The Team House - Indian 9 Para Special Operations Veteran | Vivek Jacob | Ep. 196

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

Major Vivek Jacob served 14 years as a Special Forces operator. Post his training in the National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy, he volunteered for and successfully completed one of the harshest Special Forces selections in the world. Over the years, while leading his Team into Special Ops missions, he experienced near-death situations on multiple occasions. This 14-year dance with life and death led him to begin exploring the nature of purpose and reality. His perception of what it meant to be ‘free’ began to evolve during a Special Operation mission with the United Nations in East Africa. Today's Sponsors: MD Hearing Aids So, if you want MDHearing’s smallest hearing aid ever, go to MDHearing.com and use promo code TEAMHOUSE to get their NEW Buy 1/Get 1 $149.99 EACH offer when you buy a pair. Plus they are adding a FREE Extra Charging Case, a $100 value, just for listeners of this show. So, head to https://MDHEARING.com and use our promo code TEAMHOUSE and get their NEW Buy 1/Get 1 $149.99 EACH offer when you buy a pair. https://MDHEARING.com use the code "TEAMHOUSE" Thank you for supporting the companies that support the show ! To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -AD FREE AUDIO -AD FREE VIDEO -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Team House merch: ⬇️ https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter:  https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter:  https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️  https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️  https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample Want to sponsor the show? Email: ⬇️ [e-mail] #9parasf #specialoperations #theteamhouseBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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and David Park. Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode 196 of the Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with David Park, deproducing back there somewhere. And our guest tonight on the show is Vivek Jacob, who retired as a major in Nine Para. It's one of India's special operations units. And he also is involved with Claw Global, or you can find them at Claw.global, which is an endeavor. We'll have him talk about extensively on the show.

that gets together Indian military veterans and helps guys out in his home country. So we're very excited to have you on the show tonight, Vivek. I love talking to the foreign special operations partners, and we really look forward to hearing your insights. Roger, it's a pleasure to be here. It's an honor actually to be able to interact like this and get the word out about, you our thoughts and the way we operate and what the common commonality is about, you know, the way we think around the world, how military vets commonly think around the world. It's just a different, you know, community.

Absolutely, yeah. Well, if we could start from the top of Vec, I'd love to hear about kind of your upbringing, how you grew up, and sort of what the path was that took you towards military service. Okay, that's a pretty, you know, straightforward story. know, I was born into a military family. My father was also in the, in the army, my, you know, all my uncles, etc. Everybody in my, from my dad's side was in the army or slash the Navy. And my grandfather was also in the army. So, but that's not the reason why I joined the army. I actually wanted to join the, the merchant navy and travel the world and, you know,

you know, see, see the world around outside. But, uh, uh, uh, I, uh, I actually wanted to join the, the merchant navy and travel the world. outside but I had a you know he required a six by six eyesight back then to join the merchant Navy so my eyesight was a little weak so I couldn't join that but I was my second option therefore was to join the armed forces and I was you know we had a you know a little bit of trouble when when we were younger with you know my parents got separated and things like that So we had a fallout as far as our financial situation was concerned. So I had the responsibility of, you know, looking after my mom and all of that very early on. So like, what, eight, ninth grade, I had to kind of make sure that I make it.

So since I was, you know, as soon as I was finishing my class 12th here in India and I had to, you know, get into a line of work where he, if I couldn't earn the money, at least I should not be dependent on my parents. So, so it was the merchant navy or it was the army. So I went into the army. That's how it happened. It is, is there in India, is there a large military culture? Is it something that a lot of people do or like what percentage of the population would you say goes into military? Yeah.

So we have a we have a the military is a very attractive you know choice of life or choice of service in India and percentage population I mean I'll be taking a guess but yeah we have when yeah pretty pretty you know let's say about 15 20% of the youngsters who you know they're pretty and it's it's like a wave you know sometimes when it's like what catches trend amongst the you know the young the young kids when they're getting into a profession so there are times when when the military profession starts you know becoming very attractive and you know people get fired up and things like that so you know it's like as you know it shifts up and

down but overall we have a very the military is very respected in our country very very strongly respected by the public. And not only just the profession, but the way of life of the military, the military culture is very respected in our country. So we have a pretty strong, you know, young crowd which wants to join the army. Yeah.

Or the army. Could you tell us a little bit about what the journey was like for you? Because, I mean, we don't know as Americans. I mean, we understand our system. But I would be really curious to hear about the Indian system, what it's like joining the military and, you know, your path to becoming an officer as well. Okay. So there's, uh, there's 12th grade, you know, you finish off your schooling, uh, in 12th grade. I don't know what the equivalent of that is back in the U.S. so high school. Yeah. Senior year of

high school. Yeah. Yeah. So we, we finish off with that year, what, about 16, 16 and a half, 17 years old. and there's a there's a national defense academy that basically can join immediately after 12th grade and so you give an exam they have an interview psychological tests etc it's pretty comprehensive and it lasts a five-day selection process and then you know you go through your medicals and then you get you know get selected you go into the you go into the national defense academy that's where you separate out you know first you have it's a three-year training process so and you graduate as well while you are training and over a period of three years by the end of your you know two years of training you separate out into your specialized you know army navy or air force and continue your

training in for another year in india finish that off then you go off to your various academies you go off to air force academy naval academy or or the indian military academy for the army and you do a year-longer specialization there, and then you get commissioned. So it's a total of post-12th grade, you do a total period of four years of training, and then you get commissioned as an officer. And yeah.

And within that, I mean, obviously you gravitated towards Army, but did, I mean, I'm curious now to kind of understand how the pathway goes to special. forces. I mean, do you go into the infantry or artillery or or another specialty first? Well, you have both the options available to you. You can directly, you know, right from the academy as soon as you're finishing off your training and you're getting commissioned as an officer, you can you can directly volunteer for the special forces. It's a merit-based thing. So, you know, uh, uh, there's a merit list and, you know, the top

people who apply for the SF get a chance straight up to go to the SF right after the academy and then the unit itself then there's a selection from you know the probation and all of that goes on and once you get selected you can

you know you get absorbed into the unit otherwise up to about three years of service even if you go into the infantry or any other arm within the army you can you know you can apply for the special forces and join in a little later as well.

What was your path to get there? I volunteered for the SF directly from Academy. Yeah. And for our viewers who don't know, could you tell us a little bit about the Indian special operations community and sort of the various units that exist? Yeah. So broadly all the three wings, the Army, Navy and the Air Force have their own special forces outfits and within the army and then of course then there's the National Security Guard

which which is outside the armed forces but it's it's like an anti-hijack and counter-terrorism kind of a unit and within the army itself we have different units which specialize in different kinds of warfare based on the terrain. So, you know, but essentially, more or less, everybody can fight in any which way in any kind of terrain. So we cross-specialized, a lot of cross-training. There's a lot of cross-training that keeps going on. And at the end of the day, special ops guy is, you know, anything, anywhere, anytime.

So we train like that. I mean, that's the mindset. Yeah, I mean, that's the commonality across all of the branches and all the units, right? Yeah. And for you, it was nine para. Yeah, yeah. So nine para is a unit which otherwise traditionally specializes in mountain warfare and mountain warfare, jungle warfare. that's been the erstwhile traditional, you know, specialization that the unit itself developed.

But over a period of time and with the way things are in the world today, the unit itself now, you know, has multiple specializations in, you know, the entire spectrum of conflict, so to speak. Now, did you choose nine para or? was it chosen, like, what is the selection process for special forces? Do you choose the unit before you go to selection or do you go to selection and then get put in the unit? So, like I said, it's, it's based, there are very limited vacancies that come out for the special forces and, and, well, you can choose, but if the vacancy is available, you'll get that.

if the vacancy, most likely these vacancies are not available because they're highly subscribed. So, so yeah, but I did choose nine para acts and, yeah, I did get it and I did land up there. And so what was it like when you first got there as, you know, a young, you were a young officer at the time, correct? Yeah, I was 21, I think, at that time. Yeah. so what was it like what was it like so I had no expectations as such and I had no

I had no expectations or I had no you know I didn't calculate too much as in you know what will happen if I don't make it this that etc etc I didn't think too much about all of that I just I was very inspired by you know by an officer we had was our instructor you know our directing stop in the

academy itself he was from nine and you know you had to just look at the man to get inspired so he was like that one look I had it ever I said okay that's you know that's where I'm going so so when I did land up there I didn't really know anything much actually what goes on you know I I didn't have a clue at that time this back in back in 2002 you know so back in 2002 there wasn't so much you know internet and things like that we're you know in Academy as it is you don't get any time and straight out of Academy into these special forces straight into probation and actually I got a you know surprised when I ended up for

probation probation at that time used to be for three months a three-month period but when I joined it you know it converted into six months directly so so I spent six months under probation and I didn't really have time to think about whether I'll clear it or not clear it or what will happen if I don't and things like that. It was just pretty intense when the whole thing was going on. The whole idea was to get through the next hour, the next hour, the next hour, the next hour. So six months are getting through the next hour and that's about it. And I mean, could you tell us a little bit about what it was like, I mean, I assume taking a command and suddenly you're in charge of all these special forces soldiers who are hardcore. guys. I mean, what was that like as a 21-year-old officer?

So in nine para you don't get command. You have to take command. It's like that. Yeah, I suppose it's just there must be just so much which is common. In fact, you know, probably the entire game must be pretty common as far as the SF community around the world is concerned, you know, you have to earn it. So you have to, you know, it's your heart on the line and you have to you have to earn it you have to deserve it and because SF operations as if operatives is a sub operations need it's a high stakes game it's the ultimate stakes game you know I often compare special forces and nuclear weapons and you know like fighter aircrafts you know

like you know it's strategy so basically the impact of a very small highly trained force going and being able to execute something in such a manner like overt, covert or clandestine, whichever way, you know, that it needs to be executed and to be able to do that. And, you know, the nation's pride, the nation's strategic interests, you know, all of that lies on your shoulders, on your ability to execute what you're being tasked, being able to execute it to the highest, you know, possible precision. so and and ensuring the outcome so yeah so in these kind of places you know your ranks don't carry too much weight especially early on so so when you come in you know you the entire unit so the entire unit is involved in your selection process everybody is watching you know so and I was the and in

our case so everybody I'm sure it's like that everywhere where the officers and soldiers, everybody trains together, everybody is being probated together. There's no, you know, there's no ranks being thrown around or things like that. And that very quickly gets into your bloodstream and into your mindset. So, and especially since I came directly from the academy. So, you know, you don't, you don't develop any, any airs or misnumbers about what holding a rank means. So it's just about, you know, it's a functionality. So it's a superstructure in which you, you know,

these various positions are created for efficiency in operations, you know, not to spend time trying to dominate each other. It's more about how a team can work in unison and work in an organized manner and operate. So that's how it is how it translates on the ground as well. So when you come in and you're being probated and you're watched for these various, you know, trades on how confident are you in your own skin? and you know if all the trappings are taken away from you what is the man that remains there right so that's that's the thing and that's very very closely watched and you know once you do clear the probation process

once you do clear the probation process and you you go into active operations you're assigned a team and you go into the team and and it's like this you know for the for the first two years you know every time we were going out for ops and that was at a very, pretty, you know, high frequency. We were operating, you know, every three, four days we were out. So, and sometimes going in for long duration, operations and things like that. So every night, you know, when you're getting ready, so, you know, one of the soldiers would come with two of these, you know, heavy-duty rocket launches, you know, with the rocket and he would hand it to me, you know, so this is the view.

So basically, that's a rucksack. so often you'll find that the young officers who come into the unit are carrying far more weight than soldiers in the team yeah yeah so it's like that's you know and and then they watch you they watch you in combat as well so for me actually it was a slightly different story like um uh i got probated for for double the probation period that is there. So, you know, everybody had a lot of time to check me out. So that was one. And since I was the only officer who was being probated at that point of time, so the entire officer community was very, very interested in me and used to take a lot of, you know, spent a lot of time with me. So, and once I went and I was actually very fortunate. I've always been

very, very fortunate, you know, in life and especially, especially in my professional. very fortunate. I got to command a team, you know, got to start leading teams into operations very, very early. The situations kind of turned out like that, you know, it was pretty high intensity going on and somehow my superiors took a, you know, kind of fate accomplished, plus, you know, they kind of trusted me out because the first time I went out, I got into combat straight away. So it doesn't happen very easily like that but but right from the word go I finished my probation came into the came into the teams and came into my team and the first time my team went out and the first time I was in a in a squad my squad went into contact

and I saw that contact you know I experienced that so right from the word go I've I've you know been very very fortunate to to have these experiences and and to you know always walk out walk away with you know having done what one does so like that yeah so it was a very intense very interesting and it just kept up and building up and building up like that just kept going higher yeah i got many more questions but dave you want to give a shout out to uh yeah so tonight's sponsor uh is md hearing aids um for i mean for people who don't know like i wear hearing aids so i got to test these out actually For a lot of people who've been in combat and a lot of people have just been around like a lot of concerts or just normal industrial noises or whatever.

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If you go to their website, MDHearing.com, you can do an online hearing test. And trust me, if you're having problems with your hearing, find a solution because it's easy to laugh off, but it really does start to affect, you know, how you see the world. It's exhausting to try to make out, you know, what people are saying. But so MD hearing aid is a great, like, direct consumer, affordable hearing aids. 45 days money back. So, you know, if you think they might work for you, give them a try. If you want here, MD Hearing Aid, smallest hearing aid ever, that's the Neo, these, go to MDhearing.com and use promo code Teamhouse to get their new buy one, get one, $149 each offer when you buy a pair. Plus, they're adding a free extra charging case.

That's $100 value just for listeners of this show. So head MDHearing.com and use your promo code Teamhouse and get their new. buy one, get one, $149 each offer when you buy a pair. I can't recommend enough taking care of your hearing. Vivek, back to you, man. I'm really fascinated. I mean, I'm always fascinated to hear from foreign soft partners and I learned so much about, you know, the Indian Special Operations community and about your story. And I mean, you mentioned that your first time out on patrols, you got into a contact. I was wondering if you would be comfortable sharing some of that,

what it was like that first patrol and what happened to you guys out there that day. Okay. So special ops, we hardly, you know, unless, of course, the dynamics may be different or must be different, I'm sure, for American SOF, you know, going out on the kind of tactics that you guys deploy because you'll be, you know, operating in foreign lands. So, patrolling is like an area domination, right?

You patrol dominate the area. So 9 by SM, I don't think I haven't been on any patrol. It's, it's target and hit. It's, it's, it's, you,

you have, you go out, the, with very specific, this thing, there's no area domination. We don't dominate. what the regular infantry does and everybody else does.

We are called in for special anything that, you know, that's very specific. So, yeah, so it was more of a planned off. It was, you know, we'd gone in very, very specifically, we had conducted surveillance over, you know, a long period of time, about a week, week and a half. And then we went in and, and I was supposed to sit on a, sit on a hilltop and you know along with with the team commander and all of that and listen listen to the radio so and listen to what goes on you know there are two scords which are going into contact and the rest of the rest of the team was sitting higher up in the mountains and and you know awaiting in case they're

basically coming providing cover to the two squads going in to take the head so my team commander told me it was my first time out so he told me to you know sit sit on the top of the mountain and and listen to everything you know you used to call it listen to the cricket match like so anyway so i was uh we were in position and i was waiting and and uh there were two scots they were passing right next to me they were going down to take the hit next to the river and uh and i just saw them going down at the last guy passed and I don't know I just kind of you know got behind him and left the squad that I was assigned to and I went you know sliding down behind them and I

landed up at the contact site and then from there I radioed my team commander that you know I'm here now so I knew he couldn't call me back because contact was about to start it was it was about to take off so so there was nothing and it was straight accompli you know he couldn't call me back and he said oh he said okay sit tight So I was there and you know that's where it rolled. So yeah, how is it? Contacts is probably it's always very intense and always very in the moment. You know, there's no past, there's no future, there's no nothing. You're just there and you're doing what you're doing. And, you know, it's like your entire senses open up in the moment. So, so that was quite a thing, you know, to be. completely in the moment at that point of time and totally expanded sense of awareness so yeah pretty

intense can you tell us a little bit about like in india can can the armed forces operate within the with within the country and if you're not looking at external threats what what are what are some of the internal challenges that that you face okay so you know challenges you know challenges obviously you know the biggest challenge about any any SF operation for anybody I would presume would be to be you know precise with the right target with the right amount of force no collateral damage you know so so that's always an issue when you're operating in populated areas and and and especially if those populated areas are you know are dense and so that's a

challenge when you operate in populated areas which are very dense and there are your own people at the end of the day they are the people you're protecting things like that so being able so the whole and often intelligence is you know may not be very very precise or maybe absolutely wrong You might be gunning for the wrong thing. So all it's it's quite like a quagmaya and it's like a you have to you have to navigate as much as possible to really narrow it down so that when you do unleash you unleash on the right thing and you unleash the right amount. So that's that's a challenge that we face a lot, especially in the counterinsigency, counter terrorism grid within the country. And the moment, yeah.

So that's a major challenge that one faces. And then, you know, you compensate by, you know, your drills keep evolving over a long period of time. Most, you know, most of our soldiers have been, you know, in doing this for about, you know, 15, 20 odd years. So there's a heck of a lot of experience goes in. And what happens is over a period of time, your instincts start playing out. You know, you start, because you spend so much time in combat, you start operating beyond your five senses. You're able to, you know, your instinct becomes very, very sharp. Your six-dimensional, you know, thought process or your, your awareness reaches beyond your five senses.

You're able, you know, so all of that kind of comes into play and, you know, you know, the you know I've been very fortunate again that way you know very very clean I've had a very very clean very very lucky very very very fortunate experience in the operations that I have I can personally you know be count so yeah the major challenge for everybody is being able to operate it's the same for everyone I suppose being able to operate in tight situations and you know the right target you know, and no collateral damage, things like that. Yeah.

Urban areas are difficult. And in the mountain terrain, you know, when you're out there, you know, you're seeking in the mountains, you're operating in the mountains, there it's, the game is totally different. And it's all about, you know, how well you part it all through before you really got into the mountains. Because in the mountains, you can't change too much, you know. So the train is the same. So you have to have to have read, analyze the terrain, analyze the information that you have in such a way that when you do go in, you know,

you don't waste too much time climbing here and there. You go straight there and you know, you're able to navigate in such a way that you don't get detected. So just the games are just very different. What would I call a challenge as such? Well, I've never really, you know, never really felt that there's any place that we did get stuck in.

We were, like I said, we were always able to do what needed to be done and walk away with it without any issues as such. And you mentioned that this is a pretty eventful period of your time that the operations were coming at you guys pretty intensely. I was wondering if you could speak to your development as a special operations officer as you gained more experience, as you gained the trust of the men that you were working with. You know, what was that, what was that experience like? Evolutionary. So, we are born into a world where where we hardly know about what the sense is that we have, you know. You're born into a world where we're, you know, a bunch of books are thrown at us and a society tells us how to be and you're told that these are your limitations. And this is, this is, this is, this is what you've got at your disposal.

you know you got your five senses this is what you have to do for these it's all about being successful in life and things like that so so with with that kind of a boxed uh mindset you know it is what you kind of your neural network forms like that you're you're you get boxed into it and your ability to think uh gets boxed what you know about yourself is boxed but when you go into the special forces and and it's it's a constant you know dance going on between life and death life and death life and death it's it's it's it's a constant you know dance life and death it's it's it's It's every time you go out for an operation, there's a 50-50% chance, always. You know, you have to... It's probably a person who's not seen too much of combat would think that you, you know, that the odds are any different. Because when bullets start flying, you know, it's anybody's game after that. So anyway, so when you're constantly living on the edge of this, you know, this fleeting moment in the now when you can when you can when you can die the very next moment or you know

the reverse happens you know you get what you're going out for so you your senses start opening up you know you're you're so much into the moment and the moment is like a doorway into your higher self kind of a thing you know you you you're the the will to survive and the the and the mindset to execute what you have been tasked to do to the highest possible, you know, outcome. All of these kind of things happening in the moment simultaneously and an intense contact going on in the moment at that point of time. You kind of jump. You jump out of your five senses and you go into your sixth sense and you start operating from there. Once once that portal, you know, that portal of consciousness opens up and it stays with you. It stays with you in life, you know, it starts widening and widening. The more time you spend in contact, the more time you spend in operations, the more time you're into high intensity combat. This portal keeps becoming wider and wider and wider. So you're kind of your limited, your consciousness or your awareness, which is limited by your neural network, your present neural network. It kind of, you know, there's a crack that develops and you go into the six senses and basically your awareness starts flooding that.

So you start becoming much more aware of what's going on and you're and and you evolve or rather you start realizing your potential much more. It starts off in probation itself. You know, when you're pushed beyond your body limits, you're pushed beyond something that you thought you couldn't do. And you're being constantly pushed and pushed and pushed. And when you get pushed around like that for six months, both in mind and body, You evolve. To survive, you have to evolve. So it's like that.

And so it was a constant journey of evolution for me throughout in the SF. And there's just so much you learn, you know, when you see death up close and you see it up close frequently. A lot of the bullshit and life starts falling away. Right. So, yeah. So, so a lot of the things that that you thought. about yourself, you know, you thought about other people and things like that, they just, they just kind of melt away. And you are able to see what is actually there within you.

And, you know, you, you just evolve as a human being, both physically, psychologically, spiritually, even. You know, after a certain point of time, you start realizing that the kind of things that you are able to experience and the kind of the awareness. that's developing that is that spiritual in nature it's actually a high intensity you know a well experienced a combatant would very very soon start realizing different realms of our existence because you kind of every time you know go beyond the whole life and death thing every time you go out you could die so you know that gets sparked so you're always in the moment so it's a constant evolution and you learn some real things you know about yourself there's a lot of humility that develops right because you recognize your weaknesses you know and you start seeing that okay

this is where my body is giving up you know and and you see that okay i am just human and and these are my limitations but but also on the flip side of it when you because there's no giving up right there's no scope of giving up anything. When you go in and when you see your body breaking and you see your mind, you know, flying off and you see, you feel the death hanging in the air, you know, the smell of blood and things like that, all of that stunts. And it's very intense. And in that moment, you have to evolve to survive. um how should i put it so you you tap into something that you never knew you had every time you know just starts building and building and building and by the you know uh so so you learn

humility uh you understand your body you understand your mind you understand your limitations but on just in the same breath when when everything is like shit is in the air and that's when when you still somewhere from within your heart or something in from within your spirit, that thing comes out, and you take that boat, and you get out, and you evolve. So, you know, so that's what it is, I think, simply put, you know, yeah, it's a fantastic evolutionary experience. As you, you know, grew as an officer, I mean, you also got promoted to captain and major.

And, I mean, tell us, if you start to see things at sort of a higher level and get this sort of like wider view of operations and command. and I was just curious about kind of like that sort of like growth. So, okay, I, you know, I'm a weird one out of the bunch kind of a thing. So I had no ambitions as such. I had no ambition to rise in the ranks or to become a colonel or a brigadier or anything like that. I have a very high degree of respect for my superiors and for the men I used to work with. And it never really mattered to me that, you know, the whole rank thing and the whole command thing and all that because I've seen command failures happening.

You may be a very, very senior officer and in combat, you just, you know, you have no clue, right? So, and when bullets are flying, you better be having a clue. Otherwise, people are not going to listen to you. So especially hardened soldiers who know what they're doing, experienced soldiers who know what they're doing. experienced soldiers who know what they are doing if they get orders which are you know which are which are nonsense account productive to the very mission that you're going in for so basically you know you've become a very independent person and since I I had no you know particular odd one out of the bunch you know that

I never really never really cared to go anywhere else rather than where I was already. That's how more or less my life has been. That's how my approach even now is. So, so I got a, like I said, I was very fortunate, very early on, you know, I got tested very thoroughly because of the double duration of probation that I did. And then when I went into combat, my father and my parents brought me up to be, to be respectful towards anyone, rather than to judge them and judge myself basis, what their rank is or what their status in society or things like that, all that was got thrown out very early on in my childhood. My father never, my father and mother both never allowed or never kind of propagated that kind of a thought process in us.

My father was a very, very free, free human being operated on his heart a lot. So that's what we kind of picked up and that translated very beautifully into combat. I never had to actually use my ranks. I hardly wore my ranks actually during my service. I was able to lead because I had the capability to lead. I was able to lead because the men knew that if shit hits the fan, this guy will be the first guy there. And we'll take it on together.

And it was always about the team. It was always about the team. That's why I left also. When I finished commanding a team, I left. So that was my highest high. I did not want to actually go and, you know, just before I was becoming a left and colonel, I decided that, okay, you know,

I don't want to tell people how to go into combat. I'd rather be there myself. And when I peaked out there, so I kind of transitioned out into the world outside to see what else. is there. So yeah, so as far as the ranks are concerned, leadership is concerned, as far as, you know, going from a left-rent to a captain to a major is concerned, the only thing that probably changed was a deeper understanding of the people that I was working with, because

I spent more time with them. And also my knowledge base about the army and the world around outside over a period of time kept growing. You know, it was not because of the ranks, but about because of the time that was passing by and how I was being employed, you know. So, ranks have never really meant much to me at a personal level. You know, so yeah. But you're, and correct me if I'm wrong of Vivek, but your, wasn't your career also cut short a little bit by a parachute accident or did that happen afterwards?

Yeah, so you know how things are in life, you know, everything happens simultaneously. So when it happens, it happens together. So, so I, I had two things happened actually. A, I peaked out in combat. I peaked out in combat as in, I had experienced the highest level that I could think of as a, as a special forces soldier. what was there in my mind that this would be the highest level of what one can experience one can operate as to my satisfaction I had I had I had I had already experienced that and I experienced all of this cumulatively over a decade so 10 years out of the 14 years that I was in service

you know minus the training and all of that so out of 14 years yeah almost a decade I was continuously in combat so so there's just so much that my mind opened up to and and I picked out and also simultaneously I had this combat free fall I was undergoing combat free fall training and and I had a parachute malfunction in fact thrice so in my first combat free fall jump in my fourth jump and finally in my 11 jump, you know, it's like a horseshoe. Yeah, you know what a horseshoe is? Yeah.

Yeah. So I had a horseshoe, you know, high speed emergency three times. And the third time that that happened actually went unconscious in free fall. And luckily just before I went unconscious, I was able to, you know, get the handle out. and when the parachute opened up basically it wrapped around my leg and my leg smashed my face so I went out and and I came to my senses a little while later and I was under canopy and so I checked the altitude I was at 2,000 feet and I had a semi-deployed parachute so about 30-40% of it was more or less collapsed because all the rigging lines had gone over the over the parachute and it was like

almost about to collapse so so I kind of you know stuck to it and flew down at a bad landing and I injured my spine and so I was in hospital for some time and so all of these things happened together kind of a thing you know and when I was in hospital I had some time to sit back and chew the cut you know so yeah and see, you know, how life has been till that point of time. I was, I think, what, 36 years of age by then, 36, 37. And I had time to reflect on life and really see, you know, what is it that makes sense to me and what gives me meaning to life

and where do I want to go from here and things like that. So, yeah, so all of these things came together and I decided that it's time to move on. time to move ahead time to evolve further time to see what more life has to offer right so if you look at life in two spectrums you know everything is in for anything to exist it has to have its exact opposite there right for example black to have meaning there has to be white you understand black in the color black you understand it when when you when you when you see it relatively to white right like good and evil you know black and white you know right and wrong you know things like that so our entire construct of our reality exists in duality itself right for anything to exist it's

exact opposite has to be there otherwise nothing exists take it so so what i realize is uh while i was in hospital that that that there's destruction right and that's what special forces are supposed to be doing you're supposed to be you know one of the the highest expressions of destructive energy. Right. So when you when you go out there, it could be anyone, anything, whatever, right? And you don't go out there thinking that you might lose. That question doesn't arise in your mind. What what is always there is somehow, you know, I don't know, that's how it's always been for me. And I'm sure that's how it is for everybody else in the ASF community.

When you're going out there, you don't doubt yourself, you know, when you go out there, you know, you kind of, you decide it in your head, whether it, you know, you in your mind, it's not about success and failure. It's, it's about reaching there and doing it. There's, you know, that's where it ends. It used to end in my mind. I never used to see post contact. It was always for me that, okay, this is what it is. I have to go there and I'm going to do it.

And I go in there and I do it. That's it. No, no thinking too much around it about successes and failures and things like that. So, so as you, you know, over a period of time, you realize what it means to be a destructive form of energy, right, to be an expression of destructive form of energy and to be one of the highest expressions of destructive form of energy, right? For example, nuclear weapons, right? The amount of destructive energy that a nuclear weapon has is phenomenal, right? It's, you know, in the right amount it's life ending. And, you know,

Similarly, kind of, you know, special forces is also a very, very precise and high intensity, very focused expression of destructive energy. So I kind of peaked out there and there was nothing left. There was no higher high to be seen. There was no, there was no nothing more to be done, nothing more to be achieved, nothing more to be realized about yourself in terms of this capability. It's kind of a realization. It may not have, there are various ways it is expressed in the world and, you know, depending on your ability to perceive you and how open, how much your mind has opened up and how connected you are to actually what reality is. You will be able to see these kind of things. So anyway, so the destructive part got over and I really had nothing left.

I was just empty. I did not want to do anything else. I had no interest in anything else in life. For me, I just kind of understood that this is all just the game. It's just a game at the end of the day. People shooting at people for some or the other reason, right? And things like that. So all these kind of things started coming up in my mind.

I also a certain people like people call it spiritual, right? They associated with religion or spirituality or, you know, your higher self or whatever that it is, it is called. but there's a sense of awareness that starts opening up, you know, it's beyond the so-called matrix or whatever. So you start, you know, seeing, you know, and especially in these special forces and all, you're, you're exposed to a lot of strategic thinking and you understand where that strategic thinking is coming from. What is what is driving? What is the source from which, you know, strategic warfare is being taught from? So at some point I realized that it is ultimately the deepest sense of security which plays out into the highest expression of destruction.

A deepest sense of insecurity within an individual, within an organization, within a nation, within a within a within any expanded sense of consciousness from an individual to to a nation or beyond. So when you are when you feel insecure and where do you feel insecure from you feel insecure because of lack of realizing what you really are, right? There are these, you know, you don't know what you are. Since you don't know what you are, the world can appear very, very threatening, right? There's always then the need to dominate, the need to be better, the need to be to be greater. All of these things come from from a very, very deep sense of insecurity. Right. So and insecurity will always, lead to an aggressive and destructive expression of what human capability can or cannot do. So all of these things I was able to zoom out and look at. And at some point it just stopped, it just stopped making sense to me.

It's like a, you know, at a certain level, the people who are actually guiding, you know, the use of special forces or use of combat potential or combat power and all that, they are not the people actually are going down there and fighting, right? Neither are they going down and you won't find their kids there either. Right. It's, it's, it's, you know, people like us, you, you'll, you, and especially special forces, soldiers, especially so, of course, this kind of capability or this kind of awareness is there in all human beings. But what happens in high intensity combat where life and death, life and death, life and death, you're constantly on the cutting edge of that. What happens is that a lot of these latent potentialities which are there within you, they start coming out.

They have to come up. If they don't come out, you won't make it. It'll be you getting shot rather than you shooting someone. It'll be, you know. So all of these things over a period of a day. decade it gave me a very very clear picture of how things are and what drives things and what is the source of of you know Ultimately when you when you look at the world you what do you see we are the highest species on this planet right so to speak you know human beings or

human beings are the highest species on the planet There is nobody more intelligent or intellectually capable as a species as compared to us. That's what we believe right There's the animal kingdom is below in consciousness or awareness below us. And the plant kingdom is further below because of the grade our superiority as a species or grade our position as a species in the entire, you know, biological spread on this planet basis. We grade ourselves basis. Basis our ability to think which other species don't apparently have, right? And look at us, what are we doing? You know, we as human beings, we have created boundaries on a planet, right?

We have created these boundaries, called it India, Pakistan, China, Japan, US, this, that we have created these boundaries. Who has created these boundaries? Has God created these boundaries? No, there are human beings like you and me who have created these boundaries. And what do we do? We the so-called most intelligent, most intellectually capable, most aware, most conscious beings, the highest, the alphas, or the so-called guardians of Earth, the guardian species of Earth, that is what we would be, right? Since we have the highest capability in terms of consciousness, awareness, thought capability, and the ability to move energy around, to create energy and to shift it around, and to shift it around, to apply it, we would, we would, we would, we would look to to combine and evolve rather than

divide and, and, uh, dissolve, you know, we have, if you just, if you just look at, at human species today, right, as, as human beings, you know, forget the various boundaries that are there in our mind and, and what differentiates us. look at what is common amongst us, you know. We're all in the same boat, right? And the boat's kind of got a big hole in it. And we can constantly bailing water out nowadays, right? Isn't it?

Like with all the climate change happening with, with, with, just look at where we are and where the planet was, let's say, 100 years ago or 200 years ago, you know, where we are today, constantly on the brink of destruction. We have created a capability. We have harnessed. energy in such a way that we have harnessed the highest destructive potential of energy and created nuclear weapons to to account that nobody's like business. It's like we could destroy the earth, you know, so many times over and get constantly as a species on that brink. You know, it's been done before.

There's this, you know, we shouldn't be doubting that it can happen again. So as the species, which is capable of of all of that, we are insecure. We are insecure as a species and who are we insecure? off we are insecure of each other and since we are insecure of each other and we are constantly you know feeling that somebody might dominate me in the future and energy is limited and all of these things are limited and we have to fight with each other because you know we have to survive individually and and as nations or whatever so we have we have harnessed our potential to do to

to do something the ability to create or the ability to destroy we have we have our insecurity has led us to a consciousness level where we are where we have directed our our maximum energy our maximum potential of of aggregating energy and doing something we have concentrated into the defense industry so as a species the biggest business the most the most focus of our of our as human beings is to protect each other from each other that's where our maximum energy is going. Right. Now just imagine all these trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars,

which are being expended on human beings trying to build walls between each other. And if all of that energy was focused on evolution itself of human species being able to live longer, being able to become multi planetary species, to be, forget about the future, to be, to be able to have a better today. Right. You know, forget about it. For that. as you're, you know, you're thinking about all of these things and all of this sort of like,

this realization is occurring within you. Could you tell us about what your personal evolution was like, I mean, you're speaking to these big, these big ideas, but I mean, what was the evolution for you like as a person, as a man? And what was the next, that other part of your own duality that you explored in the aftermath of this injury? Yeah. So what I realize is essentially my sense of identity is stuck in my mind, right? What is my mind? My mind is a is a is in my is basically the brain is a neuron which are formed in a certain kind of pattern. Right. And my sense of self of who am I of who I am is stuck inside of that. What how has that mind developed? That mind has developed over a period of time basis my DNA that I had right from my parents and their experiences and my forefather's experiences, etc.

that's the DNA. And then my mind is a product, how I think and how I feel and what I know and what my awareness levels are, where my sense of identity lies is basis the kind of experiences that I've had in life, the kind of friends I had when I was growing up, the kind of education that I, that my parents afforded me, right? The kind of experiences, how my father was with me, how my mother was with me, you know, and, you know, all the kind of, all the experiences that one goes through. in the social structure and finally when you go out into the big bad world and you know you

you join a profession and you get into you know you get into your working life so your sense of eye is when it's stuck in the mind and that's what unfortunately that's that's how we are brought up you know we think we are the mind and what is the mind but just the product of your circumstances and your situation and what you have experienced and what you were told what what life is all about, right? It's all about, you know, getting to some goalpost, right? And, and, you know, some kind of thing. So, so all this, somehow, this life and death kind of thing that I kept seeing, kept seeing, kept seeing the instantaneous, how it vanishes. And I, it kind of focused to a point where I realized that actually the truth of everyone's life, it's not just special forces, soldiers.

It's not just firemen who are going into a building full of fire that who could die. Actually, the state of human existence, of all human beings who have ever been born and will ever be born, is always life and death in the moment. You like a quantum element. You exist and don't exist simultaneously. Any moment may spell your death. An earthquake may come. It's not, you know, most people don't die because of bullets.

You know, there's just a million and one ways to die on this planet. And actually the truth of our existence is that we, that we are, we're always living on the edge. We just don't know it. We're just not aware of it. Once you start realizing that you are living on the edge, the way you look at life, the kind of places that you would focus your energy, the kind of things you would find your happiness from, all of that will change. So that's what happened to me. Right. So I kind of was able to step away from my mind.

and look at life itself and look at the world and see what drives people to do what they do and how at various levels of you know as an individual and then as a society as a nation as as one of the human beings on this planet etc etc so I kept zooming out zooming out zooming out and looking right and so personally a lot of foolish ideas in my head about what life means a lot of I'll I'll not call it foolish what I would call it is an unexposed mind an unrealized mind right a mind that that is that is limited by what it thinks it knows so so all of that kind of fell away it just kept falling away I didn't realize it when I was in combat because I was totally I didn't think anything else I was

I was very, very focused. For me, like, I never used to ask for leave and things like that. I never required to go off, off tour, off combat. I always, I hardly used to go home, nothing. I was completely, completely focused and dedicated to the next stop, to the next stop, to the next stop, to the next stop, to the next stop. That's how I lived my life, right? and and so I didn't have time or I never really stood back and looked at what I was doing while I was in it but once I read you know after a decade and all and I had that accident and then I was in hospital and

then you know I had time to reflect and chew the card and and shed things and look at things as they are rather than how I think them to be so so personally it was the evolution happened or the awareness i would say it's not evolution too it's simply you become more aware of of yourself that's all it's you realize more about yourself rather than evolve into something else the evolution is an expression but the evolution happens because there's a realization of what is already there within you so you just become you zoom in rather than you know your mind zooms in and you start looking at what you are and and and you look back at your experiences and then you realize that Fuck, life's always been very, very magical.

It's just a whole magical experience going on. And you don't have to really, you know, jump around and, you know, you don't have to go around breaking things. You know, you can go around making things. And that's where true realization of yourself lies. And that's what I realize that actually what we are all seeking, what we are all seeking individually as human beings, is complete expression of yourself, of realizing of your own potential. expression of that. So most of us don't know what we are. So forget about, you know, realizing what you can do. When you don't know what you are, how will you know what you can do? You'll

never test it out even. So there's always this longing within. It's called that seeking, right? People travel around the world, looking for new experiences and things like that. People say, I'm trying to find myself. So they go around the whole world, you know, going through this kind of experiences, trying to find themselves, right? But that self is always within you. And you're looking for it everywhere, but within. So it becomes, and many people get frustrated and, you know, choose experiences from a non-realized self point of view, which, you know, you get a lot of boots up your backside over life, you know, life keeps kicking you and kicking you and kicking you, and then one day the kicking becomes so much that you can't take it anymore and you stop.

So you stop and then there's nowhere to look, but look within. So when you start looking within and you start, you know, collating your experiences and drawing simple common sense inferences from that, you start getting a different picture of what it is and what you're all about. And then the expression of that starts changing. So if you see the work that we do now is, it's a very clear statement that is there in Clod Global. You know, it's from destruction to creation. Yeah. So we...

Tell us about it. Yeah. Yeah, please tell us about Clod Global. Yeah, so that story starts off in hospital, right? So when I was in hospital, I was, you know, going through some, you mind if I smoke? I've had it. I've had it. We do.

All right. So, so this started off. So this started off in, in, in hospital and there was this Air Force officer, right? He was a youngster. He must be, you know, around 23. 26 years of age, he was in the hospital room next to mine. So now this guy, he had, when he had just done about four years of service, he had dived into a swimming pool and hit his head and cracked his neck and got chest down paralyzed.

So when I met him, he had been in hospital for four years already. So four years of service plus four years. Yeah, four years he had been sitting in hospital. and he used to get a month of leave every year from hospital, right? So two weeks in the summers and two weeks in the winters is what he used to go home for. The rest of his 11 months, he had been in hospital for four years. And a healthy guy getting instantly paralyzed, you know, is a big shift. It's a very, very big shift to digest.

And he had just got married. one month prior to his accident. So at night, you know, you know, around 10, 10, 30 at night, he used to get on a call with his family. And since I used to be in the next room, I could hear. And there was a lot of stress, you know, going on and this and that. And I used to watch him through the day as well.

He was trying, you know, he could hardly move his fingers and also he was, he was, you know, trying to learn to type with a pencil and things like. like that and trying to build, he knew that his, his career is over and that he's going to be basically medically boarded out of the air force. So he had to think about a new life and everything was falling to shit around him. Right. So all of this, I could just assess over a period of two weeks that I was his neighbor. And then one day, you know, he kinds of rolls up to me on his wheelchair and he asked me that, you know, sir, I've heard that, that, that you're a, you're a, you know, Paracomando and this, that and, and like, do you guys,

do you know how to scuba dive you must be scuba diving so i said yeah yeah we do and things so he said can a person like me also scuba dive so this is back in uh 2000 2015 so i said i don't know i don't know if a person like you can scuba dive but you know i could check it out so i went back and you know i was kind of googling and and um i found this video of a lady called sue austin she's a she's a britisher and she's also chest down paralyzed and and i found a video of her on youtube where she was uh she was on a wheelchair and she had a scuba cylinder strapped to the back of her wheelchair and she had propellers and and and she had a like a wing that she had created uh on the wheelchair and she was wearing a dress and she was doing ballet under water so yeah so i

showed it to this guy you know to the air force officer said you know it's possible you know see somebody's doing it already so he looked at it and he said sir this is so complicated no how will i do it etc etc etc so there's a brotherhood you know especially in these special forces it's very very pronounced uh there's a brotherhood where where you'll do you know it comes from your heart you know so i just told him yeah you don't worry about it you know i promise you i'll take you diving one day i just said it right so it's it's kind of thing you do for anyone right right And there's this thing about being an SF soldier over a period of time you realize you can do anything, anything. You know, the more you spend time and combat, the more life and death you start seeing.

So either you're going to land up with a very, very destroyed sense of self, you know, where you will blame yourself, you'll have a lot of guilt, you'll have this, that, this, that, this, that, this is that, very high intensity, your nerves will be fried, etc, etc. That is one way that an SF soldier can go. We've seen a lot of combat. The other way that an SF soldier can go is to actually evolve. And to put things in perspective and let go of a lot of, you know, faster that guy might be carrying around. And actually understand for life or what it is, that it is in the now. And it's in the now that whatever you choose and you can create a destiny from there, whatever it may be. Whatever.

So there's a kind of belief there. So anyway, so I told this guy, I'll take you diving one day. So I started, it became an operation for me. By the time, I had already decided that I'm not going to pick up a weapon again. Right. So I had decided that. So I was in, you know, in limbo. I was basically floating in space.

I had no interest to do anything else in life. All these various functions that are there in the world of people going to jobs, earning money, trying to do this or that, trying to get accepted in their social circles, you know, trying to buy material positions, trying to, having ambitions about doing something great and fantastic someday that the world will recognize them and things like that. All of that had just had no meaning for me, zero, zero meaning, right? Not that I don't respect people who do that, but for me it had no meaning. I've gone beyond that, right? The very fragility of life and And the senselessness of our existence, right, killed any interest that I had in doing anything.

What I actually wanted to do was I wanted to come out of the army. I realized that there's just so much of pretense that one is carrying in their mind. Because the entire thought process is fucked up and it's coming out of insecure. itself. So you're trying to hide that insecurity by building your personalities and building successes and you know and going out and throwing yourself in front of the world and and, you know, trying to find it's coming from an inner lack of realization of what you are. That's why you're throwing yourself outside that much, right? And that it's like a cat chase, or dog chasing its own tail. You'll never catch it. Right. Yeah, yeah. So you keep going

ground in circles. So until someday, the world comes crashing down and you're forced to stop or you realize and you stop yourself. And so I was at that stop myself stage. I wanted to, I had a dog. I simply, I had a very, very simple plan. I wanted to go climb in the Himalayas and, you know, climb for, you know, going to the mountains seven days away from civilization. Chop wood, build a log cabin, plant the kind of vegetables that are, you know, You know, that grow around there so I can eat.

And if I want to eat meat, I'll hunt. And I'll just stop. Just stop. I'll stop worrying about the future. I'll stop reflecting on my past. I'll just stop and look at life for what it is. And zero out. Just zero out, you know.

So because we are constantly, it's like you've got onto the wrong horse. You know, and it's running and it's running. It's a stallion, right? And you're, what if the wrong horse? It's running in the wrong direction. Right? And you think that's what success is and you're riding it and you're whipping and it's galloping away. And at some point, your heart is getting heavier and heavier and heavier.

Right. Because you're sensing that this is not where I want to go. This is not what I want to do. This has no meaning. But that's what the world says meaning is. So you're running behind that. So somewhere I just wanted to stop thinking. And I also understood that this, the brain is plastic in nature.

right and it keeps it keeps forming these neural networks inside your head which become thought patterns every time my outside stimuli comes in the same you know process will circulate in your brain and the same kinds of thoughts will come out right so so so I wanted to stop thinking stop being driven by my insecurities that oh I need to earn money to eat food I need to I need to do this to have any meaning in life I need to do that I need to be recognized or I need to be, I never had any interest in being recognized by anyone, right? It's kind of a personality thing, if you may call it. But just like everybody else, I was in the constant seeking of meaning, purpose, meaning, purpose,

you know, all that. So I just wanted to get out of that horse and stop. So I was in that phase. I want to go climb, sit there for a year, for six months, not think anything. Just be, just be. That is what I wanted to do, right? But then this whole parachute accident thing happened. And then I met this guy in hospital.

I was a blank slate. I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no, no interest, no ambition, no nothing. And then I met this guy who's paralyzed and he says that he wants to learn scuba diving. So I made him a promise. I had all the time in the world. I had, it kind of, it came from the heart. So I had the energy to pursue it. right so I started researching so when I started researching I found that there

are you know more than 1.2 billion people with disabilities around the world right and then and and then I saw that there are so many more people who are terminally ill right people are gonna die people who have cancer this that etc and people will not been fortunate enough ultimately what is like its life is an opportunity to experience your highest dream That's it. So so many people who are going to die or who are on the verge of the deathbed and, you know, and they have not experienced a dream. So, you know, their highest dream like this guy. He wants to just scuba dive, you know, so why not? So so so then I started my entire operational style of thinking went into play. That began the operation for me to get this guy to scuba dive.

So what I realized is it's all about value creation for large numbers. Since there are so many, so many people like that around the world, you know, who would have wishes like that. And if you could form a team that could fulfill those wishes, that would be meaningful in life. So for me, personally. And then I thought that, okay, you know, then the whole ecosystem started coming out. People with disabilities, since they are perceived for their weaknesses, rather than assessed for what they can do, right? So what happens is since they are perceived for what they can't do, they're already degraded, you know, at a certain consciousness level where society looks at them for what they can't do. So they are never harnessed. But there are glaring examples, you know, like Stephen Hocking, right? He wrote one of the most profound books, you know, of which human beings have ever written, you know, while being almost a vegetable, right? So, so, so, so there's just so much that a human being can do,

then just walking around talking or just, you know, doing whatever physical. There's just so much inside of us. So, uh, so I saw the entire ecosystem of, of disability in the world, right? I thought as I look beyond boundaries. I look beyond nations. I look beyond, uh, I look beyond religion. I look beyond all of these boundaries. These boundaries never really made any sense to me.

And luckily I was not weighed down by them. I had free thought, free flow. I could simply see, it's like, you know, in the British SAS, they say, kiss, you know, keep it simple and stupid. Right, right. Yeah. So exactly that that's, I think, one of the highest qualities and the highest things that I learned from the special forces, how to think simply. Right. And how to believe that you can go ahead and do it.

Whatever you're thinking, you can do it. Since you can think it, it's a possibility. The difference between the possibility turning into a reality is whether you, it depends on your sense of belief and whether you take the step in that direction and all the steps that need to be taken to reach your destination, right? So did you take this paralyzed soldier scuba diving? Was that the beginning of claw? So what we did is so immediately after that, so I came out of the army. It took me out of the year, you know, for my papers to get processed. And I came out and I was at home.

And like I said, I have zeroed out. And I was, I went and bought a lot of wood and I was just making my furniture. Like I was filling my, my house was empty. I had no possessions. Right. I never bought a car. I never bought anything. I had never no use for these things.

Right. I used to have what four or five sets of clothes and that's about it. And that's more than what I needed actually. So, so I came out with nothing. I never saved any money while I was in service and things like that. I had, I never thought about it. I never really knew actually while in service. never knew how much my salary is, right?

Because it just didn't matter. So. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so all of these things. So, so when I came out, I was building this furniture and all. And then one day I got a call from one of the soldiers that I used to operate with, one of my teammates. You know, he called up.

And he was also leaving the, he was leaving the army. And he just called up and he said that, you know, he asked me, what am I? doing so I told I'm doing nothing so he said okay great I'm coming to join you so so so I said you know why are you coming to me you have a wife and you have two kids and things like that and he was one of the toughest like SF soldiers that I had come across right what a guy what a man what a heart what a body blessed right so this guy and and he he wants to join me and I just told him that I'm not doing I'm not doing anything and I can't take your responsibility You're a guy who would get so much more when you go out, right?

But he just said, you know, I just want to be with you. So I said, but I don't have anything. I don't have any money. I don't have anything. I can't give you anything. If I'm able to look after myself, that is more than enough. And that's what I want to do. So he said, no, I'm not worried about money.

Money we will make. I just want to be with you. Let's be together. So I said, okay, okay, okay. So come. So he came. when he came so he was a he was quite an expert mountaineer you know in the military and all that he had broken a lot of physical records a lot of technical and you know those kind of records he had created

very very solid guy so uh you know if there's just two of you in contact you know i would like that guy to be with me you know that kind of guy so so so we kind of got together and then it started rolling you know the uh you know very very quickly i found 10 of these ex-SF soldiers sitting inside my house, right? And some of the Navy Marine Commandos and all the Navy SF guys also joined in. So there was a joint team of the Army and Navy ex-veteran guys sitting together in the house and everybody's looking at each other, okay, let's do something together, you know. So I said, you know, I've said it earlier as well.

And what I used to feel was that one day I was, you know, climbing a mountain and, and, you know, It was the dawn was breaking and I was right on the crest on the ridge line and I looked back and I was operating with these five other soldiers, we're six of us. So I just looked at that squad and this thing came out from my mind, you know, in Hindi, in our national language we say, you know, if I had in these people of these people with the doodkine dookane, you know, so I'm putting North India's supply out of what it means is that when I looked at those guys, guys, I just looked at them and this thought struck me that with these, that six of us, if we open a milk shop also, if we start selling milk, right, in a year's time, I'll take the entire supply of North India, I will own it. Right. So yeah. So that's the kind of men you get to walk with right in the SF. I think that's the biggest privilege, you know. So, so, so,

so with that thought, so I told these guys, you know, that whatever we do in this world from here on, You know, together, we'll do it together and we'll build. We'll think together. We'll operate together. We'll do everything together. But before we go out to do that, before we go out to do that, let us travel across the country and train as many people who are paralyzed. We'll train them in scuba diving. Right.

So as has always been the case with the teams I've worked with, you know, the crazier the idea, the faster the yes is. you know yeah so so so I said you know let's travel across India across the entire length of India and let's let's let's let's train as many people with disabilities as we meet as many paralyzed people as we meet let's let's let's introduce them to scuba diving and everybody said yes let's do it and that's when my life started changing when I actually started to see the magical side of the experience called life right So the reality of life is singular. But how you experience it is what defines life for you, for anyone, right?

So there's a 3D reality that our mind is accustomed to operate in, which we think that, okay, if I do this, then that will happen and that will have cause and effect, basically. So we are able to calculate a certain matrix that, okay, if I do this, I meet this guy, I have this network, I'll be able to do that. Okay, if I have this kind of money, I'll be able to buy this and then I'll be able to do that. So that's how you that's how your brain works right two plus two equal to four four plus two equal to six but there's a magical side of life as well which you which most people don't get to experience because we don't cross that threshold at all right that magical side of life is where where where you are in alignment with the universe and things the universe starts throwing things that you magical things. So we the last we started off in 2020 and in fact 2019 we got to together and over the last four years we have been living in a constant series of magic constant series of magic we are operating at magical level only right so what happened is we got together and

then somebody called up some random guy called up from somewhere and you know I've heard about you guys and I would like to collaborate with you etc that's the first time I heard this word collaboration right so this guy calls up and he says you know I want to collaborate with you and I said okay what do so he said I've just opened up a dive shop I sell diving equipment so fantastic we don't have diving equipment. We plan to travel across the country and train as many people with disabilities that we find in scuba diving. So we need gear. She said, fantastic, I'll send you the gear. So he sent us, you know, a couple of thousand dollars worth of, you know, you know, $15,000 dollars worth of equipment. He just send it to us, right? With nothing. No ask,

no nothing. He said, use it. Whenever you're done, please, you know, send it back to me. So we had gear now. We had gear, we had the skills, so we had a little money left. So I sent the divers. We went to Thailand and we learned a specialized course of how to teach people with disabilities how to dive. We did that particular course and then we came back and of course all of the guys were there with me, they had about, you know, like 20,000, 30,000 hours of diving. So very experienced much. And now we were certified as well. And then we, our journey started. We started from my home where I am right now in Chandigar and we went to the spinal rehab center here.

That's the first like full on exposure I had. There were 24 people who were paralyzed in various stages of paralysis in that hospital. And I saw them play wheelchair basketball. And that's the roughest game of basketball that I ever seen in my life. They were bashing each other off. Right. You have to see people on wheelchairs playing basketball. It's crazy.

Violence. So, so. And then these guys come up and, and. We are in a room and I asked them, okay, you know, so I'm major so and so and these are our guys and we are all divers and we'd like to, you know, anybody if you were interested in scuba diving, we'd like to teach you, you know, all 24, all 24 paralyzed people, people who could raise their hands who were raised down paralyzed, raise their hands. You know, people who were neck down paralyzed and could not move their body, opened their mouth and shouted, you know, all 24 shouted, we want to do it. and that shocked me. So that's where that's where this whole ecosystem started opening up. And we, we trained all 24 of them.

You know, we've always lived on the fly. Whatever we've had, we always go in having belief. All the resources come at the right time, the right place, the right amount every time. That's how we're operating. Right. We're constantly operating like that. So none of us is rich or wealthy or things like that. We never really care too much about these things.

But we are very, very wealthy in the sense that it's like the universe is holding my bank account. It's wrong. So, you know, it's once you understand, you've seen death so much, you don't really give a fuck. You know, you just go there and do it. You know, the universe has to catch up with you. You don't have to catch up with the universe. It's like that. Well, it sounds like the universe was making a lot of deposits in that bank account, too.

of Vec. Yeah. And that's a lot for you to do. Yeah, yeah. So it's just, it's like money, right? People think to be successful to do anything in life, you need money, right? But actually the things that are really worth doing, they either cost too much money that you can never, ever make in your life, right?

Or they don't need money at all, right? In any case, the rich person, you know, I understood money when I came outside. What I understood about money is what is being rich. Being rich is having the right amount of money at the right point of time. Not a rupee more, not a dollar less, you know? When you have a little bit too much, you'll go and do something else. Rather than what you ready to do. Right.

So if you have the right amount of money to the dollar, you have the right amount of money, you know, to do what you need to do right now. That's a rich fan. Right. So anyway, so that's how we have been operating. and then we traveled across the country and what happened is we saw a phenomenal amount of healing happening. There was this lady who was for seven years,

her left side was paralyzed. And we took her diving five times, you know, for five continuous sessions, we took her out and her legs started moving. So, yeah, we've seen some crazy things,

the speed with which the body responds, how the mind starts healing. You know, all of these things started coming out in all, as we started traveling across the country. And so I started researching that why is it like this? Why is it? Why is, where is this healing happening from?

And why is it so rapid? So we started speaking to some doctors and things like that, started researching on the internet, found a lot of research documents on this, came up, you know, on the concept of death therapy, etc. So in the US, I believe it's quite popular where people who have got injured in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan who have lost limbs, etc. So they undergo something called depth therapy where they're exposed to either hyperbaric chambers or actual scuba diving.

Yeah. It speeds up. Yeah. So the science of it is basically it operates when you when you're at a certain depth underwater, your your DNA's. The ends of your DNA call your telomeres basically. That's they start lengthening. And telemars is what defines your regenerative capacity of your body. So every time the DNA device, the telemetase goes shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter.

So therefore, the speed with which you generate new cells becomes slower and slower and slower. So you grow old. Your ability to heal becomes more and lesser and lesser. So what when you dive, when you die when you go under certain pressure and especially in an aquatic environment when you're diving in the open sea and things like that, there's a, there's an impact on your body right down to your DNA level where your telemet. minute start regenerating right so your ability to reproduce new cells again gets jacked up and also your mind your mind starts expanding because it's a meditative experience for 40 45 minutes in a dive you're not you're not listening to anything you're

not thinking anything you may be you know you know getting divorced on land but when you're underwater you will not think about it right you'll be just diving so anyway so we started decoding why this healing is happening and by the time we we we kind of you know, reached Bombay, it was very, very clear that this needs to be institutionalized. This kind of therapy needs to be institutionalized for people with disabilities because the healing is rapid, right? And, and not only rapid, it stays. It's enduring, right? It's not that today you get therapy and tomorrow you go home and day after you, you know, you're wanting to commit suicide again, right? It's not like that. So once you get sorted, it remains sorted for quite some time.

It's sustainable. So, so I say, started speaking to a lot of people in our government and things like that, where I start saying, you know, we need to, we need to tap into this energy. There are, there are, you know, lacks of people like this who are, who are, who are not being tapped into their, their potential to do something in life is not being harnessed. That's just energy just lying wasted around, right? And especially what is so special about, about having a, you know, what does disability actually do to you? It's like, this you know when the chips are down and your back is against the wall that's when you fight the

hardest that's when your best comes out right so so you can look at uh getting paralyzed or or people you know people who get disabled in some form or the other is that your back is against the wall right the only way is that you have to believe in yourself you have to look within and you know move out and also your other senses start getting enhanced right if your hearing goes a little low your eyesight will go a little higher you know it compensates the body is pretty magical so anyway the long and short of the story is that we traveled across the country and we understood that that this there needs to be an ecosystem which is created which institutionalizes and offers these facilities these healing opportunities these regenerative opportunities these opportunities to tap into the

human potential of people with disabilities uh these need to be created so that is the overall solution that I came up with. We called it the human ability biomes. And I went to a lot of government officials and spoke and this that and but what I realized is things don't move on ideas. Things move on successes, right? So success creates success. So need creates more need. So so I decided, you know, I just and I throughout this entire journey that you know, you about a year we were traveling and I constantly found myself asking other people for things. You know, please give me this, please give me that because I need to take these guys out diving. I need this, I need that. And I'm a person who doesn't believe in charity, right?

It's a good thing. Empathy is a good thing. But sympathy is just destructive, right? Sympathy is just judgment. Empathy is what, you know, when you feel for human beings, you know, you can feel the other person's, you know, discomfort or pain or whatever. That's useful. But pity and charity, you know, when you feel pitiful for another person is, it's just going to make you more stupider than you are and never going to get you anywhere, right? It's never going to help anyone. Pity doesn't help anyone. So, so, so I just took a break, you know, I just took a break and I went home. I was fed up of asking people for things and constantly having to, you know, like, moving around with a bowl, you know, asking people for give me this, give me that. So I just went

home and I took a break. I bought a whole case of beer and I went to my mom's place and I parked on the carpet and I spent three days drinking beer. So I used to wake up in the morning. I used to drink beer and go to sleep. I used to wake up, drink beer, go to sleep. Wake up, drink beer, go to sleep. I lived in that cycle for three days. I consciously switched off my mind and, you know, let everything go and just zeroed out and and just slept and drank beer and slept and drank beer and slept and dragged beer. On the fourth morning when I woke up, I woke up with three world records in my mind. I woke up with that. I said, okay, you know, it was just a complete solution.

The first thing, the idea was as simple as it gets, you know, that we'll get a team of people with disabilities. A team of people with disabilities coming from across the world, across race, culture, class, religion, economic status or ability. All of these differences that are there in our human perception and our mind and the way we look at things. We'll get people with disabilities from across the world, across all of these various boundaries and barriers that we have in our collective consciousness. And we'll train them. this so-called weakest section of society, the so-called weakest section of society, we'll get them across together and we'll train them, we'll teach them how to skydive independently, we'll teach them how to scuba dive independently, and we'll teach them how to climb a mountain

independently, right? And who will train them? Former Special Forces soldiers coming from across the world, across race, culture, class, religion, nationality, etc, etc., etc. And SF soldier is a soldier, is a soldier is a soldier, whichever uniform, whichever flag, whichever whatever he may walk under, it's a spirit, it's a mindset, right? Human beings at the end of the day are human beings, and a special force a soldier is a special kind of human being. He's just more realized about himself. His potential is more on tap than most other people, right? And the reason why a special forces soldier is, dare I say, evolved, more evolved, because your circumstances make you. And when you're constantly living in a situation where you could die, you could die, you could die, you could die, you could die, right?

And every time you come out winning is basically you're evolving, evolving, evolving, getting better, better, better, better, better, right? At some point you leave the matrix, right? So it's just you have to constantly tap into what is there within you to be able to survive to the next moment and and survival for you. You know, other people call it, you know, may call it winning and victory and things like that, but you just survived. It's just got out of it. because when a bullet leaves leaves the barrel, it could go anywhere, you know. Could you tell us about some of the endeavors that you have going on now that you kind of you pursued these thoughts?

You mentioned to me Operation Blue Freedom and Soul of Steel, some of these things that, where you've kind of evolved this concept to. Tell us kind of what's going on now, where these endeavors are at today. I'll tell you. So all of that, those three world records, what is Operation Blue Freedom. The three world records that I woke up with on the fourth day, that's Operation Blue Freedom.

Three world records in land, air and water, created by a team of people with disabilities coming from across the world across all these mental, social barriers that we've got, being trained by former gods of destruction, ex-special forces, soldiers coming from across the world, ex-military veterans coming from across the world, specialized in these various skill sets,

teaching the so-called weakest section of society, giving them the skills, and sharing these skills with them to be able to to skydive independently, scuba dive independently and climb a mountain independently, three world records and all the three elements of land, air and water, right? Where what 99% of people in this world have not done, the weakest section of society will come and show it and do it. So it will destroy the perception of weakness and disability that all of us carry in our minds, all of us. Right. Disability is what?

Disability is the inability to do something. Right. And where does that inability ultimately lie? It lies in the mind. So if you could just crack that, you know, worldwide. If you could just crack it and who's doing it? Former special forces soldiers, people who are at the peak epitome of destructive ability that at an individual level, right? You're not a machine. You're a human being which is designed to destroy. You're built, trained, equipped to destroy supremely efficiently. That's what you're supposed to do. Anywhere across the globe. in any kind of a scenario you fucking throw aliens that has been fucking kill them yeah that's what you believe that's what you believe otherwise you won't make it so so so so former so so formal special forces veterans i so so i felt that this kind of energy that this is kind of an energy that we share with people with disability because they are constantly having to navigate a minefield of the world around them a guy on a wheelchair you know it's it's it's a It's very, very difficult for that person to go outside his house and find a job and earn a living.

It's very, very difficult for that person to cross the street, right? Very, very difficult for that person to use public transport, right? So his back is life is a battle zone. So that guy, he can't give up. He can't afford to give up, right? And most people with disabilities don't have jobs because society perceives them as weak and perceives them as a problem and perceives them as something that that takes too much of investment. to really get any value out of. So all of these things, you know.

So Operation Blue Freedom is what this three world records are all about and all three elements of land and water. And we did the first world record end of last last, end of 2021. We climbed the world's highest battlefield, a team of eight people with disabilities. Unfortunately, it could not be an international team because the sea action glacier. I don't know if you guys have heard of it. It's the world's highest battlefield. It's an active battle zone, right?

Goes up to altitudes of about 23,000, 24,000 feet. And it's an entire glacier. So the army is all parked on the glacier. We're basically living inside a fridge, right? So we trained, we trained. So it's an active military zone. So we could not get clearances for foreign participants. But we were able to get clearances for an Indian team.

And we trained eight people. with disabilities, 400% blind people, you know, people who can't see, 100% visually impaired, three upper limb amputees, one leg amputee was a battle casualty. So eight people, we trained them, and we did a nine-day expedition into the glacier and back successfully. Yeah, and we, so the idea was to, A, create these world records. We are going in for the second one. Right now, we are negotiating, with Dubai and with Thailand for the air ball record so these are three world records that we want to create at three different places around the world we we do not look at boundaries we do not look we do not operate on judgment we

operate on kind of a unifying thought process you know you know divide and rule unite and evolve you know so so that kind of a mindset so that's the three world records that we are doing and the second one In fact, we'll be looking forward to some people coming in from the US as well and from various other countries from Canada from Germany etc. So a lot of you know, that's catching up a lot of speed. That's one thing that we are on. The idea for it's a it's a very simple business plan if you if you want to call it that. It's a we want to the problem with with the disability sector worldwide.

So I look at it unemotionally. I don't look at it with emotions and pity. and charity and sympathy and things like that, I look at it as a problem that needs to be solved, that can be solved. The problem with disability today is that it is spread across an entire spectrum and strewn across the world in little penny pockets, right? Right, right, right. There are diseases and things like that. It's an unaggregated sector. People are all, you know, and the biggest problem with this is, is the research and funding part of it. Most NGOs, etc., spend most of the time trying to get money. So, you know, from CSR,

CSR or from funding from from charity organizations, et cetera. So most of your effort isn't trying to get money so that you can go out and do something. Right. It's like when you're going into an operation, you have to first convince your bosses to give you the bullets so that you can go and fight. Right. So something like that. So we decided that we'll create a system where where everything will come on its own, right? We don't have to go seeking energy. The energy will come by itself, right? So, so we decided the first thing to do is change the perception towards human disability itself, the understanding of human ability, the understanding of human potential to change the perception of the world towards it, right? So, so the three world records are designed to do that,

to change the perception worldwide. You create these three world records, film them, and show this film to the rest of the world, right? So you crack that, you crack the perception. The second thing is to be able to generate the network capital, to collaborate with research organizations around the world, to collaborate with employment networks around the world, to be able to come together and create the network which creates these human-emnity biomes, where people, disabilities can come in and they can get access to the highest quality of rehabilitation, education, education, skilling and connected up to an employment network and in the background so healing is definitely going to happen you you give a person the right kind of

environment like we've been watching tremendous amount of healing is happening so you've got a team of researchers in the background which is decoding this this we've got you know we deploy biomedical devices and you know before diving after diving before this before that we change the diets etc etc we work on the psychology and and we give real world skill set so that people can can can can actually become independent and earn money by themselves rather than having to depend on their families to feed them. Right. So it's an entire ecosystem. And in this ecosystem when a person with disability comes in, when something that's supposedly broken, it comes in, it starts healing. It starts fixing. Right. So when it starts fixing, automatically, we have these researchers in the background which are picking up data.

So over a period of time, what we believe is that this data will give out patterns. And what are these patterns? These patterns are basically how to decode or unlock inner human potential, not only for people with disabilities, but for everyone. All human beings in this world today, except the so-called enlightened ones, everybody else is operating below power. I know that for sure. Everybody is operating below power, right? So, you know, it's a constant effort to become something rather than realize what you are, already are. So we thought of this entire ecosystem and then we created the first human ability biome in Pondicherry, in Orville, in India. It's in the southern part of India. It's an aqua biome. It's basically based around forest healing and underwater diving, etc.

Now we are in the process of building a high-altitude mountain biome. Right. So whatever, you know, whatever events or whatever programs or whatever designs or whatever training that we come up with is all towards one and one target to create a human ability biome. That's it. So Operation Blue Freedom, the three world records are to create human ability biomes around the world. Every country has people with disabilities. Every country has got retiring military veterans, right, who are very, very specialized in their skill sets. So if we can create these ecosystems, human ability biomes in, in various, countries around the world where veterans coming in can have meaningful employment and can contribute to society like this, contribute the immense amount of skill sets and the mindset that

they develop in combat, right? The heart, the ability to tap into their heart and spirit, that kind of thing. And there, of course, there's skill sets in the mountains and nature, etc., etc., life skills, etc., whatever they are able to develop, they're able to share this with people, not only with people with disabilities, but with the society at large. You don't have to join a big corporate and become a tech guy or this guy or that guy or you have to rewrite your whole life. You have to shed all the all the capabilities and all the all the skill sets that you develop all of that doesn't need to go to rubbish, right? All of that can be really repurposed, repurposed and driven in this direction, which ultimately is leading to what? Realization of human

potential not only for people with disabilities but for everyone across the world. So it's a large idea it's a big thing etc etc etc but I've never felt that it's impossible it's very very practical very simple very very stupid and it's working right so it's working and and even soul of steel so soul of steel is again a repurposing of veteran skill sets so like I said we spent 15 20 years in the mountains we're operating in the mountains constantly operating in the mountains now civilian style of mountainary you know when you go in for expeditions and things like that It's a very, very planned thing. You have a peak, you know, you plan it and you go in and, you know, you have your challenges and things like that.

But how is military mountaineering different? You know, military mountaining is obviously tuned to combat and tuned to endurance, endurance ability in the mountains. To be able to survive for extended periods of time in the mountains in high altitude, right? Two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, month, two months, three months, being able to go into surveillance grids for that long, right? To survive that long. You can't carry that kind of wood on air. rucksack, you can't carry that kind of water and things like that. You can carry only limited things. So to be able to survive in extreme environments like that over extended durations of time.

So we took those skill sets and the adventure side of monitoring skill sets created a hybrid and created an event called Soul of Steel. What is Soul of Steel? Sole of Steel is being able, is a challenge, it's a seven-day challenge in high altitude where you, where a, where a fusion of adventure skill sets in the mountains and military mountain range skills sets come together where not only do you have to navigate across an entire spread of hundreds of square kilometers right you have to navigate you have to you have to you'll be self-contained for a period of seven days you'll be carrying whatever you can carry on your back you would have decided your equipment that you've got you will be

tested for emergency medical first response you will be tested for your survival skill sets your navigation skill sets and of course the various mountaineering skillsets of rock climbing, icecraft, snowcraft, glacier marching, crevasse crossing, etc, etc. All of this pool together in a seven-day challenge where you navigate from point to point to point. And again, it's a repurposing of veteran skill sets. We are creating ecosystems where veterans can walk in and we can harness the entire mindset and skill set that they've developed over a period of time and share it with the society at large,

right, through meaningful things. At the end of the day, it's all linked to freedom. Everything that Clore Global does is linked to freedom, the sense of freedom, sense of freedom within, because we are getting to do what we believe in, and sharing that with the rest of the world through skill sets, through sharing of mindset, so that everybody can feel that sense of freedom. The more we feel free, the less insecure we will be, and therefore, the more chance to evolve as, you know, one man can't change the world, but, you know, there's nothing better to do.

so let's just try. Do we have any questions for Vivek? We do. We have a couple. Danny, thank you very much. Don't mean to get political, but I'd love to hear Vivek's thoughts on the border skirmishes,

clashes between China and India that started around 2020. Okay. What do I think about? So it's all about again. I've kind of said it earlier. It's somewhere in the nature of human beings to kind of judge you know, the baseline, the judgment starts with a sense of insecurity.

This is mine, that is yours, you know, 2,000 years ago. It was like this 200 years back. You know, this was mine, that was yours, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Human beings living at a lower sense of consciousness, dividing themselves into various penny packets and fighting with each other. Right. And deploying their highest capability, their highest sense of potential, which is coming out of insecurity, that is why it is so,

that is why it is so. Why is so deadly and why it is so distasteful, right? Well, it's just this distasteful. Just imagine like you and me, it's just regular human beings, right? You feel hungry, you feel the need for happiness, you need to feel the need for love, you feel the need to be with your family, you feel to do something meaningful in your life. When you're on your death bed, it won't make a tack of a difference to you, whether, you know, whether you are, you know, at the end of your life, you know, at the end of your life,

at the end of life, you know, all of these things don't make any sense. Since they don't make sense at the end of life, when you have clarity that you're going to go away now, they shouldn't be making sense while you're living. So now when you translate that into simple thing, you know, what do I think about it? I think it is in the nature of human beings in any form of consciousness, be it at identification with the religion, identification with a state, identification with a nation, identification with a particular racial group, or whatever is a limitation.

And all of these limitations, the greater their expression of limitations are, the higher, the higher the destructive potential of it is. Ultimately, it's a game. It's a game in which you see these players playing out their various parts. That's how I see things, personally speaking. Is it, can India and China really afford? to go to war, I don't think so. I don't think anybody can afford to go to war in, you know, really go to war in today's day and age, right, especially big markets, especially neighbors,

India and China is like, it's like there's a, it's like one body, you know, and wearing a shirt and a trouser, right? And the shirt is telling the trouser that, you know, I'm better than you and the trousers telling the shirt I'm better than you. But actually, they need to be together, right? So ultimately these are just, you know, little, little games being played by big, big gods. Yeah. So that's what I think about it. How is it going to play out? You know, these things, it will be foolish to try and predict how these things play out.

I understand why they are so, right? I understand why it is so, why these things are there. but but that's that's the way of the world you know where you find your differences and you and you create an experience of life i just i feel very disappointed when i look at the world today and i and i i just i just feel that you know having been there on that side having understood what it means to destroy people to destroy things what it actually means rather than you know sitting and commenting on a on a on a on a on a link in on instagram or there's so many people who have never fucking been there and they talk about you know they're there you will hear them shouting the largest

loudest right about about battles and and wars and who's superior and who's inferior and things like that so in my personal opinion the world will play itself out you know india and china i'm sure it's never going to translate into war we can't be that stupid as human beings that we you know two superpowers fucking destroy each other I mean like everybody will perish right so nobody's going to allow that to happen in any case and today's wars are hybrid wars they're interdimensional wars right the wars are not just being are no more being fought limited to battlefields they are being they're fought in across all dimensions right they are fought

at a perceptual level there there's a lot of post post-stering which happens that it it happens physically at certain levels and we are seeing at various hotspots around the world they have happen in, you know, in the economic arena, you know, in the business arena and in the corporate world and all these, you know, in the stock market, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's just a valuation game, you know, at the end of the day. So any other questions? Danny, thanks again. Does the Indian military incorporate any Eastern spiritualistic practices as to mindfulness, meditation in the training?

Okay, so if you look back into the history of India, right, if you look back into the history of India, all of these what are called Eastern practices, right, all of these are actually spiritual practices or spiritual sciences, the science of being a human being, living at his highest potential, right? So meditation, understanding the nature of duality, nature of, of the world itself, nature of our existence. All of these things have been written thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago in our spiritual text called the Vedas, right down to, you know, subatomic levels and right down to the, to the, to the, to, there's something called Adwaiat Vedantam, the science of non-duality, right? So all of these things are pearls of wisdom, pearls of real reality, which have been decoded thousands and thousands and thousands of years back where science is just arriving and saying, yes, the universe seems to the multiverse, it's a multiverse and it's holographic.

And there are many more dimensions than the dimensions that our senses are able to perceive. All of that is coming out in science now and specifically in quantum physics and all of that. So, yes, our very nature is dipped in this spiritual outlook towards life. And we follow meditation, we follow yogic practices. And we have a certain, it also translates into our mindset of how we look at combat itself. So we are not an aggressive nation. We don't look at, you know, going to aggressive and in a way we are, how should I say? We don't operate on insecurity.

We don't operate on this thing that somebody might overpower us tomorrow or somebody might conquer us tomorrow or somebody might do this or destroy us or weaken us or things like that. We have an immense sense of self-belief within our, within our forces at least. also within the government now and it's all this kind of coming together it's like a full circle happening right so and the very basis of our perception of our world around us as individual soldiers as a military as as the armed forces as the government is the origin of it is is spiritual in nature yeah i'm sorry because that that actually is Danny asked another question and I think this kind of leads, you talked about the Vedas a bit,

but he asked about the Bhagavad Gita. Do you liken your military career to that of Arjuna fulfilling as like his war, his Dharma, you know, and the Bhagavad Gita, is that, and not just for you personally,

but is that a theme, sort of in the Indian military, the idea of Dharma that it's a duty or a, yes, yes, we are, firstly we are a protective force we we are not an the need for aggression we are able to be aggressive but it is ultimately to protect and protect protect what is

ours and what is within right to protect protect the natural resources of our nation protect the people the human beings that live in our nation the children that are growing up and and having giving affording a certain sense of stability to to to to the society that that lies within the border right within the protective shield of the armed forces right so that people can go to school educate themselves people can have access to services like hospitals and things like that and have a peaceful peaceful existence you know in this geographical area so that we can we can move towards realizing our higher self so yes uh uh India largely speaking you know everybody has their problems

is not a perfect world and good thing it's not a perfect world. If it were a perfect world, we'd have nothing to do, right? So, so, so the source of it, even though, even though, you know, there's been a D-link, and all of this is just my opinion, my perception as a common man, right? I'm not a very educated person in that sense that I've read a lot of, you know, geopolitics or I've, you know, surf the internet to understand, you know, who, who's greater than who or who's fighting whom and for what reasons. I don't really spend too much of time doing that.

My hands are full with what I'm doing right now. So but what I have understood is that there will always for for human experience to exist, there has to be duality, right? Our experience happens within the framework of duality. So so there will always be winners and losers and there will always be, you know, joys and sorrows, there will always be good and evil and things like that. and within that spectrum we will find our expression. And ultimately, it's about learning to live together and uniting our specialities.

All human beings are unique, right? What people don't understand is a very simple thing. Like, for example, Jack, right? In the history of humanity and in the eternity of people, of time in the future. Let's say we live, we have an eternal future in front of us as human beings. In this entire expanse of time, history of humanity till the eternity of the future, there never ever has been a Jack Murphy who was born who looked like you, talked like you, thought like you, the same experiences like you ever before and you'll never ever happen again.

Some people are grateful for that, Vivek. That's only because you don't have an ant-only fans. Okay. So essentially speaking, our very existence in India, our very existence is rooted in spirituality. It's rooted in it. That is our origin, that is our source, and that is the origin or that is the source from which our expressions come out. There are, of course, there is a long way to go to go back to a full expression. But then the journey is the reason, right? so any any actually d were there any patreon questions okay um vavec any final uh words that you'd like to leave the audience with um and and please let us know uh where folks can find you where they can find claw people who want to get involved okay uh first things first i would like to like i've spoken about operation blue feed in the triple world records where the vision is people with disabilities coming from around the world across all these social barriers

and and former military veterans special forces soldiers specialized in skydiving scuba diving mountaineering coming together from around the world if there is any ex you know any veteran who feels that you know this is something that like this is a journey that interests him that he would like to know more and probably walk with us on it you know most welcome you can visit us on clodd global W. global. So CLAW is basically conquer land, air, water. That's like the full name of it. And you can, you know, you can come out and explore what we are doing more. And if it makes sense to you, just drop in a mail and we'll take it ahead from there. That's one. The second thing is, is from a just a common man's point of view,

just a human being who is existing now and, you know, may not exist in the future. So it's a simple sharing that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, you know, it's a very, very small, infinite life that we live. Very, very small. It's like a flash in the pan, right? So compared to the whole of human existence and all the human beings that have existed and who will exist in the future, you are just, just, you know, I'm just a flash in the pan. But make that flash in the pan, you know, worth your while. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And the way to doing that is to rid yourself, read your own brain, read yourself of judgment. Read yourself of judgment of the outside world.

Read yourself of judgment of your own self. You know, just let yourself be and and and and let yourself come out. If you let yourself be and you if you're if you're driven by by your heart, you will find the full expression of your flash in the path, you know. So that's it. That's it. Yes, please. Sorry.

Yeah. So soul of steel. So at the end of the day, soul of steel is about, again, showcasing military veterans skill sets and mindsets being applied and repurposed and focused and at developing a sense of security, a sense of skill, skill and ability in the larger population in the in the world outside we have something as as special

forces veterans as military veterans we have a certain advantage compared to other professions the advantage is this that we have we have since we have constantly and constantly over extended periods of time living in the now and in the now where you can perish any moment any moment any moment so what happens is when you constantly live like that, the meaning of life, the preciousness of life itself starts, you know, expanding and expanding and the realization happens. So, so, so, so, uh, sharing these skill sets with the world outside at large will, will create a sense of, of self belief and ability in the world, general world outside. I think that's where military veterans have a very, very, very, very priceless role to play in the larger society of this world.

Forget about boundaries, forget about nations and countries and insecurities and who's greater and who's smaller, but just as military veterans, since we have this advantage of having realized so much of life through real experiences of life and death and really understanding what it means to be alive and to breathe and to be able to do something, right? So since we are in that position of realization, of that position of having ability and skill set and a mindset, that even the worst of circumstances, we'll always see that ray of light rather than the darkness around us. So if we share this with the world outside with people who are not as fortunate to have gone through the experiences that we have gone through, to realize the things that we have realized, to realize the sense of self-belief that we have within, It's the greatest thing that a military veteran can do is to share his abilities and his thought process and his spirit and his energy towards creation and towards, you know, divide and rule or unite and evolve, you know. So the question is very, very, the, what's on the table is very, very clear.

So anybody who, you know, want to associate with us any which way, if you want to come in and compete in sort of steel, You want to come in as a training team in solar steel. You want to share your skill sets. You want to interact more with Claw Global. You want to understand what we are doing and why we are doing it. You're most welcome and see you on the other side. Vevac, thank you so much for sharing your journey and your vision with us, man. And I think it's really important and I'm glad and I hope that a lot of people will hear it.

It's, it's, I don't know, it's really, it's really important. I'm really grateful and thankful for opportunities like this where we are able to share how we feel and we think with other people around us. And this is, I think, the first time I'm speaking on an international platform, right, outside my own country. And I'm able to, through you, through this opportunity that you have created that you have thought of, right? It's discussions like this is which, you know, open up so many windows of perception that other people didn't know existed and makes the world a little better place than, you know, before we started an hour and a half ago. And I don't think we've ever done such a sort of deep dive on transitioning from a special forces career to a civilian life, not just civilian life, but the transformation of the self that you describe. I mean, we've never really gone this in depth with it. So I'm really grateful for the conversation.

And folks out there on Monday, we'll be back on Monday the 13th. Gary Harrington is going to be on the show, a guy who served in J-Soc and the CIA, excited to talk to him as well. Vivek, I can't thank you enough, man. Again, I hope folks will go and check out claw.global. Get involved in your organization and all the great things you're doing. Thank you, man. Thank you.

Thank you. Adios. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. We'll see everyone on Friday and then again. We'll see you all on Monday and then again on Friday. So take care.

We'll see you then. All right. See you. See you guys. Thank you so much.