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Is There a Way to End the Violence in the World? · Inspiration and Transformation

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Welcome to inspiration and transformation from the banks of the Gunga with Sadvi Bagwati Saraswati,
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an American Sanyasi living at the parmarth Nikitan Ashram in Rishikesh, India.
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Sadvi is President of the Divine Shakti Foundation, a charitable organization bringing education,
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vocational training, upliftment and empowerment programs to women and children. Sadvi is also
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Secretary General of the global Interfaith Wasash Alliance and director of the world famous International
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Yoga Festival. Joined the musings of an American Sanyasi as Sadvi shares the wisdom
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and teachings of her Guru, His Holiness Pujiaswami Chinnant Saraswatiji, Welcome everyone to
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inspiration and transformation from the holy banks of the Sacred Gunga River in the land
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of Rishikesh, India. Do you have any tips for how I can get
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a better night's sleep? It's so it's so beautiful because with the questions that
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come in sut sung I always say there's no such thing as a wrong question,
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because sometimes people feel they feel shy, they worry. Maybe my questions
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silly, Maybe it's stupid, maybe it's wrong, And I always emphasize there's
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no such thing as a wrong question, as long is it something that is
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deeply important to you in your life. That such songs not a time about
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philosophical debates. It's not a time for being in our heads and intellectual questions
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of what's the semantic difference between this word and that word? But it's a
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time of diving deep into truth so that we can live free from suffering,
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free from ignorance. And yet occasionally there are questions that arise that aren't exactly
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on that normal level that we tend to talk on, but nonetheless actually are
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really important because because we are spiritual beings having a human experience in human bodies,
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and those bodies are the mediums that we use for our spiritual experience.
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If I couldn't sit and close my eyes and meditate, I wouldn't have the
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experiences that I have in meditation. If my back were killing me in such
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a way that whether I sat on the ground, on a chair, on
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a couch, that sitting in any way caused me so much pain, well,
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it would be really hard to ignore that pain or to be free of
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that pain enough that I was able to have the types of spiritual experiences that
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I have sitting in meditation in the same way when our physical body is sick.
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Many of us have discovered that it's a lot easier to drag a healthy
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body out of bed early in the morning to meditate than it is to drag
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a sick body out of bed early in the morning to meditate. That there's
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there's a pull of the sick body that says, and it's human, it's
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part of the human experience. No, it doesn't want to cook food,
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and no, it doesn't want to get up and meditate. It just wants
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to lie in bed. And so this is where all of the spiritual traditions
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emphasize care for the body in different ways, and in our Sanathan darma,
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I mean, we've got a whole emphasis from a practice of yoga, practice
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of pranium, science of irivaid. It's all about keeping the physical body,
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the energetic body as it flows through the physical body, healthy so that we
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have the very best chance to be able to use this body as a medium
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for awakening in the same way if we're not sleeping. So this was all
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a build up to the answer to the question of do you have any tips
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on how I can get a better night's sleep? Well, when you wake
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up from not having a good night's sleep, it's not simply a matter of
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feeling a little groggy or a little cranky. There's actually a lot of science.
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I've got a science background, which probably many of you know but some
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may not know. And I love science, and I love the way that
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our brains and the science of the world, the physics, the biology,
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how all of that overlaps with spiritual teachings. So what we know now scientifically
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is that not sleeping is literally the equivalent of being drunk. Now, I
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forget the exact numbers and the exact glasses of alcohol, but there's lots of
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statistics around. If you get less than a certain number of hours of sleep,
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or if you go more than a certain number of days getting fewer than
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a certain number of hours of sleep, your cognitive abilities are literally just as
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bad as if you were drunk. The research came to play around things like
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truck drivers who are on the road for many days at a time and cause
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all kinds of accidents, and so the research was done proving that these exhausted
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truck drivers are actually just as dangerous to themselves and others as drunk drivers.
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But I take that research in a different way as well, which is,
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if we're going to follow a path of yan yoga, a path of wisdom,
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if we are going to be introspecting, who am I? If we're
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looking for wisdom rather than ignorance, and we are so tired that we are
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essentially chemically drunk, it's a lot harder to grasp wisdom. It's also a
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lot harder to do any of the practices. If you haven't slept well and
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you go to sit for meditation, what happens? Oh, yeah, you
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fall asleep. If you fall asleep, you know, people will ask me
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sometimes what do I do about the fact that I fall asleep in meditation?
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And the answers always get a better night's sleep the night before. You know,
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you're falling asleep in meditation because your body's exhausted. So if we're not
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able to sleep, we're not going to be able to meditate y well,
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we're not going to be able to do yoga well. The body just won't
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have the strength and the vitality that it needs. And cognitively we're drunk,
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which makes our yearning for wisdom a much more challenging experience. So sleep is
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important and tips to getting a better night sleep. The main thing that keeps
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us from sleeping when our bodies are tired is the mind. We're stressed,
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rely in bed, and we're worried about what we have to do. We're
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making to do lists, We're worried about what's going to happen tomorrow or next
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week. We're playing out all kinds of scenarios in our mind, or we
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are worried about that which has already happened. We're replaying conversations we had,
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thinking, Oh my god, why did you say that? That was so
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stupid? What are those people going to think about you? Or oh my
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god, how did you do that? Why did you do that? That
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was such a mistake. You're making such a mess of your life. These
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are the types of things that keep tired bodies awake at night, and so
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the best solution to that is a practice of meditation before you sleep. You
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know, we know that staring at your device, whether it's a handheld device,
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whether it's a TV or a computer, the literal blue light that it
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emits shuts off the brains signals for sleep that the blue light signals wake up.
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So we're getting it actually from the light of our devices. And of
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course we're getting it from the stimulation of our devices because we're clicking here,
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clicking here, watch now, watch now, watch now, and so our
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brains are getting overstimulated. We're angry, we're upset, we're triggered. I
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mean, that's what drives the algorithms of social media. We know that now,
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So get off your device. Get off your device at least an hour
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before you sleep, spend that time meditating, reading, Read a book,
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you know those things with paper and they're bound, got covers. The statistics
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around how many people read books these days is heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. Again,
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I can't remember the exact statistics, but it's something like seventy percent of people
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have not read a book this year. Yeah, I mean, just heartbreaking
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statistics. Read a book. Read a book that's inspiring, Read a book
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that brings you joy. Read a book that gives you a deep dive into
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another culture another time. It doesn't have to be hard core spiritual teachings.
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It could be a novel takes you into some other beautiful experience, awareness time,
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whatever it may be. But something that is bringing you into that space
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of where you want to be before you go to sleep. Don't read murder
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mysteries, don't read spine novels. Read things that are putting you into the
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mindset of where you want your mind to be. That's the most powerful thing.
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And then, of course there's all the very simple things that we know,
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but they bear repeating, just in terms of, for example, don't
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have a heavy meal late at night. It's awful for your digestion. Eat
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early, lay off the caffeine. I mean, all the same stuff that
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Google could tell you, but it's worth remembering because when things seem so simple,
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we tend to ignore them. We tend to go out and buy hundred
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dollars contraptions that are going to, you know, put our brains into a
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certain wave state. We go out and we buy thousand dollars mattresses that are
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gonna, you know, make us sleep better. I remember a few years
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ago I was driving through Harridoir, which is most of you know, a
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city quite near here. But I was driving from a very very rural jungle
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area behind the city of Harridor. And as I was driving through there,
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there was a man. It was just village, India. You would have
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no idea that you were five to seven kilometers from a city as big as
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Harridoor. And there was a man lying in front of his shop. He
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had a little shop, and in front of the shop he had a little
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bed. And this must have been I don't know, noon, one o'clock
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in the afternoon, maybe two. And the guy's lying on a bed and
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basically the edge of the road and he's got his shop and then a little
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space in front of the shop, and then the road and he's essentially lying
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on the edge of the road, fast asleep. People are walking by,
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there's dogs, there's cars. He's fast asleep. Ten minutes later we enter
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into the industrial area of Horrid where it called Sidcool and it could be the
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industrial area anywhere in the world. I mean, big buildings, looks just
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like an industrial area and its factories and its offices and buildings and people rushing
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rushing across the street in there, you know, suits and ties and office
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gear and briefcases and rushing, rushing, rushing, And I had this moment
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of realizing what's actually development? Right, we consider this area developed in the
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early area, undeveloped or are euphemistically developing, And yet what kind of development
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have we created where everybody's rushing around and no one can sleep. This guy,
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undeveloped, has no trouble sleeping at all. He doesn't need a thousand
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dollar mattress, he doesn't need a few hundred dollars pair of headphones that change
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the brain waves he's having. He just lies down and he sleeps. And
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it really made me rerealize how very simple that which most of suffer from me
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is, how very simple the solutions are. But the solutions that we're being
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given are solutions that are so complex because they buy into the problem. Right
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now, in order to sleep, I can't sleep because I've got these endless
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desires that are never fulfilled. And so I'm stressed because my desires aren't being
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fulfilled. But now what am I being told in order to sleep? Oh,
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the answer is thousand dollars mattress, three hundred dollars, a pair of
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special headphones, this and that, Well, it just feeds into the whole
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problem. Now I can't sleep because I don't have the right mattress. Now
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I can't sleep because I'm too poor to buy the headphones. If we just
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went back to a bit of simplicity, endure day as close to when the
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sun goes down as you can rely on artificial light is infrequently and minimally as
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possible. Meditate, read, sleep early. The last great tip that goes
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along with this is get up early. What most of us do is when
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we can't go to sleep. Let's say we decide, okay, I'm going
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to go to sleep early nine thirty. I'm in my bed, but of
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course I'm wired. I've been on my phone until thirty seconds ago. My
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brain is wired. It's hours before I'm used to going to sleep. So
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I lie in bed, can't sleep, can't sleep, can't sleep, and
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so I take my alarm, which originally I had set for five in the
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morning because I'm going to get up early and meditate. But now when nine
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thirty becomes ten thirty becomes eleven thirty becomes midnight, I realize, well,
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I need more than five hours of sleep, and so I turn off my
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alarm instead, leave the alarm set. Even if you end up with not
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enough sleep that night, get up anyway, start your practice anyway, because
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then that night I guarantee you at nine thirty you're going to be tired.
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But if you turn off the alarm every night because you're not able to fall
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asleep, and then you sleep until eight in the morning, well obviously you're
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not going to be able to go to sleep at nine thirty at night.
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So set an alarm for whatever time you want to get up in the morning,
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and then get up regardless of when you went to sleep, and slowly,
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slowly, what you will find is your whole body realigns with the sun
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and it's such a beautiful and healthy way to live. Then slowly, slowly,
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you don't even need the alarm because your body is just attuned with the
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sun. You're listening to OTRFM, part of the IOM Radio network. Being
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a sanctuary on the airwaves. Join me Grandmother Elia in the Circle on Sunday
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two pm Eastern as I share information to both enlighten and nurse your soul.
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Hi, this is Christina Ricci with Rain. Every two minutes, another American
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is sexually assaulted. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted,
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you are not alone. Help is just a call or click away through the
21:30
National Sexual Assault Hotline. Please call one eight hundred six five six hope.
21:37
That's Hope, or visit RAIN dot org. That's r ai NN dot RG.
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Brought to you by RAIN and this station. Welcome back to inspiration and
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transformation. I'm so glad to have you all back here with me. I
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am totally confused about what to do with my life. How do we find
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the true purpose of life? The dilemma for most of us is an over
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emphasis on the what and not nearly enough emphasis on the how and the who.
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For just a moment, stop worrying about the what are you going to
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do? Shift your question who am I? When I don't know who I
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am, then I have no way of knowing what to do. Then I'm
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literally simply taking cues from what society, the culture, social media influencers.
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I follow my friends, my family, what they say in order to really
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know what to do. I have to know who I am, So begin
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with a question of who. Tell yourself, I'm not gonna worry about the
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what for right now. I'm just gonna worry about who. And in your
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meditation, in your contemplation, as you're walking, as you're driving, as
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you're cooking, as you're eating, as you're doing dishes, as you're doing
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whatever you do, just keep asking yourself, who am I? Who am
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I? Who am I? There's a beautiful practice of meditation called nat nati.
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Does not this not that I am not the clothes I wear. I'm
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not the skin beneath the clothes. I'm not the blood beneath the skin.
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I'm not the organs. You go through all of what you are, not
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until there's really nothing left to name. Not my thoughts, clearly, because
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our thoughts are just chemical and electrical patterns of behavior in our brain. We
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can artificially induce thoughts, give people drugs, stimulate their brain in a certain
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way, They're gonna think in a certain way. So if my thoughts are
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chemical and electrical, well I'm not chemistry or electricity. They're not who I
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am. And slowly, slowly, slowly, as you realize what you are
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not that space of who you are. Suddenly it just becomes apparent. So
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focus on who, then focus on how. So whatever you are doing,
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you are cooking, you are cleaning, you are walking, you are waiting
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tables, you are filing, you are stuffing envelopes, you are designing a
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website, you are sweeping the floor, You are doing whatever you may be
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doing, How are you doing it? Are you doing it mindlessly? Is
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your mind saying, oh my god, I can't believe this is so stupid.
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I got stuck doing this. When I find my real purpose, then
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I won't be stuck doing these stupid things. Then someone else will do those
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things, because clearly it's someone else's purpose to sweep the floor. Or as
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you're doing those are you doing them in the spirit of mindfulness of awareness?
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Are you able to be fully aware of what it feels like to actually have
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warm, soapy water on your hands as you're doing the dishes? Are you
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able to feel what it feels like as your foot touches the ground when you
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walk? Are you able to be aware of the muscles in your arms as
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they rise up to put in a letter into an envelope? Are you able
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to be so aware of the microflow of energy through you that what you're doing
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starts to become irrelevant because you are just so anchored in that awareness that one
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minute you're doing this, another moment you're doing something else. A third moment
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you're doing a third thing. But the what becomes irrelevant because the awareness is
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constant and you're anchored not in oh this is boring, oh now this is
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fun, but you're anchored in simple people awareness, not judgment, but just
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awareness. So focus on who, then how, and when you've done both
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of those for a few months. I'm not talking years, I'm not talking
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lifetimes. Just give yourself a few months of stopping to worry about what,
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focus on who and how. And what I am very sure of is that
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in the stillness, in the spaciousness, in the openness, in the availability
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of you to the universe, that's suddenly the what we'll make itself now,
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that suddenly what your dharma is in this moment. And of course, we
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don't only have one dharma in our lifetime. It's not a matter of finding
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that one thing, like finding that one soul mate. We have many different
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dharmas. Even at one time. If a dharma is a child to your
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parents. You have a dharma as a parent to your children. You have
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a dharma to do whatever your work is, regardless of whether you love it
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or hate it, but to do it sincerely. We have a dharma to
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our society, our community, to mother Earth. And then of course we've
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got our our individual dharmas of the moment. And they're not rocket science.
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They haven't been sent to us in some kind of uncrackable code. It's just
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that we're not quiet and still and open enough to hear them. So instead
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of driving yourself crazy with the what, focus on the who and the how,
30:29
and let the rest just make itself. Now. This is OTRFM,
30:37
part of the IOM Radio Network. Home Times Magazine is one of the leading
30:42
online content providers of positivity, wellness and personal empowerment of philanthropic organization. Their
30:49
net proceeds are funneled to support worldwide charity initiatives via Humanity Healing International. Through
30:56
their commitment to creating community and providing conscious content, aspire to uplift humanity on
31:00
a global scale. Home Times co creating a more conscious lifestyle. Do you
31:08
have time to read that inspiring book or that blog post you've been meaning to
31:12
get to in your busy world? How do you improve yourself and keep your
31:17
life going. I'm Lisa Kay and my Between Heaven and Earth Radio show can
31:22
transform your life just by listening. Be uplifted with inspiring topics, positive stories
31:29
and ideas that really work. Between Heaven and Earth Radio is conscious living for
31:33
your soul every Wednesday at four pm Eastern Time. Like Baldwin, with People
31:41
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I grew up loving circuses and other traveling
31:45
animals shows, but it never occurred to me what life might be like for
31:48
the animals. Training wild animals to do things they don't understand takes. Force
31:55
routine discipline with a hook or whip with the heel of a boot shows the
31:59
animal exactly who's the boss. Don't patronize animal acts. Please contact People for
32:05
the Ethical Treatment of Animals five seven six two two pet a. Welcome back.
32:12
This is Sadvi Bagavati Saraswati with inspiration and transformation. So how do we
32:22
combine spirituality in our normal lives, especially when we leave this heavenly place and
32:30
go back? So the first and most powerful way you can imagine this is
32:38
a common question when people leave. The first and most important way is make
32:45
sure that when you're here you're really letting yourself be changed. Only then will
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it go home with you. If it's only as deep as a sundan,
32:57
you'll lose it on the airplane home. Let that change within you go really
33:06
deep. It's very easy to feel peaceful when you're away from the stresses and
33:13
strains of your normal life, but you would get that lying on a beach
33:16
drinking pina coladas. Also, there's something very different, deeper, more powerful,
33:27
more transformative about being here than being on a beach sipping pina coladas.
33:36
But you've got to make sure that that actual deep transformation happens, not just
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oh, I had this nice time away from the stress and strain of my
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normal life. And that's the work that you need to do while you're here,
33:53
is really make sure that that transformation is happening inside you, and then
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when you go back, set up a series of things. There's a lot
34:08
of different ways. Number One, reevaluate, and some of this you should
34:15
do while you're here before you get back. It's good work for the plane.
34:20
Also is really reevaluate how you spend your time. Some of it.
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We have no control over. It's our jobs. We've got to put food
34:29
on the table. But we've got a lot of time in our hands.
34:37
And the thing you need to think about is how are you spending it.
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What's your choice of ways to spend that time. Is it an alignment with
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your newly transformed self? And if not, then plan before you get back
34:54
what you're going to do differently and write it down. Otherwise you get back
35:00
and you are in the throes of habits, back in the throes of Maya.
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Really make a very concrete plan. These are the activities I'm still going
35:12
to do. These are the activities I'm not going to do. So my
35:20
morning walk with my close friends definitely still going to do that, Friday night
35:27
at the bar, we can skip that. Really think about these things so
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that you know in advance what you're going into and then figure out ways to
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bring your connection into your daily life. Things as simple as when you walk,
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what do most of us do. We're on our phones, we're talking
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on it, or if it's longer, listening to some podcast or something.
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Well, can you take some time that you're just with yourself so you're regrounding
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Because these are What all of these practices need to do is they need to
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reconnect you to the self, who is here right now, who's having these
36:25
experiences. You need to reconnect to her. So find opportunities during the day
36:34
for just a few moments of silence before you eat, close your eyes,
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have a few moments of deeply reconnecting before you drink water. And you know
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you could choose different things. These are just things we tend to do a
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lot, so they're good opportunities. Just close your eyes, spend a few
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minutes reconnecting. Decide that when you're walking you're just gonna be with yourself with
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your breath, reconnecting, chanting amentra, and recognize that this presence of the
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Divine that you feel here exists everywhere. Look for it. Make it your
37:22
daily practice to see whether you can actually see the Divine in everyone. We
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know that the Divine is in everyone. Can you see it? Just make
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it your daily practice. It won't be easy, that's okay. It's not
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about how much you succeed. It's not about what percentage of people you actually
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could see the Divine in. It's about an intention that instead of looking at
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them as physical beings, fat, thin tall, short, white, black
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brown. Rather than that, Can you actually look in everyone's eyes and see
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the divine in them, or at least intend to. It'll change your entire
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way of moving through the world. You're checking out at the grocery store,
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can you look in the eyes of the person checking you out and see the
38:21
divine? Instead of thinking, oh my god, why is she so slow?
38:28
Can you actually look look in our eyes or his eyes, see the
38:34
divine and then keep coming back and recharging your batteries. This is OTRFM,
38:45
part of the IOM Radio Network. Home Times Magazine is one of the leading
38:51
online content providers of positivity, wellness, and personal empowerment of philanthropic organization.
38:58
Their net proceeds are funneled to sup port worldwide charity initiatives via Humanity Healing International.
39:04
Through their commitment to creating community and providing conscious content, they aspire to
39:08
uplift humanity on a global scale. Home Times co creating a more conscious lifestyle.
39:15
Do you have time to read that inspiring book or that blog post you've
39:20
been meaning to get to in your busy world? How do you improve yourself
39:23
and keep your life going. I'm Lisa Kay and my between Heaven and Earth
39:29
Radio show can transform your life just by listening. Be uplifted with inspiring topics,
39:36
positive stories and ideas that really work. Between Heaven and Earth Radio is
39:40
conscious Living for your soul every Wednesday at four pm Eastern Time. Like Baldwin
39:49
with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I grew up loving circuses and
39:52
other traveling animal shows, but it never occurred to me what life might be
39:57
like for the animals. Training wild animals to do things they don't understand takes.
40:01
Force routine discipline with a hook or whip with the heel of a boot
40:07
shows the animal exactly who's the boss. Don't patronize animal acts. Please contact
40:13
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals seven five seven six two two peta Welcome
40:19
back. This is Sadvi Bagavati Saraswati with inspiration and transformation. I imagine that
40:31
if I said to all of you, does anyone here have a habit that
40:39
you would like to stop? That most of us would raise our hands,
40:45
or we could flip it around and say, does anyone have a positive habit
40:51
that they would really like to implement in their lives? But haven't yet been
40:58
able to really get it to be become a habit, anything ranging from a
41:06
beautiful meditation practice to flossing your teeth. Right, I mean, how many
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things are there that we would love to make an absolute, un questionable part
41:20
of our day, But things happen. And similarly with the bad habits that
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we'd like to be free of, this is really common. It's not something
41:30
to feel ashamed of at all. Here are the keys. The way that
41:39
our brain functions is actually very mechanical. Most of the time, the overwhelming
41:50
majority of what happens in our brain happens automatically. Now, some of that
41:57
is just which makes our body go. We're breathing, we're digesting, we're
42:02
able to hold our bodies erect. But then there's a lot of the automatic
42:09
things that have become automatic in our lives. So people bite their fingernails or
42:20
crack their knuckles, or twirl their hair or you know, people have all
42:24
kinds of habits that they're just unconscious of. It's not that they're always aware,
42:32
Oh right now, I'm biting my fingernail or I'm twirling my hair.
42:37
It's become unconscious. Similarly, it happens to a lot of us emotionally.
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Maybe that bad habit is getting angry, yelling, having temper tantrums. Anybody
42:54
out there again who's getting wet and who doesn't want to be getting wet,
42:59
feel free to come in. We can always if you're happy getting wet,
43:01
no problem, But just to let you know that, well, we'll always
43:06
scoot in. There's there's no Hindi translation for there's no room. There's always
43:15
room in India. So yeah, I've never I've never been in a place
43:21
where, no matter how packed it looks, you can't actually squeeze more people
43:27
in. So so sometimes those bad habits are emotional habits. We get angry,
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we don't want to, but we do before we even know what's happened.
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We are throwing a temper tantrum, or we're yelling, maybe we're even
43:49
hitting. The very first most important thing to do, it's become conscious,
43:59
because all of these habits happen when we are unconscious. I can't stop biting
44:07
my fingernails or twirling my hair if I'm not aware when I'm doing it.
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I have to first become aware, and similarly in terms of the tone of
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my voice, terms of my action, if I'm aware while I'm doing it,
44:30
fully aware, whether it's drinking alcohol, taking drugs, yelling, whatever
44:37
the habit. Maybe as long as I'm unconsciously doing it on autopilot, I
44:49
don't stand a chance. I have to bring in consciousness, and what that
44:54
means is that in our lives we have to practice being aware. It's one
45:01
of the great gifts that meditation gives us. Right when we meditate, sounds
45:08
very simple. Be aware of your breath. You think, what's the big
45:13
deal, Why is that so complex? Well, first of all, it's
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very hard to maintain for more than about thirty seconds at a time without the
45:22
mind wandering. But as you develop the skill of being able to watch that
45:30
breath without the mind wandering, of being in that mindful moment, it actually
45:40
retrains your brain. That which we gain in meditation is not gone when we
45:49
stand up for meditation. It stays with us. As it changes our brain,
45:57
we change. So meditation teaches us to be aware conscious, and that's
46:06
the first step. The second step is what a lot of people do,
46:13
is they'd make very big resolutions. So say I normally get up at nine
46:21
o'clock in the morning, then I decide from tomorrow I'm going to get up
46:24
at four it's unlikely. It's unlikely that that's gonna work. Now, there
46:35
are some people, and especially if you go into a meditation retreat where there's
46:39
a bell and everybody's got to get up, but on your own, it's
46:45
very difficult to drag a body out of bed that's used to getting up at
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nine at four. And the dilemma is actually very deep here because if I
46:58
make a commitment I'm going to get up at four o'clock tomorrow morning, and
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I don't, I go back to sleep, then what happens is my whole
47:10
sense of of self. So if I make a commitment and then I don't
47:22
do it, well, I've lost the opportunity to meditate, to have a
47:29
new good habit. But something actually much more detrimental has also happened, which
47:35
is I've taught myself I am not someone who does what I say I'm going
47:42
to do. And that identification is actually much more harmful for me than not
47:53
meditating for a day, because now the moment that I make any kind of
47:59
resolution, my mind says, yeah, but I don't do them. Yeah,
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I keep committing, but I don't do it. I keep saying I'm
48:07
going to stop, but I don't, and suddenly I become, in my
48:13
own self identification, someone who doesn't do what I commit to doing. And
48:22
so, whether it's stopping a habit or starting a habit, either way,
48:29
bite off a chunk that you can chew. It may not be easy,
48:37
challenge yourself. We're all up to the challenge. But bite off a chunk
48:40
that's manageable. You get up at nine every day, okay, start setting
48:45
the alarm at eight. Don't try to go from nine to four. Set
48:52
at an aid. Do that for a few weeks or a month, then
48:57
set it for seven. Do that for another few weeks or month, then
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slowly, slowly, And the benefit of that is that suddenly, in your
49:13
mind you become some one who does what you commit to doing. If you
49:19
are used to eating dessert with every single meal, you're used to having snacks
49:27
a you candy as snacks and dessert as every meal, and suddenly you say
49:30
no more sugar, well again, it's really unlikely that unless a doctor has
49:38
said you've got such bad diabetes you're going to die, that you're actually going
49:44
to follow it. Instead, just stop having dessert with dinner. Keep doing
49:50
everything else the same. Stop your dessert with dinner. Do that for a
49:54
few weeks. Then stop your lunch dessert. Do that for another few weeks
50:02
or a month. Then stop the mid afternoon candy bar. Do that another
50:08
few weeks or a month, slowly, slowly, such that at the end
50:13
of several months now you don't even need sugar in your tea. But you
50:19
didn't do it all at once. So that's a really important part. And
50:24
one good way of making sure that you follow up is telling people you're going
50:31
to do it. There's a very powerful psychological compoundent about a publicly made resolution.
50:42
I'm much more likely to cheat on my diet if no one knows I'm
50:45
on a diet. I'm much more likely to keep smoking even though I vowed
50:52
to quit if no one knows I vowed to quit. But if I've publicly
50:58
stated as of tomorrow, I am not smoking, well, the sheer sense
51:07
of my own self respect, right, I don't want people to say,
51:14
ah, you're the loser who couldn't couldn't do what you said, so do
51:20
to my own self respect, I'm much more likely to keep it. So
51:24
state your intentions publicly and not everything necessarily deserves to be on social media sometimes
51:31
things are private, but be sure that you tell at least a few people,
51:37
people whose opinion of you you respect and matter, somebody who you really
51:44
respect. Tell them I've made a decision. This is what I'm going to
51:47
do, and every day I'm going to send you a note. Sometimes people
51:52
come into Satsang and they they vow, I'm going to start meditating. Oh,
52:00
I'm going to stop shouting at people or you know, any kind of
52:07
bad habit. And I always say, message me every day. Just send
52:14
me a message every day. Every day you meditate, message me every day,
52:19
you made it through the day, not shouting at someone, Message me
52:25
because it gives them that sense that someone's watching and paying attention. So those
52:36
are some tips to do it. But what we know about the brain as
52:40
I began is it functions mostly in many ways like an autopilot machine, which
52:50
means that the first few weeks or months are going to be much more difficult
52:57
once it becomes a habit. Like I remember when I gave up sugar.
53:06
I was never a huge sugar eater, but I had sugar in my tea,
53:08
I had sugar in my milk. And it's not that I never touch
53:13
it, but I've pretty much stopped eating it. And in the beginning it
53:20
was it was difficult, but then as the years have gone by, it's
53:24
become so so much just a part of who I am. That you know,
53:30
there could be a bowl of M and M's sitting on my my coffee
53:37
table where people come and sit for weeks, and it just never would even
53:40
occur to me. Deep one but that it takes a while for the whole
53:47
chemistry of the body to recalibrate and not keep craving things. So give yourself
53:55
some time. And if your habit it is not something that's chemically related but
54:02
just action related, know that the more times you do an action, the
54:08
more likely you are to do an action. It's a sun Scott, it's
54:14
an impression. The more times I throw a temper tantrum, the more likely
54:19
I am to throw a temper tantrum. The more times I smoke a cigarette
54:23
after a meal, the more likely I am to smoke a cigarette after a
54:27
meal. It's just it's the way that the brain works. But similarly,
54:34
the more times I flosh my teeth before I go to sleep, the more
54:38
likely I am to flosh my teeth before I go to sleep. It becomes
54:44
a habit, but you've got to give yourself those weeks. There's arguments among
54:52
different camps. I've heard fourteen days, I've heard twenty one days, I've
54:55
heard twenty eight days. But everyone agrees it's a matter of a couple of
55:00
weeks, it's not a matter of years, and it just rewires our habits.
55:09
So just make a commitment, bite off a chewable chunk, tell people
55:15
you're going to do it, and then do it, not just because of
55:21
the habit, but so that when you think about yourself, you know I'm
55:28
someone who does what I say. I'm someone who follows through. I'm someone
55:35
who keeps my commitments and not oh yeah, never do anything I say I'm
55:43
going to do for your own self esteem and self worth, follow through.
55:51
This brings to a close this hour of inspiration and transformation. Thank you so
56:00
much for joining me. I am so glad to be together with you all
56:06
each week, and I look forward to being together again next Thursday, same
56:13
time on Home Time's Radio