Find our Sentientist Conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here or on the Sentientism podcast here.

Dr. Sailesh Rao (climatehealers.org/sailesh-rao & @saileshrao) is Founder & Exec Dir of Climate Healers, a non-profit working to heal the climate. After a glittering career in tech he switched to focus on solving our environmental crises. Dr. Rao is the author of two books, Carbon Dharma & Carbon Yoga, & is an Exec Producer of several documentaries including, The Human Experiment (2013), Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014), What The Health (2017), A Prayer for Compassion (2019) & They’re Trying to Kill Us (2021).

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”

Sentientism is “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” In addition to the video above, the audio is on our Podcast here on Apple and all on the other platforms too.

We discuss:
0:00 Welcome

01:14 Dr. Rao’s Intro – from India to the US, from tech to saving the world!

• Growing up in a Hindu family in Chennai, India
• “God is in charge & you are just an instrument” vs. the materialism of engineering training
• Being inspired by the moon landing
• Landing his dream job at Bell Labs
• Starting a consulting firm creating the high-speed internet
• “I had achieved, but I wasn’t happy”
• Frustrations with commercialisation & cut-throat competition
• Seeing Al Gore talk about climate change… “If half of what he’s saying is true I’m wasting my time”
• Jumping to work on climate change “the biggest systems change around”
• Being trained by Al Gore to take the message out
• Asking Al Gore “If we take all the land we’re currently using for raising animals & turn it back to forest can we not reverse climate change?” but he didn’t want to talk about it
• Starting Climate Healers

07:23 What’s Real?

• Becoming disillusioned with religion “This is poor work if God’s in charge”
• “We’re the only species that’s a mistake on this planet”
• Visiting a sanctuary forest “I felt this sense of perfection”… “We did nothing… we gave it back to the animals… make sure no human being comes inside”
• “My granddaughter was born… I felt as if I was holding humanity in my arms”… “I belong exactly as I am… you are a fool!”
• Writing “Carbon Dharma” & “Carbon Yoga”
• “Any 5 year old can tell you… be kind to all life”
• Transforming from caterpillar to butterfly
• “We are the climate regulating species”
• Fire, weapons, partnerships with animals… then fossil fuels
• Be a caretaker species, not a predator species
• “If you insist on being a narcissistic predator species you’re going to die”
• “My granddaughter brought me back to faith”
• “We’re here to serve the animals not to eat them”
• “The evidence… is that the Bhavadgita is actually correct”

23:40 What & Who Matters?

• Studying the Bhavadgita again to “understand my role”
• The Bible’s apple tree of knowledge & Hinduism’s fig tree of wishing
• Detachment from wishing & compassion as the paths to happiness
• Meditation: stay with the watching child & detatch from the wishing child
• Wish for the benefit of others
• Ahimsa: Non-violence to all beings
• Being vegetarian. Told that dairy didn’t harm cows. A partnership!
• Seeing the reality of dairy. Feeling shame & guilt
• “I went vegan on the spot… I had a huge sense of guilt lift off my shoulders”
• Opening the 7 Chakras: fear, guilt, shame, grief, lies, delusions, attachments
• “Enlightenment is just seeing things as they are”
• Caste/purity/sacredness vs. compassion
• Telling Hindu/Jain audiences: “The cow has been our mother… now she’s saying ‘grow up!'”
• “Do you think there is a valid ecosystem with just humans & cockroaches?”
• Wild animal suffering vs. natural balance as intrinsically good
• “Wild animals don’t kill each other for fun”
• “This killing machine we have created”

49:57 The Future

• A vegan world? “Now it is inevitable”
• We’re all in one family (human & non) & we share one planet
• “Why are people eating my family?”… a pinky promise for Sailesh’s granddaughter
• “Everyone says I would never deliberately hurt an innocent animal uneccessarily”
• “Money is being made from death (animals), disease (humans) & destruction (the planet)”
• 85% of our food is already plants!
• Western science, war & colonialisation
• Two false axioms: supremacism (win-lose) & consumerism
• The end goal has to be radical but the path can be gradual
• True axioms: Inner peace & unity
• Now all we have to fear is ourselves we can afford to create a system based on love
• Explorers & conservatives
• “It’s the greatest transformation in human history… Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?”
• COP26

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info.

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Thanks Graham for the post-production.