything that we thought of from the time we were born till today not of one lifetime but our infinite lifetimes and not one


one lifetime but our infinite lifetimes and not one soul but infinite souls of creation so how does god manage to do all that by his yoga maya by that yoge maya he creates his divine abode so let it suffice to say that it is sat chit and ahnan it is eternal full of bliss now can you imagine objects made of bliss [Music] and sentient consciousness so that abode is sachin ananth full of divine bliss it's for the perfected souls that means when we reach that perfection we will then be there can you become imperfect when you go there if you fail a test there once we are situated in knowledge then the ignorance will not overcome us again vishnu the soul is on a journey you know so in the journey we are slowly growing and taking a few steps ahead maybe a few steps back and then again few steps ahead but once we reach that perfection it means that now we are situated in knowledge so when you


that now we are situated in knowledge so when you have divine bliss then why should you choose something far inferior yeah something i want to highlight is this concept of satan that i've been reading about a lot lately different cultures call it different names the devil uh you know evil darkness dark energy what people fail to understand is that just like light even dark energy is within everybody and satan is within everybody the devil is within everybody it's just about the proportion of the light versus the dark inside you that actually causes you to think in a certain way or act in a certain way or be calm versus be you know an overthinker be positive versus be negative be afraid versus be brave um i'd love for you to highlight that because that's what i got from what you just said so that once you go beyond a certain point uh you let go of ignorance i think what uh you termed as ignorance can also be a part of this dark energy within everyone's


also be a part of this dark energy within everyone's minds and i'll tell you where this is coming from yes um what we're trying to do through this podcast i've always felt and i know even my closest teammates are all in that same mindset we put it out with a lot of positive energy we put it out to spread healing to spread laughs to spread good intent and that's what's given us material success and that's what's given us numbers and everything that we've gotten now there's a lot of people who are looking at us where we are right now without understanding the six year journey we've been on someone who's followed us from the beginning understands the things we say now but someone who probably sees us now doesn't understand why we're saying what we're saying or why we're talking so much about the things we're talking about and makes a lot of assumptions about us so you know in interviews and we are interviewed as youtubers we often get asked does


as youtubers we often get asked does hate effective so hate doesn't affect me but hate definitely creates questions in my mind in terms of why are these people thinking like this like one of the words associated with me a lot of pseudoscience because i i have questions like these like the questions i've asked you and i'm sure that word gets thrown at you as well so i went and asked a spiritual friend of mine that why is this happening you know what am i doing wrong is it something i need to improve within myself and that person told me that hold on understand the concept of satan first and understand this concept of the balance of light energy and dark energy so one of the outcomes of increasing the light energy within yourself is that all the other dark energy in the world will try pulling your light down and that dark energy is already within these so-called haters is mind or these so-called critics's mind or these doubters is minds and possibly their dark energy


these doubters is minds and possibly their dark energy is not liking the amount of light and positivity you're spreading in the world which is why it manifests as people which are like trying to pull you down which go out of the way to sabotage your career and you have to just accept flow with it also forgive you need to understand that in many cases it may not even be those people themselves it could be their past experiences which are manifested as dark energy which is trying to now uh pull away your light and pull away your positivity so the key is to not get affected and keep doing your thing with laser sharp focus and that's what's worked for me but i'd love for you to highlight uh i don't know this conversation a little more so so uh when we when we bring in the concept of satan then the world becomes extremely complicated because there's this being from which a whole lot of hatred is coming and if we say that there is an all-loving creator then where


we say that there is an all-loving creator then where did satan come from who created satan if that creator made satan then the question arises why did he make satan right so as per the vedas there is no such satan there is the material energy maya now that material energy we can say is trying to trip us it's making us angry desirous greedy proud etc so these are all the the the soldiers of maya that are within us that are within the others and also externally they exist and you can put them in your bodies sure so but the point is that maya also is not an enemy as such it is also an energy of god so from our point of view everything is connected with that one and that is why sometimes the scriptures say you that brahmaji when creation did not exist i alone existed everything that is existing in the form of creation is my expansion because the energies are coming from the energetic like the fire emanates the heat and light so they are one with


emanates the heat and light so they are one with fire so all these energies are my expansions where creation ceases to exist beyond that what is there i exist and when creation will be dissolved i will remain so there's nothing apart from me that material energy does seem to be opposing us but the little known secret is that it's actually facilitating our journey forward and our growth and our growth so very often now to find people hating you is a very common phenomenon because everybody wants to be successful but nobody wants to see the success of others so if you become too successful you will evoke the envy of the others and then people have their perspective now if you go two steps ahead of them you become a visionary but if you go 50 steps ahead of time you become a martyr they want to kill you right so that kind of opposition is natural but self-growth means that we remain unaffected by this so self-growth doesn't mean nobody hates me and that's why


doesn't mean nobody hates me and that's why i'm normal self-growth means that people are opposing and yet we have the maturity and self-control to remain normal so our effort should be that people are as they are how can i rise above this you know i sometimes you may have seen this phenomenon of the crows getting after the eagle so the crows they do dive bombing of the eagle although the eagle is much bigger now the eagle doesn't fight back the eagle just goes higher and higher and higher until the groups give up so likewise when people say bad things etc go within yourself and find your spiritual wisdom to handle that situation and to rise above it i love what you said about the eagles and i think there's a lot of people who actually relate with that what's the spiritual significance of the sun and the moon sir and is there spiritual significance of the sun in the moon according to the scriptures they have a significance in terms of their impact on


they have a significance in terms of their impact on human life so you know from the point of view of astrology all the planets they have their impact so the sun and the moon also have their impact now for example there are mood swings with the moon so the mind has a very strong connection with the moon and that's why the waxing and the waning moon does affect the mind so likewise if the sun dominates it has its own impacts etc so these impacts are more on the material side or on quasi spirituality so there's one quasi spirituality which includes astrology numerology palmistry etc what is the meaning of the word quasi quasi means semi-spirituality you know but if we go into pure spirituality then you can rise beyond all of these because ultimately our mind is our own possession and things can't influence it a little bit but finally what we choose to think in any situation is always a decision that we can make so that is why a good spiritual practitioner would be


that is why a good spiritual practitioner would be one who in negative situations under negative influences can still be perfectly calm perfectly peaceful and having holy thoughts residing within that's what we should strive for you know this is very interesting part of the autobiography of a yogi that talks about astrology and the nature of it where yoganan parananzi explains astrology in detail he's also who i consider to be my guru so again i have read the book i'm sure sir um he he explains astrology from the perspective of for lack of a better word i think spiritual vibrations or electromagnetic vibrations he says that especially the planets in our solar system and our solar system in general gives out a certain amount of electromagnetic radiation in the same way that light has dual nature where you have photons as well as waves every object in the world has a certain amount of energy that it's always emitting like these cups of coffee or the coffee itself has


these cups of coffee or the coffee itself has a kind of energy it's emitting and the larger the object the larger the energy that it's uh emitting so say a like saturn which is so big or a plant like jupiter which is so big imagine the heap of energy that it is emitting or even the moon by itself you know which is so close to the earth the energy that's emitting or the sun and the energy that's emitting these are the energies that uh can affect human beings based on their own past karma their own sanskars and then he goes on to say that the moment you go into deep meditative practice and spiritual practices and you keep making your inner core stronger like in the world of weight training and the world of sports we keep talking about core strength because whether you're throwing a punch or kicking a ball it's about core strength similarly in in the world of spiritualism your core strength is how much you meditate how strong is your faith how


how much you meditate how strong is your faith how strong is your bhakti how good are you as a person the stronger your core the lesser you get affected by those energies and the more you get carried by the goodness of the universe but so in this whole paragraph would you like to add anything that i've missed out on so when we talk about core strength in spirituality it is our control over the mind this mind is the most important aspect of our personality and is the mind what gets affected by those energies of the planet that's right okay see happiness and distress is not a consequence of the circumstances around us what a consequence of the state of our mind so the western philosopher john milton he put it so well he said the mind is a place of its own and can make happen a heaven out of hell and hell out of heaven you know so we are always focused on changing our circumstances i want to move to a better place i want to have more


move to a better place i want to have more opulences in the hope that the circumstances will give us happiness within but spirituality teaches us that your inner state is more important than the outside and if you can fix that you can be happy wherever and that is why the bhagavad-gita is spoken on a battlefield now that is the worst situation of this material realm you can't go worse than a battleground you know everything is agitated and disturbed and even there lord krishna tells arjun you can be perfectly calm and peaceful so the message is so strong that the real peace that you want is an inner state and if you can make the core strong that if you can learn the control of the mind then you become insulated from the outsides so a beautiful definition of yoga is given yogina karma a yogi is one who is doing worldly works the yogi may be a king there are so many kings in the past maybe an administrator maybe anybody is doing all the


past maybe an administrator maybe anybody is doing all the worldly works but is still completely calm and peaceful so for that we need to learn the science and the art of mind management that is what spiritual teachers like swami yogananda were teaching us and you know i think that mind management and mind balancing happens from the world of yoga and again when i'm saying yoga i don't mean just the asanas it's the eightfold path which possibly begins with the physical which are the asanas and then heads into meditation and your thought processes um so maybe to end this particular episode i'd love for you to highlight yoga yoga in people's lives because it said one lifestyle factor that can actually fix all these things everything we've spoken about on this episode basically boiled down to balance and faith balance your inner world have faith in your inner world and these are both the outcomes of a yogic lifestyle so for someone who doesn't know anything about yoga who has just kind of started exploring


about yoga who has just kind of started exploring what would you like to say about yoga in general in the yoga vasisht there's a conversation between bhagavan ram and his guru maharshiva sist so lord rama toured his kingdom and he found that people are sick they are affected by vyadhi or disease he came back and he asked his guru maharishi vasisht gurudev what is the cause of disease so maharishi vasish gave a very insightful answer he said ram disease begins in the mind the mana my kosh when we harbor negative thoughts poisonous thoughts the mental sheath gets disturbed and that disturbance in the mental sheath gets passed on to the pranamaya kosh the vital energy sheath and when the vital energy sheath is out of balance there's more energy going somewhere less somewhere else it manifests in the anumai kosh the grass body in the form of disease so the yogic system is aiming at our holistic health it says that


is aiming at our holistic health it says that you need to keep your physical body healthy because the body is the vehicle for your journey now you know so much about fitness you need four kinds of exercises to be healthy you need the stretches and the flexes you need the aerobics for muscle strength you need the cardio to work your heart and if you can also add to it balancing postures particularly in old age or inverted postures to nourish your brain that would make a perfect mix so the the yoga yoga asanas that were presented in hot yog by swami swathmaram etc they have a complete mix of all of these so it is so amazing that they understood our physical body so perfectly now somebody has backache they go to a physiotherapist and the physiotherapist tells him the exact exercises that were taught in our yogic system thousands of years ago but then this physical asanas is not enough you need to address the vital energy sheet right and for


need to address the vital energy sheet right and for that we have the pranayama now baba ram they've brought about a revolution he emphasized the pranayama and pranayama is said to be even more important than the yogasans because it is addressing your cellular health that 37 trillion cells in your body and pranayama is nourishing all of them but then we have to go beyond to the mind now if the mind is not addressed it will again then undo everything else that was done and that is why in holistic wellness we say that you need to be a positive thinker be optimistic and that is where meditative techniques come in that give us tools for managing our mind but then these are only three koshas the anna mahekosh prana mahikosh and mana maikosh there is another kosh beyond this which is vignan maikosh the intellectual sheath the mind will only be controlled when the intellect holds right values if the values of the intellect are skewed then you say


values of the intellect are skewed then you say okay control your mind so how will i control my mind my mind is hankering for this and anchoring for that so to improve the values we need wisdom and that is where this sacred wisdom divine wisdom comes handy and there's one final sheath called the anand my kosh the bliss sheath ultimately it's all about happiness we all want happiness and where you decide happiness lies your life starts veering in that direction so we have to discover happiness within ourselves and not be like the kasturi deer you know the kasturi deer has the kasturi inside and it's running around outside for the kasturi not realizing it's within so likewise we are hoping that the outside things will give us happiness but like i had told you in the beginning of our episode that secret of happiness lies in improving yourself from inside so when you try and be good and do good that is the secret to feeling good so yoga is


is the secret to feeling good so yoga is an integral wellness system which is addressing all these aspects of our personality thank you this is a fantastic episode um you know it's episodes like this spiritual conversations like this which enter my life in moments where i really need them um so much i've gained from this one no it's not just the pieces not just the answers i got to my own questions it's not just all the stuff you've shared all the information you've shared uh it's sort of this unspoken about energy that i just end up exchanging with my guests and it's an absolute honor to have you on the show speak to you uh and i hope now you understand why i didn't speak too much before the camera started rolling absolutely uh ranveer uh it's been a pleasure i consider it a privilege bestowed on me to have opportunities to share whatever wisdom has come my way and i am thrilled to be with you in this conversation and exchanging wisdom no no


you in this conversation and exchanging wisdom no no i it's much less of an exchange than it is just a gift from your end to us the privilege is us and uh hoping to do more episodes with you going forward so because as i have got to know recently even god is a being that is constantly evolving so what are we you know we are on our own evolutionary paths and i'm sure if i even meet you a year from now even your wisdom would have like uh increased just a little bit so really hoping to have you on the show again so and create more with you definitely ranveer it will be my pleasure to have many more such interactions and look forward to that thank you sir but me before we end this episode uh is there any advice you have for me sir any advice for you yes you have found reasonable success professionally and you have honed your intention to make it more altruistic where you are trying to make a difference through the works that you


trying to make a difference through the works that you are doing keep your resolve firm when you see other people doing differently and getting more success don't be swayed that you know maybe that was the path to happiness i'm telling you what you are doing is the right thing but to do it more effectively what do we need we need to try and improve our own selves see in this journey the biggest obstacle is not from the outside it's always from the inside the stupidity within our own selves so we need to work hard in our profession but we need to work harder on our own selves yes so so keep on working on yourself and you'll do better and better in your work my best wishes thank you there has been this thought in my head of why didn't i begin building businesses earlier in life like why did i do content creation for so long uh and you just answered that question for me i've been comparing myself to business folks who started when they were 21 22.


business folks who started when they were 21 22. and i didn't do that i started later in life so see you runway when i took to this part i was what's your age okay never mind 28. okay i took sannyas at the age 23 and my classmates in iam they thought he's gone crazy what's wrong with him he's just talking about spirituality all the time those the young minds could not understand this but i was firmly convinced and then slowly the world turned around completely and now they come to me and they say what is the goal of life can you please help me understand it right so be firm in your resolve that is one of the most important things thank you so bow down to you and thank you from the bottom of my heart thank you that was our episode with swami mukhodhana and obviously if you've reached this part of the podcast you were completely gripped because you perceive spirituality in the same way that i do like a massive infinite


same way that i do like a massive infinite never-ending library of knowledge astrophysics is a part of it mysticism is a part of it death is a big part of it and of course swamiji will return on the ranvi show please tell me what you thought of this particular episode also tell me what else you would have liked me to ask swami mukudanand with these spiritual episodes i usually just ask the questions that i have at that point in time you know the questions that build up every two or three months that you don't have answers to i save them for these kind of spiritual episodes of course we're going to be creating more spiritual episodes we've also done an episode with swami mukudanand on our hindi podcast so check that out but as for this podcast follow us on spotify every episode of the runway shows available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world lots more feel good episodes of the nba show coming your way stay tuned for the


nba show coming your way stay tuned for the 2022 version of the ranveer show [Music]


conversations with legends from the armed forces are my absolute favorite episodes to create on the ranvir show we've covered a lot of army men stories on this podcast but this episode is with our first guest from the air force we were blessed enough to have air marshal anil chopra on the show he's considered a legend in the world of the indian air force he's got countless stories countless experiences and countless angles when it comes to talking about geopolitics talking about what we refer to as air power strategies related to the air force if you had a chance to check out our episode with major vivek jacob and i know that many of you did and many of you enjoyed it this is that same kind of energy but with a different kind of flavor trust me this is one of the most exciting episodes we've created on the runway show if you just want highlights of this podcast make sure you subscribe to our highlights channel trs clips also make sure you follow us on


channel trs clips also make sure you follow us on spotify every episode is available on spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world but for now this is air marshal anil chopra with his extremely adventurous life story on the ranvir show [Music] so it is an honor having our first ever guest and hero from the world of the air force thank you sir uh this podcast was started with the intention of taking stories from the armed forces and inspiration from the armed forces out to the general public so our first air force podcast begins with an air marshal and it's just a dream for me honestly thank you and um it's a pleasure for me to be with you all and uh it's always uh you know one wants to reach out to the nation and to the young people uh so that we can convey to them what our experiences are all about yes so what do you think this episode is going to be about like how are you looking at this you know i i do


are you looking at this you know i i do various types of you know shows with different people but my you know global aim in life is to have an outreach to the young people to tell them what uh life in the military is all about and what uh you know can it be an inspiration to others so that is the you know mean how i look at this or any uh events that i normally do yes so so while i have all sorts of questions for you uh right from the future of uh the air force to the future of the armed forces in general to geopolitics we have to begin with your story sir uh so you're not from a military background like your family is not a military family for some reason you chose the air force so i'd love to know how this story arc unfolded for you sir yeah you know i belong to a middle class family from a small punjab town called kaput you know and in that place there were not very many good schools when we were


there were not very many good schools when we were small and all the people were looking for some good education for their children all of a sudden one signing school came up in kaputula that was one of the first scenic schools in 1961 and that's the time all the people who had the who were sort of having some status in the town they all wanted to put their children into this school so that's how i joined the school the aim was my father was a small businessman his aim was not to get me into the military so when i joined the school basically it was to have good education and a large number of my friends from the town they had applied and joined but i must tell you once i was in the school i saw people in military uniforms i saw how uh you know our life was extremely disciplined it was like it was like a military kind of you know hostile and uh seeing this i thought this is a great life these guys are my role models and that


great life these guys are my role models and that is how i chose to want to want to join the armed forces but then 1965 what happened and right on top of us i saw some air combat some airplanes flying and that is the time my mind changed from just being a military man to be an air force pilot uh and then as i grew up i applied for the national defense academy and then i went to the academy and then academy of course they hammer you hard uh you know they they make a man out of the little boy that you are and that is uh changed my entire life being an air force carriage i started flying and i found that there was a born flyer in me so did my instructors think and then at a young age of 20 and a half i was a fighter pilot i was flying solo i was flying aeroplanes with bombs and rockets under it i was firing these weapons at firing ranges and that is how i joined the


at firing ranges and that is how i joined the armed forces and i must tell you that i am extremely proud that i took that decision when i look back i think that was the best thing i did in my life yes usually we save the thank yous from the youth for the end of the episode but i'm going to begin with a thank you from the whole country for you sir um you know so many questions related to the air force uh while we've covered the army i i don't i don't think we specifically covered aspects of the air force so how would you introduce it to someone who doesn't even know what say a fighter jet is how would you kind of introduce it to say a four-year-old who's watching this episode for the first time yeah what does the air force do other than just you know taking part in air combat yeah you know i must tell you that air force is well beyond just stereo planes there is so much to the air force and um i've been a


much to the air force and um i've been a flying instructor so i have taught young boys you know who nowadays of course girls also who used to come to the air force and i used to you know educate them how the flying and everything is all about so now what i i must tell you is that of course the basic thing is aviation the aircraft are the first thing whether it's the fighters the transport aircraft the helicopters but there are other departments of the air force a very important department is the maintenance people the people who maintain the aeroplanes get them fit enough to fly they are the guys who look after the administration who are looking at runways who are looking at various other aspects of the you know maintenance on an airfield so it's uh you know it's all-encompassing that person was to look after your hr your salary is your legal aspect like any organization air force is a self-contained organization but of course the core area remains flying because that is where the action is


remains flying because that is where the action is and um of course in military in the indian air force combat flying is what matters and that is where we are yes uh as far as you know telling them how an aeroplane looks everybody has seen it everybody flies in airliners of course what the indian air force does regularly is we have an outreach program for the children in schools and colleges we go and visit them we give them presentations and we have these displays that we are doing all over the country whether it's the surya korean or the flying display team we do paradrops and we have these fighters doing some low-level aerobatics so that is how we are trying to outreach the youth yes so what's the feeling like when you sit in a fighter jet for the first time you know what does the boy inside every fighter feel like can you describe your own experience yeah you know firstly i must tell you when i when did i see a fighter aeroplane


when i when did i see a fighter aeroplane for the first time you know there was an exhibition here in uh near you know in the exhibition grounds in delhi that was in 1969 or 1670 uh nat used to be the famous aircraft those days and you know in the exhibition there was an aircraft which was on display and when i looked at that aircraft i could not believe it's so small you know that is one of the smallest aircraft ever built in the world fighters it was so small i thought i was seeing a model till uh somebody's standing over there told me sir no this is not a model this is the actual aircraft and i tell you the cockpit was so small the size was so small and when i physically saw when i joined the air force that same aircraft and the others you know you're literally squeezed into a very tight space in a fighter cockpit because the aeroplane has to be kept as thin as possible so that it can go


kept as thin as possible so that it can go fairly fast so they don't have too much of drag so therefore the the experience that you get first time touching metal first time when you walk around the aeroplanes first time you sit in the cockpit it's it's out of the ordinary and i'm telling you of course fighter pilots are some people think they are big snobs but uh you know it's the most dynamic and most uh you know thrilling experience one can have is to fly a fighter airplane at high altitudes yes so what is what is the thrill aspect of it like if you could describe that a little bit yeah you know different people derive thrills from different things somebody does you know paragliding somebody does you know something on the ground somebody is a great sportsman you know so everybody derives thrills from different activities that they do in life but you know whenever you do people especially who do extreme sports you know or do deep sea diving the levels of thrill are also


deep sea diving the levels of thrill are also indirectly linked to the level of risk that is involved in that whole exercise so in in an aircraft the you know to be able to maneuver to be able to do aerobatics to do hard turns in an aircraft the uh you know the forces on your body have a hell of a lot the risk level is fairly high you know later on if you allow me i will tell you i'm the only air marshal in the world to have ejected from a fighter aircraft because my aircraft engine blew up in the air and that was at an age of 59 years plus so there is a level of risk there may have been at least eight to ten occasions in my life when i had a close brush with my life you know in the air and all those i have subsequently documented them so that you know they were lessons to be learned from each case and so that the young pilots of the future can uh you know benefit from it


of the future can uh you know benefit from it so why wait for later why don't you just take us through the story right now yeah okay you know i i i talked about this ejection which has been uh a big thing because it became my headlines in all the media within few minutes of it actually happening it was in gwalior 24th february i had as marshall gone on a sort of a official visit to the base there too and i went into the same squad which i had commanded many many years back the mirage 2000 squadron so in the coordinates traditional for senior military officers to lead from the front to go and fly to show to the young boys that okay we are as strong and as bold as you people young people are so i traditionally when the senior person comes the ceo himself flies with you in a two-seater but being a mirage pioneer i was doing all the flying and so we got the airborne and after we got within five minutes we had


airborne and after we got within five minutes we had climbed climbing at around the height of 11 000 feet and when we heard a huge bang at the back just behind this rear seat and when we looked inside we found that the engine rpm was winding down the temperatures had shot up the firewire warning light had come up so uh that is an indication that engine has quit something obviously happened either something has hit the engine or something is broken inside later on we found out it is some turbine blade had broken but then the aircraft now is a fighter class or aeroplane starts descending very quickly you get a few seconds to take quick calls uh and it's a test of your training uh a test of your years of experience that time and you have to take a quick this year so between the two pilots we were one was trying to restart the engine and the other was reading out all the parameters supporting each other and when the time came that okay we're running out of height


the time came that okay we're running out of height now so i gave a call to the other person and that the call is recorded on internet all over because that call became very famous i said ram it's time to go let's pull the handle because that boy's name was ram the person who's sitting in the other cockpit and then we pull the handle and you know i must tell you um the entire ejection process after you pull the ejection seat handle takes about two and a half seconds in two and a half seconds in this particular aircraft 19 to 20 rocket stroke cartridges fire in a pre-designated sequence and uh movement that sequence cannot change i mean happens very very fast and many things have to be done you know your body is to be pulled back the canopy has to be flown away lots of things and then you start the rocket must start firing in such a way that your neck or back doesn't go through compression so like that a lot of activity takes place and in that


that a lot of activity takes place and in that two and a half seconds the body is going through high g that is a force of gravity close to 28 30 g's you know that's one hell of a lot of force your eyes immediately go through a blackout because the blood from your brain drains downwards and then after two and a half seconds when the parachute opens my god that is bliss that's the time you feel oh my god i'm all right i'm alive and then you see the beautiful green countryside under you and that's the super absolute feeling and of course the parachute then descends in my case uh the ejection was on uh in chambal uh a region we all know chambal has got these little mons uh you know it's um so but you know when you go by train through chamber you get an impression that these are of mud but when you actually hit them they are rock solid because you have seen hundreds of years of weather wind and you know rain so they are


of weather wind and you know rain so they are rock solid and uh you know of course there after the story is long one how i reached the helicopter came how we went over there but i want to tell you one very interesting thing uh that what were my feelings when i came out alive from this accident you know this is something i i want the youth to understand you know everybody introspects for that moment that god forbid today if i had not come back i had gone then i asked myself what is it that i wanted to do in my life and i had not done and two things came to my mind i always wanted to learn a musical instrument i had never learnt a musical instrument and second thing came to my mind i always wanted somebody to bake bread in the house which had never happened so i told myself that the moment my initial hospitalization finishes one or two days you have to be in the hospital because they have to check you out that's the first thing i


have to check you out that's the first thing i did i went to delhi's school of music in chanakya puri and i went and told them that i want to learn a music musical instruments and then between us me and this school decided that i must play saxophone so i went and bought a saxophone and within you know 20 25 days i played my first song and today i can play the national anthem on the sex afford but that's not what we're going to do today and the second thing we got a good chef to come and teach us how to make bread at home so the point i'm making is you know life is short it has got its own dynamics and so there is a you must you know fulfill your desires as and when as early as you can uh so that you don't have to regret later in life yes wow so that's a heavy story uh but um you know i gotta take you back to that moment so um i don't think the


back to that moment so um i don't think the aamjanta understands what high g's actually feel like you know and as far as i can tell i believe as uh air force uh pilots as fos personnel you're you are trained to deal with hygiene gradually so what is that concept like and what actually happens in your brain what's the experience of it yeah you know ga is a force of gravity we all know when we are sitting on the i'm sitting you're sitting on a chair we are experiencing one g that is the way the earth is pulling to us we all know that every body attracts each other it has the relation to mass and you know the size so we are getting i'm we are experiencing 1g when we are sitting now in an aeroplane in airliner when the airliner turns they turn very very gently and softly but yet you experience 1.2 1.3 gs that means a little more than your normal g that you would now imagine if this uh


normal g that you would now imagine if this uh even fighter aeroplane as you turn faster and faster typically a mirage 2000 f-16 class of aeroplanes they can maximum go up to nine g's because they've been designed otherwise it's human because then you hit the human limits of sustaining surgeries now to improve your capability to withstand g's there is a special g suit which you which is made to wear remember you know the soft parts of our body are the bellies and the thighs and the calves when you when any force was to be exerted on our body and the blood was to get drained the blood tends to accumulate at the you know in your belly or on the thighs or in the calves because that's the place where there is a place for the blood to be able to go so the g suit is such that you wear the g suit it has got special bags and automatically the air starts filling up at high pressure to compress these portions uh so that


at high pressure to compress these portions uh so that the blood does not go so that is how the energy is controlled and when you are a young pilot you initially fly in a piston engine aeroplane and slowly graduate to jets and then you go to high performance aeroplanes like mirage 2000 mig-29 etc so by the time you reach those aeroplanes your body has been gradually built up from that 1g to 3 4 5 gs and then slowly slowly that you reach the 9g stage now what all happens is even with those bags that you are wearing you know special g suit the at higher gas still the blood drains and beyond a point once the blood drains out of your brain then you start getting a gray out and later on a blackout because the blood from the eyes also goes downwards and that is what is called so the aeroplanes have been designed to take not more to not to go more than 9g and these bags will reduce the total impact of that


and these bags will reduce the total impact of that 9g to maybe four or five g's so that is how uh this whole exercise of g takes place yes so what do you understand about the sky when you actually start flying and you know you also said something like you were natural born fighter pilot like you had some sort of god-given talent so could you take us through these two questions because it's something i'm trying to wrap my head around yeah you know in national defense academy nda till fourth term you are doing combined training army navy air force we do combine training in the last one year that is you know fifth and sixth terms you start doing specific to your service training so we have something called the air force training team there and that is where we used to go and trade now when the ground subjects started i realized that uh you know i'm among the toppers as far as the ground subjects was concerned related to aviation i was not the brainiest of guys otherwise and then when


not the brainiest of guys otherwise and then when the flying started they teach you gliding there in nba and when i took to the air for the first time i knew that my god this is quite all right and my instructor also started realizing that there is something in this guy who in the first attempt itself is being able to fly the aeroplane very accurately so i myself sensed it my instructors sensed it and you won't believe it that in india i was selected to go for the trophy check for being the best pilot among the air force guys and subsequently when i did get my commission i won all the flying trophies but at this stage itself in national defense academy my inclination to flying was so strong that i created a cockpit of an airplane which i was going to fly next in my own cabin and the entire senior hierarchy of the national defense academy and my own batch mates they all used to come and sit in my cockpit which was


used to come and sit in my cockpit which was fully functional and i had made it off cardboard and wood myself so i realized that my love for aviation is in my veins it's in my blood and that uh my instructors told me and each stage of my training and subsequently as a test pilot i i was stopping all the uh you know causes related to flying per se so there are people who have got that natural flare to fly not many have many i have to struggle work very very hard to get there uh but it's uh they say it's god given it's like you know motor skills you know some people learn cycling or swimming or some other motor skills much faster than the others so it is i think something to do with the this motor skills of the individual your second question was what do you learn about the sky sir skye yeah you know now when you get airborne for the first time uh it's like uh you know you know when we were small we were not


know you know when we were small we were not allowed to climb kutta minar because they had already stopped it but if somebody had gone to eiffel tower which i went much later in my life you get a view of the earth you get a view of the you know horizon when you're flying in an airliner which most of the people do nowadays you can if you look out of the window with some inquisitive people are all the time looking out of the window and you see a horizon you can see at very high altitude the earth is curved so there is a different feeling you get in the sky especially when you're flying alone many are so low it's you she she means the machine the aeroplane we call her she the aeroplane is normally called she so you are with her and and thereafter you're on your own means the whole world is below and you are there in the sky and you know when you fly in a very high altitude sorting which i did in the mig


very high altitude sorting which i did in the mig 21 i flew at a altitude of 21 kilometers that's about 65 000 feet now at 65 000 feet you're very very close getting to the space you know at 100 000 feet onwards you can say you're at about 100 kilometers in any case the full space starts and that's where all these space tourism people are going nowadays so uh it's some people say it's a lonely feeling because you're alone that you're far away from the earth so that kind of a feeling even some astronauts have said when they went out first time you felt lonely i did this i got a similar feeling that i am alone i'm so far away from the earth so that kind of a feeling you get of course sky changes colors i've seen a rainbow which is full 360 degree circle because we see on the ground a rainbow because we are you know static on the ground but from the air you'll from some angles you'll see a rainbow which in the


some angles you'll see a rainbow which in the full circle yeah you know because of the angles so the sky has its own you know dynamics charm the colors change you if you do day flying you do dusk and dawn flying you do night flying you you know how the earth changes sun is already set here on the ground and i take off at a dust sorry and after some time i've got sun again in front of me so you know so the sky has a lot of dynamics yes wow wow um so like you know what could you describe something else that the am gender won't understand about flying that high is there anything crazy that you've seen that you've also not been able to wrap your head around you know the the the one thing of course which is a little more serious in uh the air is the weather you know especially these uh thunder clouds uh they they can i have had two three flights long duration in the thunder cloud didn't even have a weather radar to tell me


didn't even have a weather radar to tell me that where am i going and the way the aircraft tosses it can be especially sometimes you know when an airliner takes off and you immediately after takeoff especially in mumbai because there is so much of more rain there and sometimes you're coming for landing you know till the very last minute the pilot doesn't get to see the runway it's happened with me i have in monsoon tried to land and transport aircraft which i was flying as a test pilot and uh you it's a close uh you know uh call that you have to take uh whether to continue the landing or to go around and make another another attempt so there are weather is an issue uh which is of uh you know dynamics and the second issue which is of dynamics is uh when you do a to a combat with multiple aeroplanes in the air that is uh you know your situational awareness where where is who who's your friend who's your for uh how you how to


your friend who's your for uh how you how to maneuver to position and not get shot up yourself not to let other guy be behind your tail so there is a lot of dynamics in air combat especially when it's in a multi-role aircraft one more area where you get extreme amount of thrill is when you're doing air to ground gunnery and you're getting good results you drop a bomb and it falls on the pin you know you know from that height the sort of excitement and the thrill that you get out of that is absolutely out of the ordinary but same i'm sure uh when somebody on a you know firing range on the ground does it and gets a bullseye you know the excitement is that much there yes um we have to ask you about air combat sir what was your first experience like and uh what was your most intense experience like of air combat yeah you know in air combat first thing they do for to train you is to learn to do aerobatics that


train you is to learn to do aerobatics that means to be able to throw the aeroplane in all dimensions at all different speeds so that is the first phase where you are taught basic combat maneuvering by doing solo aerobatics in different forms which you start doing very early in life thereafter you come to the next stage which is called one versus one that means there are just two of you trying to do combat more opening between the two of you or you could be positioned uh you know visibly abreast on the two aircraft in the air and then you look at the other guy and the aim of this whole one versus one maneuvering is to not let that guy get behind you rather you try to get behind him so that because to fire a missile or gun uh you know basically you have to get behind the other person of course nowadays there are weapons that you don't have to get behind anybody you can fire from beyond visual range and you can fire


can fire from beyond visual range and you can fire it you know the missiles are there right from front quarter you can fire so that is different but when it comes to air combat close combat we call it that is how it is then you graduate to two versus one and then you graduate to two versus two and then you graduate to four versus two like that the number of aeroplanes and the degree of difficulty changes and you could actually be vectored by a ground radar there are four guys going on a strike two of you are coming as interceptors you could be vectored from the ground radar and you could then pick up on your own airborne data and then you close up to that guy and then engage into a combat so these scenarios keep adding and then for the complexity can be uh complications can be added by bringing electronic warfare that the other guys did uh you know system jams your radar so you can't see them through your own data so like that in air combat many many


own data so like that in air combat many many you know complex situations can be created and you you continue to train and it you know to reach this forward system and all it could take five six seven years of flying training that's the and at each stage when you graduate from one stage to the other you have some operational status attached you first made operationally fit for day only then your operational fit day and night then you become a two aircraft leader then you become a four aircraft leader that means you can carry four people with you you know behind you as a leader so like that there are various phases of air combat training and status yeah so what's been your most intense combat experience yeah you know uh it's difficult to qualify because there'll be more than one there will be there were many cases where the numbers of airplanes involved were large and since it is these are practice sorties but our aircraft have got multi-function displays we have got our radar the head-up display is there


have got our radar the head-up display is there all the pictures are recorded so when you come back and debrief of course now there are powerful debrief tools everybody's position is being recorded on the ground and you play the entire combat on a single screen everybody's aeroplanes can be played like what you see something in a you know video game so to say a particular uh you know a combat was something special it's difficult to say but there were many uh times when um air combat was complex and when you came and debriefed you found okay who all made what mistake i mean how how do you improve of course uh you know it's a never-ending uh exercise yeah so i'm almost embarrassed to ask you this question because i know that the armed forces do not like this question but again i am sort of a spokesperson for the aam janta so there was a movie called top gun that i had seen when i was a teenager and it had made me fall in love with the


and it had made me fall in love with the idea of the air force as it did with so many young people um and i the reason i am embarrassed to ask you this question is because i know that movies are not a good representation of the armed forces that's what i've heard from armed forces all across navy army air force but i would still ask you that is top gun the one movie that represents air force training well or is there another movie you know that comes close to the real thing yeah you know i'll tell you my take on this movies is slightly different you know i i feel there are lots of good movies made by different countries in in america uk india good movies each movie the director tries to bring in some love story or some different other angles so it's part of our lives we all have love stories of our own so the point i'm saying is that's okay good movies have been made in india good movies have been made top gun was very good movie when it


been made top gun was very good movie when it was released i was doing training in europe and you know so we were thrilled i saw that movie two three times and of course tom cruise did a great job and i really like that interpreter girl of you know him but i must tell you an interesting thing immediately after that i was to take a flight those days i think the year was 87 and i was flying from there to i i was going from amsterdam to uh moscow and that the flight would land at warsaw and when i went to the boarding gate and i was waiting and um no passenger was there at the boarding gate i was there alone and then after some time some hostess came she said so if you're ready we can go uh i said okay if it's time to go i go i went inside the aircraft and i found the aircraft empty and she said sir you can sit wherever you want i said interesting i said no the boarding pass has got some seat you know


no the boarding pass has got some seat you know you can sit wherever you want and then she closed the door i said well what about the other passengers he said sir no you're the only passenger on board today so i asked this question i said how many crew says uh two pilots three hostages i said now you have three pilots three hostesses so you know i said that now you've got three she says you're a pilot she i said yes he said what pilot i had just finished my mirage 2000 training and uh i said mirai she says fantastic i know i till today i've got some lovely pictures of those three hostages in me taking some pictures in the cabin then they invited me to the cockpit i sat with them no coming back to this story about movies yeah there is an element cinematography has to be brought in into a movie but i tell you a lot of things that are shown are truth they may be a little exaggerated which is fair enough because


be a little exaggerated which is fair enough because you want the public to understand but the kind of operations that take place whether it's from the runways or from the aircraft carriers that they show in you know this movie it's fairly realistic the kind of life they have in the in the bar in the evening how do they do the briefings and debriefing they are very very uh realistic uh you know uh movies and some of the movies even you know the army movie hakika was made in 1960s immediately after the china award it was fantastic and they were some uh dedicated the border movie we showed some good stuff they were other air force related vegeta was an excellent air force related uh movie shot mostly in pune and mumbai so great movies and by and large yes uri was a great movie a military movie so my convention is that uh the movies do show fair amount of uh realistic uh stuff of course little exaggeration is always there we saw this movie recently on


is always there we saw this movie recently on ott of this girl what is uh a little exaggeration over there about these toilets not being available for girls and all that but otherwise the movie was nice they showed some good helicopter flying yeah so the good thing for a movie producer is to have a some military advisor on board who will make sure that technicalities you know if you put the ribbons on the wrong side it the showboat you know the research by the producer or the director so if those little little things are looked after overall i think that their movies are depicting good stuff and uh you know they always showing the armed forces in good light which is important for us also yeah yeah um so the one question i have to ask you is something i've never been able to wrap my head around as an outsider uh so as an outsider you assume that the air force is active in air combat only during war situations because it will it will you will basically be combating with the


it will you will basically be combating with the planes of another country the jets of another country uh because they're the only people who can afford it now the the uh kind of perceives the armed forces to be engaged in air combat only during say a war like you would assume that it was last during the cargill war yes definitely you will have a role to play in something like a surgical strike where you're looking at the ground and there's a ground target but uh is it correct to say that like like what can you tell us about air combat when does it happen outside of wars like and if yeah yeah you know i must tell you that you know wars happen once in a while and in many countries they don't happen anymore and we hope that it never happens nobody in the military or in any country wants what's to happen but you're training your training and your preparedness is the deadlines for or not to happen so whatever we do during peace time of course


happen so whatever we do during peace time of course one is the combat related training for which what all we do we do air-to-air combat practice we simulate one is the enemy adversary sort of i wouldn't use the word enemy adversary aeroplane and the other one is you know friendly aeroplane so we do some exercises in air combat second we do is eight a air to ground gunnery air to air gunnery you know we practice firing weapons on ground targets so that when actually the balloon goes up that you are going to hit the targets and not to waste your weapons weapons are very expensive nowadays and then you do air-to-air firing now you remember this balacode strike that we did we fired the spice uh you know glide bomb now that spice glide bomb costs three million dollars you know a fair amount very 300 000 dollars not 3 million 300 000 fair amount of money so these weapons and this is the among the cheaper there are weapons which are costing in


the cheaper there are weapons which are costing in millions you know so you do practice for these also but the number of weapons that the country can afford to make you practice is very little because it's very expensive and best kept forward but such weapons are so accurate that they will uh 99 percent go and hit the target at the on the spot so you know that is why they are expensive that's why they have been sort of made with such high technology has been embedded in peace time there is a lot of other things that the air force does you know one is that uh you know assistance to uh of relief during disasters for example you know uh armed forces are the first to go in the last to come out they are the first movers in case of a disaster you know though we have got ndarf and so many other agencies home ministry has got police has got each state has got something but the country's world over realized that the faster to me the move will be the armed forces


faster to me the move will be the armed forces so the air force picks up even if they have to pick up the army guys they have to pick up the ndrf guys the doctors the supplies you know when an earthquake takes place there's no landing ground so helicopters have to go and drop the first thing is to save people so get them some food and medicine and then to see if there's a landslide the people are underneath that so the army must move in quickly to be able to clear that place so there are a lot of activities that the armed forces do they are there in india there is some flood or drought brought all over the country somewhere or the other a cyclones are hitting our east coast every year four five of them hit and even in gujarat we we know lot of cyclones so that is where the armed forces in peace time are you know coming and if you see what we are doing in kashmir we are picking up small babies we


kashmir we are picking up small babies we are carrying them we are organizing deliveries of ladies we are doing at remote places we are going and giving them food we are giving them electricity we are giving them you know facilities for education so lots and lots of things the armed forces are doing in peace time other than preparing to have a capability building which will be required in war yeah got it um so how does one become an air marshal like how do you actually rise up the ranks in the air force other than taking part in combat i'm the assumption is that you have showcased leadership on many levels and that's why you've earned the promotion but could you explain how you showcase leadership you know within the air force itself is it strategic is it man management like what is it yeah you know uh somebody a superstar may not become a marshal some very ordinary guy may grow up to be a martial but that's a generic statement you know i personally feel uh that's


generic statement you know i personally feel uh that's what i want to tell you you know viewers is that you must love the profession you are in or get to the profession you love you know there is no in between place we all know we all saw that movie three idiots and we saw how there is confusion among the youth to choose their profession because of the peer pressure pressure from parents you know career building making money you know all kinds of things come but the most important thing life is first is you should enjoy this life is once and then that one time whatever you do you must enjoy my second point on this is passion and enthusiasm you know in my life these are the most important two words of my life passion that means you must love what you're doing whatever you're doing you're right now i'm writing books after retirement i'm loving writing that books okay i was in the air force i used to love to fly i wanted to wanted to fly again and again and again you


to wanted to fly again and again and again you know even though i know there was a risk to it so one is passion and second is enthusiasm you know these two words together make a word called josh if you have passion and enthusiasm boy you can uh you know do wonders so these two at very young age i imbibe these two things passion and enthusiasm now in service there are you know to be a good officer to rise up in rank or otherwise there are many traits as you yourself just pointed out leadership very important that you have to lead people from the front and the leadership doesn't start as an air marshal the leadership starts at a very young age you know when you are leading a small section of two airplanes there's a flying officer of lake clifton and you're a leader so leadership is very important you know personal professional capability is also very important you know that is even more important than leadership which becomes important little later is you should be professionally very good


important little later is you should be professionally very good i should be a great flyer i should have technical information about the airplanes if somebody asked me a question i should know about the enemy i should know i should have a lot of it and you know these guys get seen at young age you know great professional great flyer always has directives in a bomb he is you know scoring high marks in every test that he is going through you and therefore your annual assessment reports become better if you are more capable then are you carrying are you a team man or you're a one-man show you know that's very important there are many people who are want to outshine everybody do everything themselves but they're not team people they don't carry their others with you so team is of two types i have to join up with others others have to join up with me so there are many many aspects of our personality uh that uh count when you go higher of course there is a little bit of luck always


of course there is a little bit of luck always because the promotion ratios are very adverse means uh beyond the rank of wing commander if between every three guys only one makes so the pyramid is very very steep and only very very very small percentage become a martial so i think i'm also lucky uh that i'm sure they were a point comes then the differences between individuals is very little uh so hard to quantify these performances uh though i've been in the head of hr in the indian air force myself uh it's it's very very difficult sometimes one feels bad that somebody who was equally good didn't make it you know to that rank so that way yeah god was kind god has been extremely kind throughout yes so i feel uh you know the people who are promoted are often the ones with sort of the best energy and that energy is allowed to trickle down then to the rest of the team it's it's the same logic like when dhoni was captain there was you know


like when dhoni was captain there was you know a sense of calm in the entire indian cricket team when kohli was the captain there's a sense of aggression so each captain brings their own personality to the team and that's what i'm assuming about the military as well so absolutely absolutely it's it's like that you know you get some fantastic great examples you have given and so you know as you grow in each cotton you require people of different makes because everybody can't be identical and then only you form a good team and out of those team the leaders emerge yeah [Music] what have you learned about leadership sir because i'm sure you had a learning curve when it came to leadership what what's your take on it you know you see uh for me uh on leadership uh most important is to find a role model and become one you know i think this is the key thing about leadership is all of us as we grow are watching a large number of people in better


grow are watching a large number of people in better positions in senior positions and we are seeing traits in each one of them which you like now each guy may have one or two traits may not have other five and like that there are many guys and there are some guys who will have maybe more maybe four out of the five traits they have got so each one of us in each profession in our life we choose we look for role models similarly i used to tell my own self i am looking for role models there are others who are looking for role models for whom i could be a robot so if for a good leader i personally feel is to find good role models and try to become a good role models you know we all know the kind of traits i can on a table to take a chart and list a hundred traits they're available on the internet any amount of leadership traits are available over there the second part of leadership is the buck stops here shoulder is yours for every success


buck stops here shoulder is yours for every success the team it's the success of the team for every failure it's mine i am responsible for that because i was the head of the family so this head of the family culture is very very important a large number of people in this world who the first sign of failure they're looking for escape goods they will blame it on somebody but he's not a good leader a leader must take the responsibility on himself and when it comes to success he must distribute that success to everybody so i think these two aspects of leadership is what i think uh you know are very important yeah um so you've been a part of the air force for decades now uh even after your retirement you are still you know uh kind of you are a part of a think tank when it comes to air power uh while i know this question is very wide and maybe your answer you know is actually very elaborate feel free to answer it in short and long however you deem fit


answer it in short and long however you deem fit what is the future of the air force because what people understand is that drones have become a big part of the air force military warfare is changing artificial intelligence is coming in and of course after this we're going to do a geopolitics episode so you'll get to break it down there as well but could you shed a little bit of light on this what's the future of um fighter pilots basically yeah you know since you in a preamble you said that you know after you retired i i must tell you the day i retired you know traditionally and a marshall is given a favorable cup of tea by the air chief so i went to the chief and when i finished my 15 20 minutes that he had to give me uh he asked me what is your plan now so i told him i said now i am the foot soldier of indian air force so he said no no no you are an air marshal you can't be a foot


you are an air marshal you can't be a foot soldier you will be our ambassador i said no ambassador is big i said my single mission after retirement will be to promote air power and bring in positivity in the youth of the country and i am telling you since then till today that is what i have been doing the government was very kind they made me a member of an armed forces tribunal where i could give judgments to look after the welfare of our people eleven hundred judgments i passed in four years as a judge in a tribunal which was equivalent of a high court judge i worked with national green tribunal on special projects that they gave me i was on the executive council of johanna and hero university so in many ways and thereafter uh 600 plus published articles i have written and four books and that's how they made me this director journal of this think tank center for a past studies and as far as your question is concerned where are we heading you know in


is concerned where are we heading you know in all times and in most walks of life there is a demand of a thing and then the technology produces it today the times have changed there is technology which is driving future of air power and space bar and practically every walk of life including medicine you know it it's the technology which allowed you to do arthroscopic surgeries allowed you to have you know your heart be repaired without uh you know actually cutting you up so same is true for the airport you know the drones before that the military got the unmanned uh uninhabited air vehicles i don't want to use the word unmanned anymore before somebody takes uh so uninhabited air vehicles and from that came these smaller drones and in civil life you know the deliveries the delivery of medicines to your milk packets everything you know newspaper will all be delivered by drones here your all the movies are being made using drone cameras the drones have got policing roles drones