Depth Requires Depth – Ideas from Dr. Kapil Gupta

0:00 The original is always the original. The secondary is not the original and never will be. When you hand something over to someone, it's finished. The bigger the group, the less there's possibility for truth. I think motivation is nonsense. And I think the attempt to motivate is nonsense. Internal drive makes things happen, not motivation. There must be a talent to sell the idea of it's all hard work is garbage. It's pure garbage. There must be a talent. And that talent can't just be dormant. The realization is the doing.

0:41 There's no doing on top of that. That just removes you from realization. That's why the ultimate power in anything is to know the truth about it. Not to have the five steps. No one understands that your degree of suffering in this life doesn't depend upon how many meditations you do or how many five steps depends upon do you know the truth about life about the world about yourself about the things that you experience Dr. Gupta, thank you for taking the time to join me today. Today, I wanted to start by quoting something you wrote in one of your public discourses. You said, "Where there's a group, there cannot be truth. Where there's an organization, there cannot be truth. Where there is an institution, there cannot be truth."

1:41 My question is what's your observation for why there cannot be truth within such groups? Well, it's difficult enough to find truth. It's difficult enough for a human being himself to be interested in truth first of all. I mean the number of individuals who were actually interested in truth is very very very small. So even that itself is difficult and then to expect or to hope that we'll be present in a group. It's not practical to expect that. Number two, where there's a group immediately humans go into social behavior. They don't act and react and think and approach matters the same way as if they were alone. And it's not wrong or right.

2:38 It's just it's sort of like a reaction. And because of that, there's all sorts of noise. There's all sorts of extraneous events that are occurring on a mental level that the person may or may not even be aware of just by virtue of the fact of being in a group. That makes truth impossible. It's literally impossible. Does that mean nothing can get done? No. But if the question is regarding truth, no, that's not compatible. In the same discourse, you also wrote, "If a leader is interested in truth, there will be no other who shares such a desire or nature or DNA.

3:17 The more he strays from his essential nature and vision, the more he moves towards any semblance of societal norms and expectations. The more he strays from his own purity of vision, the closer he moves toward an inevitable demise. Now these days in Silicon Valley, people have dubbed this founder mode. And I'll also observe in practice in a sufficiently large organization it is nearly impossible to accomplish this. So that brings me to a question which is can a leader who truly understands the truth get himself to lead a large organization of hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of people.

4:05 No matter what, there's always the element of what is mechanically practical in one one's particular circumstance. I guess the question is not can it be done. The question is how interested is one in doing it and how committed and devoted is one to it. Not that he should be or shouldn't be. So if someone happens to like one can find a way to do anything if he's devoted to it. If something is completely not acceptable to someone, they'll find a way for it not to be allowed. Period.

4:38 So, I don't believe in the can it be done stuff because you will find that with humans, things can be done that are allowed to be done and things that are allowed to be done are things that are okay with the human to be allowed to be done. And that isn't wrong or right. That's how humans function. So, I don't think the question is can it be done. The question is if someone is really committed to something, you know, then they're committed to something, they will do whatever is possible within the scenario to be able to accomplish the acceptable parameters of what they insist upon and that's how all humans are. So, and then you know this piggybacks on the group thing, you know, I think a company is a kingship. I think it's a kingdom.

5:25 That doesn't mean that one has to believe me or go by what I think. But I know for a fact that there's no democracy. There is a workforce and work needs to be done and a workforce needs to be gathered in order to carry out you know the work. However, the like what is a company if it doesn't have a vision? And if it's only about making money, well then that's fine. And you can sell used shoes and make a lot of money, too. So, I'm not saying if it's only about making making money, that's wrong. Like, it is what it is for you, right? There's no it shouldn't be this for you. If it is, that's fine.

6:04 But, like, I have to speak from like where I sit as well. And so, on the one hand, I will always say it is for whatever it is for you. That will always be the case. No matter what, it's whatever you think it is, whatever your sensibilities are, whatever grabs you, whatever interests you, that's always the case. 100% of the time. But on the other hand, like if something's only about money, if it's only about making money, if it's only about stock price, if it's only about shares, if it's only about that, then I guess that's a different question. You know, for me, vision means something. If an individual is going to start a company, then he likely has a vision for what he wants, a vision which connects to his heart, a vision which connects with his ideals.

6:52 not somebody else's, but his. And that once again, as always, we come back to the same thing. That's that's that's personal, right? Not that it should be. It's personal. So if somebody has a vision that I want this and they're committed to their vision just because they are, then they're the only one fit to lead that company because no one will have that commitment to that vision as they will. And the operators are operators.

7:25 Operators not visionaries. And even if an operator wants to become a visionary, they he can have his own vision then. But the vision for the individual who started I would even call it just a company. It's a it's an endeavor, right? It's a kingdom. And so being the king of the kingdom is not about I'm the king and I'm the, you know, supreme and I'm ego based. They have nothing to do with that. The king of the kingdom means my vision will not be compromised. Now why? Because that's the whole heart and soul of why I did this.

8:06 If my heart and soul is lost, what does it matter how much money you make? Once again, I'm not superimposing this upon you. If money is your primary goal, that's fine. But let's say it's not. Then like money is part of the equation always. Absolutely. But if your vision is compromised, money can't replace the heart. Money can't replace your stock price is not going to replace what was in your soul for the creation of an endeavor. And because that must be preserved only the king can preserve it.

8:48 The point of vision what I've seen is not everybody can be a visionary and certainly like not correct vision and yet you know in a corporate environment it's quite normal to expect oh like every leader should be a visionary and it turns out that most visions are not that compelling certainly from the point of view of whatever value it is that you want to create and And that brings us back to this idea of like say in this case the owner of the company or the founder of the company who does have the vision who has created whatever value that the business has created they are often forced just as the organization gets large to delegate parts of the vision and certainly parts of the execution of the vision. The thing is you can't really neatly separate the vision and the execution. It's kind of like the same thing in a way and that is where the problems start. Well, number one, like I said at the beginning, there is the requirement of having to work within the practical framework in which one one is situated in this case the company. So the you know it's about permeation. It's you know the execution of something I think is different from the vision because the execution is permeated by the vision. So the silver thread of the vision must permeate everything that's done. And the more far removed it is from the original person who has the vision, the more to the peripheral edges it goes. That's where the greatest risk often is in terms of the carrying out of that vision. So it isn't about expecting others in the company to be the visionary. The visionary is the one who started the vision. So they are people who support him. And that's a whole other like topic because I just don't think there are that many people in the world who are great. Just being blunt, you know. I don't sweet talk and I just don't think there are I mean the number of people who are truly great in this world is like the number of people who are truly seeking truth in this world it's just very small greatness is thrown around like these things don't exist so once again you have to then hire from the pool work in which you have and yes even within that there are those who are more accomplished and have more ability and more skill than another. So on a relativistic scale, you must find the best people that you can. But the vision is always belongs to the original guy.

11:45 No matter how much his right-hand man helps him and you know I don't believe in like this sharing of stuff. I don't like group and sharing. And to me that's all dilution. The original is always the original. Well, that's why all these people like when they create like I don't know they create like a service and then they create like branches. I'm not talking fast food. I'm talking something more, you know, more intimate where they're maybe creating a service for people and then they create like certifications, right? And you create different branches of the well, it's the original guy who means the most. Okay? And the more branches that you have of your location, the more certifications you give out and I think that's all just nonsense. And once again, within the framework of the situation, so sure, the guy wants to make money, so he wants a franchise. I get it. That's fine. And for things like, you know, hotels and restaurants, okay, like it's fine. But like one-on-one things, like something that's one-on-one, right? The person had this great idea and he became really good at it. and he was the guy with the vision and he was the guy who spent the years learning it and he was the guy who tried 4,000 different things and he was the guy who found all the nuances. Well, it's his and I understand the money-making part of if I franchise and get more certifiers and all that stuff.

13:08 I get it, but I don't care. It's still a dilution that doesn't change. And and you may not mind. You might say, "What's fine? I'm making up x number of dollars. I'm making millions of dollars a year. The dilution doesn't matter to me." Once again, that's fine. But it isn't the original. The secondary is not the original and never will be. The other related topic that again comes up a lot certainly in tech companies but I think broadly industry-wise is this whole fascination with mission and people talk all the time about mission and how they're inspired by the mission of the company they're working for. My sense has been that for an individual, this fixation with the mission of the company they're working for often just arises from, you know, confirmation bias, sense of virtue, kind of corporate conditioning, that sort of thing. And at the same time, I can see why if you're leading a company of hundreds of people, thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, you need to kind of craft a mission to give to the masses within your company and to give them that sense of purpose that many seem to be seeking. So my question is, is the company's mission basically marketing and manipulation or is there something I'm missing here? Well, it gets back to the, you know, previous conversation was about nonsense, right? Once again, if you create an annual report, you can't have it be empty pages, right? If you talk to your employees, you can't say nothing. So, you got to say something, right? So, like it's all nonsense, but maybe you might consider it required nonsense, you know? Now, is it real? No, it's garbage. Okay, but where it isn't garbage is that mission that's within the heart of the individual who started the company. We're back to the vision again, right? So, his mission now, he may do X, Y, and Z to try to motivate his employees and these kind of things and like all these things are like their own podcast, right? I mean, so like you know, human beings are fundamentally non-motivatable. Okay, they don't really have the stake that the owner does. And the further you are removed from having skin in the game and therefore getting a stake of the outcome, the less you give a damn.

15:35 And rightly so, right? Like that's not wrong. Now, having said that, you are going to have some employees who are wonderfully better than the next employee, right? just because they're just better and therefore you know they should be paid better to be kept and you know these are all the mechanics of running companies and so like you know everything is nonsense I mean that's 101 right so but once again if we marry that with the well you have to have the practicality according to the situation that you're in the situation that you're in is that you aren't the only one in the building and there are others is there and they have to do work. I think the belief in motivation I think is a very misguided belief. You know to me the more things are just stated and once again this come back to style and DNA one's personality you know this not a prescription or recommendation of anything you have to do whatever however you are right everyone's style is different but like to me it's like this is what needs to be done and I mean if it's a matter of fact it's matter of fact and because I think that the more you move away from matterof fact the more likely it is that you believe that you can motivate people and the more you believe that you can motivate people the more likely you believe that motivation lasts it doesn't what you know what last you know incentive has a possibility okay you got a possibility with incentive motivational speakers for employees I think is the most laughable garbage you can possibly think of you as you hire a clown do clown tricks that'll be more engaging I think you know the fact that you're going to hire motivator You can you give a talk and tell a joke every 6.5 seconds and then everyone say rah rah. I mean it's just humans are not monkeys like they're complex beings and this is an insult to human beings I think to motivational speak them. It's it's it's a joke. I mean, that shows zero understanding of how humans function, where their origins are in terms of what they're truly motivated by, how the human mind works, where incentive comes from, what the engine of human beings really is. I mean, it's a it's a comic book. I mean, it's a joke.

18:09 One of my observations has been that as a leader within an organization, you can't really change people. Early in my career, I thought I could and I almost felt a sense of pride around it. Especially, you know, in a couple of cases, it's appeared to work. So that gave me more confidence but it was all nonsense which I later realized that like my job is not to change people or change who they are or change their nature or their traits or whatever. My job is to set a substrate of culture such that they can naturally operate towards the higher end of whatever their range is for a trait that we value and at the lower end of a trait that we don't value. So it's more about setting those types of conditions which one might call company culture. And then as I spotted that I started seeing all sorts of charades that we would do in a corporate environment. Like my favorite example is offsites which I then found were just like a complete waste of time.

19:14 You would bring people together and people would sit down and you'd have some breakfast from someplace and you'd go through an agenda. Everybody the team building nonsense. Yes. Yes. And then it's forgotten. It's forgotten the next day or the next week. It's like I said, the motivation, even if you motivate someone, doesn't last. I mean, see, you have to understand, like we talked about before, like it's like the masses are the masses and the masses will always be the masses and you aren't going to unmass them, okay? And the rare are the rare. And if you want to call that elitism, be my guest.

19:54 You can call it any ism that you want. That's not going to change anything, right? If you don't like that, you know, calling things sweet when they're sour is garbage, right? I mean, there's no real talk in the world. It's all niceness. And doesn't mean you should be rude, but nicer. And if you do that, likely you are believing things that aren't true. And if you do that, you're going to suffer financially, emotionally, operationally, in every department of your life. You're going to suffer because reality doesn't give a damn about you. Reality and truth operate according to itself. It doesn't care to appease you or me, right? So, you want to play games, go ahead. It doesn't care. You know, if you want to pretend that the tornado isn't coming and stand there and then have positive selft talk and apherisms that it's not coming and it's going to pass you by and try to do manifestation in your mind about, you know, positive thinking. Go ahead. The tornado isn't doing that. You might. It ain't doing that. So, like get real. I mean, no one's interested in being real because everyone's afraid of being called, "Oh, he's negative or that's not, you know, appropriate or it's not positive enough," right? That's where all this conscious capitalism comes from. It's why all these burgeoning industries based upon guilt, they have no reality. They're all a reaction to, they're not organic. They're all built upon fear. And so, it's the same thing. So if the masses are the masses and you have masses of employees, the masses have entered the building. Your employees aren't special.

21:48 They're just the masses. So as such, what are the masses interested in? Truth? No. You? No. Your vision? No. Seriousness? No. Actually getting somewhere? No. Helping your company get to the top? No. What are they interested in? They're interested in number one getting paid, number two entertainment. Okay? So the team building is entertainment. That's why they're looking for a reason to laugh. And that's why if you listen to podcast, right? Either it's the podcaster or the podcast, everyone in the audience who they're looking for a reason. Give me a joke that I can laugh at. I'm here to laugh. Right? And once again, someone's going to hear, "Oh, laughing is not allowed. Laughing is bad." No, don't laughing is bad. You're there for entertainment. Laugh or no laugh, right?

22:34 And so you're not going to change that. So if you do a team building exercise or you hire someone to motivational speak to them, uh, oh yeah, nice, you know, get a break from doing work, you know, maybe get a lunch, you know, maybe rah rah rah, we'll talk some crap with our friends, you know, go down a water slide. Oh yeah, team got really built. Good job. I mean the fact to which humans behave especially in the like management areas is so deplorable. Like is it possible to know that little about human behavior? Like can you be that dumb? You can't possibly believe that this going to do anything. It's kind of like those admissions people who think that your grades are what make you intelligent to let you into the university or not. And these folks are like 70 years old. You know, with age comes wisdom. I think not.

23:32 It seems like what happens in most corporations or large groups can be explained simply with internal insecurity and a thirst for entertainment. And even when people ask me questions, sometimes I'll tell them like don't seek entertainment in your questions and certainly don't seek entertainment in your chosen craft. If you want entertainment, yes, go watch Netflix, but don't seek entertainment in your craft. You can tell them don't and do and this and that. Well, you're wasting your time. Like, they're not going to listen because you said don't, I'm going to change. Come on. Telling anybody something is useless. Like, it's a waste of breath. So, you know, this piggybacks into what the original question was regard the truth and groups. So the bigger the group, the less there's possibility for truth. So the bigger the organization, the more waste and the more nonsense there's going to be because the further that you get removed from the original person. So the more tight a ship is, meaning the more small it is, the more the percentage of the originator can be maintained. And the bigger it is, the more risk there is of the percentage and therefore vision of the originator to be diluted and lost.

24:59 And I think what may happen a lot of times is that you know the vision gets diluted and lost but because with the other hand lots of money is coming in that makes the loss maybe more bearable and that's fine too. It once again comes back to like somebody might say to that well I don't really care how many billions are coming in my vision was my vision and I'm not going to sacrifice that and that's not a good thing or a bad thing that comes back to one's DNA again and it isn't good DNA or bad DNA personal personal personal it's all personal seems like there are some founders who stay with that company as it grows from a few people to tens of thousands hundreds hundreds of thousands some other founders who at some point say okay I'm done and then kind of hand the reigns over to professional CEO professional management and it seems like you know how and when that happens also really well when you hand things over that means that you don't really give a damn about it anymore and that's not good or bad right in the same breath that's not good or bad when you hand something over to someone it's finished does that mean that money will stop coming in no I'm talking about the soul I'm talking about the soul And so that may be their way of doing it. I build it up to a certain thing and maybe they recognize, okay, my vision cannot be maintained anymore, so I'll just hand it over. That's fine. There's no right, whatever you want. But what is correct, what is true, not even correct, what is true is that where there are groups, there cannot be truth. What is true is any belief in sustained motivation is false. What is true is that the further that you move from the originator, the creator of the vision, the one who holds the vision in his heart, the further you move from him, the more risk of dilution that you face of that vision.

27:08 Dr. Gupta, why is intelligence like raw intelligence, IQ, whatever we may call it, not enough to be able to get to this understanding? Because there is a lot of intelligence people doing these things. They're intelligent. Yes, there is native intelligence. The problem is that intelligent people like to also accumulate intelligence. And when you accumulate things, they're not yours. And therefore, you begin to follow them and you begin to subscribe to them and you begin to embibe them. And then they become based upon faith and they begin based upon circulated knowledge and therefore it becomes in fashion like a new dress or a new suit the new infashion thing to believe in like stoicism you know. So these are all fashions. And the more that you try to gain knowledge from society, from the world, the more you will fall prey to fashion. And the more you fall afraid of fashion, the more you will fall prey to things that live only in concepts, not in reality.

28:09 I think I've certainly have fallen prey to this for the vast majority of my life thus far and only feeling like I'm getting to a better sense of understanding in the last 5 to 10 years. But as I've gotten to some better understanding, one thing I've realized is it seems almost trivial that it's about logic, observation, and clear thinking. And then once you have some sense of understanding whatever your craft is, whatever your domain is, now it's about creativity and unleashing what's already within right and of course doing all of this requires some kind of I guess genuine drive. So as such all of this seems very simple to me now. But I'm also left wondering why I made it so difficult for myself all these years. And I've reached as far as attributing it to life experience, some natural evolution of my DNA, giving myself some more space by quitting the corporate game because now I run my own very small business and somehow becoming more open to unique and different ideas.

29:09 What else am I missing here? Well, the most fundamental thing which is the thing that really no one's ready for, which is the world will destroy you. And after it destroys you or continues to destroy you, you still may be able to limp and you may have enough creativity and drive to succeed despite the limp. But that isn't a message humans are ready for. That the world will destroy you. First of all, they know what that means. What do you mean the world? I live in the world. Look outside. There's the world. You know, I live in the world, right? The one I'm speaking, I'm living in the world, too. But I'm talking about living in the world like through your psyche, through your heart. You know, if someone hears, "Well, the world will destroy you." They think, "Oh, you should go live in a cave." No, the cave is still the world, too. So maybe, you know, a more understandable way to say it would be if you subscribe to society and its tenants, you will be destroyed.

30:13 Most become utterly destroyed beyond measure and they can't ever get it back irreversibly. Some become hobbled and so whatever they have internally to be able to withstand the destruction, they still have some reserve to which they can still succeed and still do X Y and Z. But the more that you embibe the tenants of the world in whatever industry you're in or in whatever self-help sort of domain that you're looking in or in whatever area you're trying to improve yourself whether the domain is personal or professional or in your industry or emotional or you go and see emotional knowledge from the experts in the emotional world like I said everything's hijacked right so if you go into the how-to manual world you'll be destroyed because it's all garbage.

31:08 It's not true. So that's what you ran into and that's what every single human being I mean how can you practically and honestly expect them not to walk into that you know but even after me having said this not that anyone should believe me you must examine your own experiences I don't even know if it's light years away you know it's not like smart you know I don't mean it that way I mean it's just light years away in terms of this is a truth there are many truths that like they're just not getable. Not because of lack of intelligence, but because they're like too much, right? It's just too much. Now you're like throwing the whole world away. Like that's just too much. And that's too much for the human.

31:55 So here you are going through your years and the world is destroying you and in some cases one sees the destruction happening and does something about it or at least attempts to do something about it. In many cases one is oblivious to this destruction. What explains the difference? Does that come back to DNA? That's a good question. I guess the DNA would come in that there are those who are naturally contrarian. There are those who are naturally mistrusting of the norms. You know, if there tends to be within a human being by birth a natural mistrust of the norms and the status quo. That is a superpower.

32:48 It may not stop his destruction, but it will lessen it because he won't jump in to the ocean of nonsense as deeply as readily as often as the believer will, right? As the one who is not suspicious of the norms and who thinks the norms are good and who listens to all the experts and oh yeah, look what the new thing is, which is how most people are. So the more one is iconoclastic by nature, I think the more of a shield he has. And then that person, if he's given the truth, can then take what he already has and apply it to every department of his life. Because what you will find is that you'll have one person who is really talented in their own area. They'll, you know, be very original in their own area, in their own domain. And none of that came through teaching. None of that came through books or listening to podcasts or getting a mentor or any of this crap, right? That came from within them. And then you'll find that same person and maybe he's you know has some issues with employees or maybe you know emotions or and then he goes into that domain in which you know things don't come as easily to him and what will he do? He will do the exact thing that he didn't do in his own domain. He will listen to all the experts. Oh, well the prevailing wisdom over here is this and the coach says to do this and the experts say this and the courage and the you know be vulnerable and the emotional intelligence and the x ys and z's and he'll dive so deep into that that he won't ever get out and that I think is universal. So like no one is great in everything but I think that what that originality that iconoclastic nature if one takes it to every domain that person would be amendable and reachable by the truth which says everything is garbage and beware of what you believe in.

35:14 What's the role of the ego here as one kind of goes through some of this? And perhaps again relating to my own experience, I think my ego got in the way of thinking clearly and seeing things clearly and I still haven't overcome the ego by any means, but I can willfully squatchch it when I need to. But then looking back I also see that feeding my ego in my 20s and 30s certainly was what taught me that there is little point in feeding the ego. So in a way to be able to squatchch the ego you have to feed the ego. You know I think this is the sort of topic that requires a deep systematic evaluation and exposure to truth. This requires a journey because this is one of those topics that is furthest from mechanics as you can get. And this is one of those areas where you could fall hook line and sinker for all this self-help and spirituality stuff because that's their domain, right? This is where they come in with their chanting and their incense and here comes the whole gang. Here comes the whole group. There they are.

36:19 They're coming for you, right? They're not trying to ruin you, but they have ruinous stuff. You know, practice this and practice non-ego and don't be so egoistic and then practice, you know, mindfulness. and they have all these techniques. All right, you're you're just toast. They don't work. You're just toast. You're finished. Okay, of course they don't work. It's garbage. And so they will approach these things from a mechanical way as usual. We're back to the prescriptions thing again. The methodologies and the how-tos and the five-step plans. You don't have a prayer of a prayer. I mean, when you see those guys coming, you know, get in your car.

37:00 But of course, I'm not trying to convince anybody of that, that you should get in your car and go away. It's up to you. But like there's nothing to be said here about ego. These things that requires a deep exposure to truth. That's systematic. And none of that, by the way, the exposure of truth has anything to do with practice these five things to get rid of your ego. I mean, that's laughable. Once again, laughable. It seems so common sense and simple though it's a practical thing, right?

37:32 Like there's nothing spiritual about it which is I'm trying to do something in order for me to do it the way I want it. Well, I've got to squatchch this thing at least temporarily. So if anything, I'm not doing it for any kind of benevolent altruistic purpose or any virtue points. I'm simply doing it because it is required. Well, and the ultimate of that so-called doing it is learning the truth. Because the more that one learns the truth, the more that the truth of how things really are concerning the ego, concerning the self, concerning the mind, concerning performance, concerning anything, the more that one learns the direct raw truth with no attempt to like you know help you in terms of like directly help you by giving you five steps and all these things.

38:31 That is the doing. The realization is the doing. There's no doing on top of that. That just removes you from realization. That's why the ultimate power in anything is to know the truth about it, not to have the five steps. No one understands that. Dr. Gupta, what do you mean when you say raw truth? Raw truth means that there's no trying to massage it in order to help you. Raw truth means just as it sits. There's no dilution of it. There's no bastardization of it.

39:19 There's no prescriptionizing of it. It's the ultimate journey. Do you know why that's the ultimate journey? Because it's the only thing that can lead to an end of your problems. Everything else puts ointment on your problems and the ointment wears off and sometimes the ointment creates new problems. But I've never been interested in ointment and that gets back to DNA.

39:52 That's not a good thing or a bad thing. We don't really choose what we're interested in. Why do our desires choose us? You didn't rationalize that. You didn't choose that one day, you know, with a left and right column, right? I've always been interested in what's the ultimate. What's the truth? How can I arrive at the cure? I've always wanted that. You know, just tell me the truth. Don't if I do it, don't do it. Learn it. Don't. That's my problem, not your problem. Okay? You need to just tell me the truth. Don't give me anything else.

40:30 There isn't all the banks of the world combined with all their money are a joke compared to learning that there isn't enough currency in all the land to compare to that because you have this one human life in this lifetime And one day goes by and never comes back. And your degree of suffering in this life doesn't depend upon how many meditations you do or how many five steps. Depends upon do you know the truth about life, about the world, about yourself, about the things that you experience.

41:27 Do you have a pass to the strings behind the stage? Because if you don't, you have to go through the suffering. Endless suffering. Not even minor suffering. Like endless suffering. Like if it was a scratch, no big deal, right? But endless suffering. Suffering in all departments of your life. Some more than others, but all departments of your life. So there is nothing more valuable than the truth. Whether it's fear, what's the truth? Now that isn't a statement that you can just make. That is fear inside of oneself to going on a journey of truth to discover where is that fear really coming from, right? The source of it. Why does it arise? and to learn the truth about that in a systematic way like this is the top of Everest. This is to live as a god and that interests me. Small things don't interest me. Treatments don't interest me. Big things interest me. And humans think very small. Even the big thinkers, they think bigger than the other ones, but they're small. The ultimate of the ultimate. So, like I said before, humans aren't walking around thinking like that. They want five steps or maybe the more intellectual one. Maybe he wants the, you know, who's the latest author in the latest five steps or who wrote the book about stoicism, right? Things that sound fancy and nice, right? It's just refined garbage because it isn't the truth. It isn't the ultimate truth. And then just one has to think for themselves. I mean, do they want the ultimate truth or not?

43:25 Do they deserve it? It doesn't matter. Would it benefit them? Of course. But it would only benefit them if they wanted that and not the ointment. Because they might say, "Well, this truth could be painful in the beginning. You know, the ointment gave me relief right away and I don't care if it doesn't last. Okay, that's fine. Once again, back to it's personal. Whatever you want. But to me, there is nothing more valuable. There's all the gold in the world, all the money in the world. I don't think anybody would disagree with that to be honest. Not that they would want that necessarily, but if you were given the truth about your emotions, the truth about relationships, the direct raw truth about human interaction, about your mind, about I mean, you couldn't give enough for that.

44:18 Like, it's not even possible, right? What's more valuable than that? It's everything. I mean words don't suffice here but this is the truth of the self like there's different ways to say it words get in the way truth of the self truth of the mind you know everyone is filled with junk and that junk has been accumulated from the world and in order to get over the junk you can't buy more fixing junk to get over the other junk because that adds more junk then. So, it's the truth about the things that one really cares about. It isn't philosophical. It isn't academic. It's in your face, practical, and real and acute and immediate.

45:15 And that's why I love what I do. That's why like if I couldn't say what I wanted to say, if I couldn't write what I wanted to write, I'd quit. I love writing the straight truth. There's no more joy to me than to figure it out. And it just kind of comes to me and to just state it because that's what I always wanted. Just tell me the truth. I don't need you to handhold me.

45:47 What's the truth? No one could give it. No book, no scripture, no guru, no nobody. Okay? They're all interested in giving you five steps because they're interested in helping the common denominator. The common denominator is the masses. It's garbage. The world is made up of the common denominator and it worships and it caters to the common denominator. Wasn't that opposite?

46:19 Shouldn't the world be valuing the rare one? And maybe the common denominator would then be lifted up toward the rare one, but instead everything is dragged down. The common denominator in the masses shouldn't be woripped. That should be shunned. It's the rare one who is the one around which everything should be stated. But that'll never be done because in order to write around the rare one, you must be rare yourself. Indeed, there's a catch 22 here even in the ability or willingness to believe that it is even possible. And the way I see it is there's the truth of a given domain. And for a certain set of domains such as product or dealership and a few others I feel like I've done enough to get to that truth. Now at the same time there are many people who believe there is no such truth that it is all just you have to try a bunch of things and see what works etc etc.

47:24 Having gone through my journey I can see that that is false that attitude is false that no there is a certain truth obviously it's not within the grasp of everyone but it's there having seen that logically then I would have to conclude at this level of understanding that there has to be a truth of the self or whatever we choose to call it but it's only when I have seen touched appreciated and kind of almost felt the sense of expertise or mastery from understanding the truth in one tiny tiny domain. So I think that may be the main challenge to overcome is to even know that this is possible. Sure. And it's a challenge because everything that you've ever heard has always been in the domain of self-help, spirituality, five steps and all the experts. And so when everyone's only heard one category of thing, it would be impractical to expect that they would look in any other direction when that's the only direction there actually is.

48:35 So it is very otherworldly to even consider this. But at the same time, that's why it's for the rare person because maybe he has the capacity to even consider just consider that such a thing is possible and maybe that goes hand in hand with the iconoclast who actually already has one foot turned against the society. So all these things allow for the possibility of one to close his ears to the world and the dogma and the status quo.

49:19 Dr. Gupta, I wanted to switch gears and cover a few different topics. What I was thinking is I'll share a statement with you or some kind of assertion and I'd love to get your thoughts on whether it's truth or closer to the truth or lies. I wanted to start by making the observation that some of us were told by our parents you can be whatever you want to be if you put your mind to it truth or lies.

49:48 I think anything is possible for a human being. I think motivation is nonsense and I think the attempt to motivate is nonsense. Internal drive makes things happen, not motivation. There must be a talent. To sell the idea of it's all hard work is garbage. It's pure garbage. There must be a talent. And that talent can't just be dormant.

50:18 So if there's a talent and you put everything into it, you can do anything. Yes, that's how I would fill in the holes. Next one. Most parents manipulate their children in an attempt to do what's right for them, truth or lies. What part of that are you focused on? There's a couple of things there. Which part of that sentence are you really focused on? Manipulation. What would not be manipulation? I mean, isn't the act of telling someone to do something? Isn't that kind of manipulation? I mean, is there non-manipulating? If you try to instruct someone, you will probably find various ways to instruct them. I mean, isn't that manipulation? I think the heart of that question is good and bad.

51:14 I don't know like these hard categories of good and bad like manipulation is bad is 16,000 times how human beings have manipulated. It's not a good and bad thing. It depends upon the situation and the circumstance. So you can't make a word and demonize it. So, you know, if a child is standing at the edge of a staircase and one step forward, they're going down the stairs and you tell them to come back and they don't. And then you say, "Okay, I got some candy for you." You're not going to do that. You I shall not manipulate. Fall down the stairs. I mean, just like I don't like the demonization of words. You can't. The good and bad thing doesn't work. That's more garbage. That's one of the central pieces of garbage is the good and bad.

52:10 I see that. Yeah. So perhaps to get to the heart of the question, it's not so much about manipulation as it is about you're trying to achieve something or trying to get somebody to achieve something or do something. But as a parent, you might actually be clueless as to whether you were even right about Yeah. I think maybe the bigger issue here is like everyone tries to take me towards the details when the truth is always closer to the foundation.

52:43 So I think like there's so many truths that are invisible and when they're pointed out they may become visible to one but not to another. So like even the implication of that statement is that parents are bad and children are good. Right? the child is good and you the mean bad parent try to do to manipulate him and you should just leave him alone. Well, the assumption is that the child is wise, you know, depending on how old they are, you know. I think everyone's the same in terms of like lack of wisdom. When a child is very very small, they have an internal wisdom. Okay? But as they grow older, they become worldly and then they become just as dumb as everybody else. And so even within that dumbness, then we get into like, you know, parsing out different personality details that might be talents or internal wisdom that remains a vestage from birth and others who don't have it and others who maintain it and gets back to DNA. Then it's DNA. then where do you shake out right aoclastic or follower whatever it is I think the real question there is bad parent good child and but I don't think that's true I don't think that you can divide the line like that I don't put people on a pedestal not pro aletes not CEOs not leaders of indust no one deserves to be on a pedestal Okay. I don't celebrate.

54:25 You know, I told you last time like even the truth, I don't want to make it into like this thing you should chase. I don't want to talk good about it. Right? So, I don't think children should be put on a pedestal or parents. I think everyone is the same unless they demonstrate themselves to be different. I wanted to get to the next one and get your reaction to that. some point in my own life, I realized that there was like a sense of pride in whatever I was achieving and whatever I was good at. And maybe you should just stop there because that's once again the fact that there's more to that sentence.

55:03 Now we're moving back towards the foundation again. Pride, right? It's nonsense. What are you proud of? Like if you did something that's good, it doesn't mean that you should demonize it and say that's bad. It's not about bad or good, right? isn't about do the opposite. Right. But you did it because you wanted to do it. Proud of what like, right? You could call it selfish. You know, you wanted good and bad words and demonized words. Okay. The big bad word, selfish. Why did you do what you wanted to? Why didn't you do what somebody else wanted you to do?

55:40 Maybe your parents wanted you to become a doctor. Why didn't you do that, right? Do it for them. That would be unselfish. See, you would have got points for that. Unselfish. You know, you gave away your own dreams for the benefit of another. You get some points there. Altruism. It's garbage. It's all garbage. Like, don't even speak, right? Like pride of what? You did because you wanted to do it. What's so prideful about that? I don't believe in pride. I think pride is boastful.

56:14 is ego. Nothing wrong with that. It's fine. You want a rah raw pride. I'm proud of this. I'm proud of that. It's fine. Like once again, do what you want. I don't believe in pride. Ultimately, it gets in the way. Everything gets in the way because everything is manufactured. These are all concepts. Next one. It's common practice for people to say, "Everyone is making it up as they go. No one knows what they're doing. said it's fine for you to just do it except for the last part. I mean the fine for it just do it. It's a prescription. The problem once again if you look at the whole category of these things these are all attempts to motivate and they're all attempts to motivate the unmotivatable. We're back to like we have the center of the wheel and these are all spokes and they all lead back to the center. They go back to trying to uplift the common denominator. It's a nonsensical exercise. It's futile. It's idiotic. And no wise person should be doing that.

57:26 Okay. Once again, what are you interested in? Like, I've never been interested in having the guy at the bottom get to the top. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in having the guy who's already interested in the top get to the top. getting the guy who already has a desire and a facility for that, getting him over the edge. That's more otherwise you talk into stones. Like why would you do that? It's not about uplifting. It's uplifting the upliftable. So these things to the masses, oh mass is this, hey, you should all do this and therefore you should do this and this is do this.

58:08 I just don't understand why this celebration of the masses, why this focus on the masses? And you know the interesting thing, I'm not the only one who believes this. You know who else believes it? The masses. You know why? Cuz when they go pay for a sporting event or to see a celebrity or to see a singer, they pay good money. Are they going to see the singer from down the street, their neighbor down the street who just decided they're going to go on stage and sing in the shower? Is that what is that what they're going to pay? Would they pay for that? No.

58:40 They're going to pay for the unique one, right? So, they're willing to pay for that as they should. So, they themselves are saying that these people are worth paying for. That makes sense. So the masses themselves don't respect the masses. So why do you? Next one. Most of our personality can be explained by what makes us anxious and how we deal with that anxiety. The how you deal with is garbage. The how you deal with is a gang coming. Okay? The how you deal with is the five steps. There's no how you deal with.

59:20 Everyone's got their own internal way of trying to less their own miseries and that's up to them. Okay. But the idea that I'm going to practice these five steps and then they're going to help me take care of the anxiety. Okay. You're welcome to if you wish. What about the first part? What makes us anxious? We're back to the cause of anxiety. We're back to the systematic pursuit of truth. That requires going into the depths. I can't say it any other way.

59:53 It's like saying, "How do I become a pro alete right now?" You have 5 seconds. Like, it's not realistic. It would just be garbage to entertain that. Final question, Dr. Gupta. Where in any past literature have you found some pointers to truth? Or what literature, if any, has provoked your understanding of truth? I've never found it and I'd be reading it 24/7 if I did. It doesn't mean that what it says is garbage and wrong and lies. I'm not saying that. I'm saying the older the literature, the more cryptic it tends to be. And the more the person will read it, he will read it according to the dictionary definition. The people who really discover truths and the people who really discover great things, you know, from their originality, there's always a crypticness. And the reason isn't an intent to be cryptic as some tend to believe because they're stupid. The reason is because the thing is so deep it cannot be reduced into words that you at your level will understand and therefore it's going to appear cryptic to you. That doesn't mean that one was trying to make it cryptic. Right? So these are the complaints of the outraged and the stupid. Okay? He blames me all the time.

61:20 Oh, he's trying to be cryptic. No, no, actually, I'm not. Number one, I'm not going to try to spend 4,000 pages trying to explain to you because I don't care if you get it or not. Number two, I try to remain as close to truth as I can because that's where my interest is. My interest isn't that I dumbed it down and you got it. First of all, if I dumb it down, it's lost. It's diluted. The fact that you got it doesn't make up for that for me.

61:49 like that doesn't do anything for me. So, we're back to the before talk where it was you have to have depth to understand anything that has depth. If you don't have the depth, not a judgment call. It isn't calling you names. It's just that you don't not good or bad. If you want it, maybe you'll get it, you know. But if you don't have the depth, you cannot understand it according to the intent with which it was written because words are extremely limited in what they are able to convey.

62:32 And the more true and deep and real something is, the more that words fail. Dr. Gupt, thank you for your time. This is wonderful. Sure. Thanks.