Latest / Inspiration and Transformation / Finding Mental Peace
Transcript
- 0:04Welcome to inspiration and transformation from the banks of the Gunga with Sadvi Bagwati Saraswati,
- 0:11an American Sanyasi living at the parmarth Nikitan Ashram in Rishikesh, India.
- 0:16Sadvi is President of the Divine Shakti Foundation, a charitable organization bringing education,
- 0:23vocational training, upliftment and empowerment programs to women and children. Sadvi is also
- 0:29Secretary General of the Global Interfaith Wasash Alliance and director of the world famous International
- 0:35Yoga Festival. Joined the musings of an American Sanyasi as Sadvi shares the wisdom
- 0:40and teachings of her Guru, His Holiness Pujiaswami Chitinant Saraswatiji, Welcome everyone to
- 0:51inspiration and transformation from the holy banks of the Sacred Gunga River in the land
- 1:02of Rishikesh, India. Should we give money two beggars, It might do
- 1:11wonders for my karma, but could it negatively impact there's So this is one
- 1:21of the great justifications rationalizations. We say, well, I'm not going to
- 1:32give money to the poor because clearly they must be poor for a reason,
- 1:42and so why would I want to interfere with what's the divine plan? No,
- 1:56And here's the thing about karma, divine plan, destiny. We're all
- 2:09interwoven. There are times in sets on where I've shared different stories from the
- 2:20scriptures of the way that different karmic threads interweave together, whether it's shaven Kumar
- 2:31and King Dasht and baglan Ram like three individual lives, but how they weaved
- 2:38together, whether it's so many different stories that I won't go into now,
- 2:46but we've spoken about these in the past a lot. My karma means my
- 2:55action, so when we talk about it doing wonders for my karma, it's
- 3:02not the exact correct terminology. In any case, Karma's just action. The
- 3:09results of that action are what we refer to as karmic fruit, and kind
- 3:17of the sum total of that becomes what we call our destiny. Right,
- 3:23all of our karma gives us where we are now sure someone's destiny up until
- 3:36this exact moment, from the sum total of all of their past actions that
- 3:45created a whole variety of different situations has led them to be poor and a
- 3:52beggar in the same way that it has led you to be. Exactly where
- 3:57you are. Every one of us is exactly where we are in this moment
- 4:05because of the sum total of all of our past karmas. So you could
- 4:10say, right here, right now is our destiny. But somebody to be
- 4:16poor and hungry and homeless in front of you has now brought in a whole
- 4:26new element to it. Now the universe has put them into your karmic journey.
- 4:36Now it's no longer their own journey on some other part of the world,
- 4:41which, of course, on the deepest level, is connected to us
- 4:46anyway. But here, on the most logistic, pragmatic level, they've essentially
- 4:57landed in your lap. You're walking down the street and someone says to you,
- 5:06please give me money. That's very different from someone being poor seemingly disconnected
- 5:18to you. Okay, So now we've got their destiny interweaving with your destiny.
- 5:29And now the question is what happens when someone says to us, when
- 5:33we're walking down the street or driving in our car and we see someone who's
- 5:40poor, someone who's homeless, someone who's hungry, what happens inside of us?
- 5:53Well, if we're not jaded, and if we're not trying to convince
- 5:59ourselves that the spiritual way to be is disconnected and cut off and indifferent.
- 6:06Our hearts bleed. Something inside of us happens when we see a starving,
- 6:16hungry, poor, homeless person. And if nothing inside of you happens,
- 6:27examine your life, because you've cut yourself off from your heart in some very
- 6:32tragic way, and chances are that's going to impact you in a lot of
- 6:40other places. If you can walk by a hungry person, a homeless person
- 6:50and not have your heartbreak, it may be a good time to take a
- 6:59little bit of a break from the busyness and hecticness of your life and reconnect
- 7:05with your heart, because it means that in your in your busyness, in
- 7:13your distraction, or in the achievement of whatever you've decided your life goals,
- 7:20are that you've actually disconnected yourself from life at the core that weaves through all
- 7:31of us, that river, that river of life, that spirit that runs
- 7:39through all of us. So our hearts break, and that's exactly how it
- 7:49should be. That's how you know you're still humor the dilemma on a on
- 8:03a pragmatic level, Number one of courses, Well, most of us don't
- 8:09have enough money to feed everyone on the street, and so then you're in
- 8:15sort of this bind of well, who do I feed? How do I
- 8:18do it? And you know, I take I take inspiration from children in
- 8:33this because children have got a very very beautiful way of not being cut off,
- 8:43not being disconnected, not having their hearts closed. And when children walk
- 8:50down the street, what do they do. They give everything they have to
- 8:58the homeless people. Right, somebody talks to a child, especially if they're
- 9:05not used to it. I remember when I was young and we used to
- 9:11go from Los Angeles to New York for Thanksgiving holiday to visit my grandparents.
- 9:18Now in LA, and those times was forty years ago, the homeless population
- 9:28was segregated from the non homeless population much more than it was in New York.
- 9:33Now, homelessness in LA has gotten horrible and it's everywhere. But forty
- 9:41years ago, you could live in LA for years and years and years and
- 9:46never see a beggar on the street. We then would go to New York
- 9:50for Thanksgiving and the streets were full of that. And I remember, because
- 9:56I used to love New York had something that LA didn't, which was the
- 10:03ability to buy things on the street, and LA didn't have much of a
- 10:07street life, and it was you know, shopping centers and stores, but
- 10:09you had to get in the car and drive. And New York was you'd
- 10:13walk down the street and there's the pretzel guy, and there's the chestnut guy.
- 10:18And so I loved to buy pretzels chestnuts. I was never a hot
- 10:26dog eater, but you know, the the vegetarian options on the street.
- 10:31And what I always used to do was ask my dad to give me money
- 10:37because I loved the independence of it. I loved being able to have my
- 10:41own money and buy my own you know, hot chocolate or pretzel. And
- 10:46inevitably, by the time we got to the first pretzel stand, I would
- 10:52have to turn and ask my dad for more money. And he'd always be
- 10:56like, I gave you a twenty dollar bill when we started this walk,
- 11:01where did it go? Or maybe he gave me, you know, tens
- 11:05and fives in a mix whatever, And inevitably, by that time I had
- 11:09given it all out to every beggar on the street. And I wasn't unique
- 11:16in that. It's not about look how different I was. This was how
- 11:24how children are when children come from abroad to India and see the beggars on
- 11:31the street. It's always a question can we feed them, can we bring
- 11:35them home? It's how children's hearts are, and it's beautiful, and so
- 11:43I always take a lesson from that, which is give with an open heart,
- 11:50Give with the faith the kids have. Like I knew, I could
- 11:52give out every dollar in my hands, and then I would turn around and
- 11:56there would always be enough money for a pretzel that I didn't have to hold
- 12:03on to anything in order to make sure I got my pretzel. And it's
- 12:09just such a beautiful way to have faith that as we are confronted in our
- 12:18life with those in need, to be able to give without worrying about,
- 12:28well, oh my god, what about me, and just that awareness that
- 12:39in giving so I will receive that I'm just a trustee. I mean,
- 12:46nothing is mine anyway, It's just been given to me to do something good
- 12:54with. But on an logistic and pragmatical level, the dilemma becomes none of
- 13:03us has enough money to give to everyone, or to give enough to everyone,
- 13:09and of course then we end up with situations where you've got, you
- 13:13know, mafia situations and things where it's not just kids begging, but actually
- 13:20a whole system of kids being utilized by mafia to get money. And this
- 13:28is what breaks your heart even more, and it's what requires us to be
- 13:35intelligent and not, for example, give money out of car windows in the
- 13:41middle of the streets of Delhi, where once you give money to one,
- 13:46fifty of them come in from the sidelines and rush into traffic that's now moving
- 13:54and inevitably somebody ends up getting hit by a car. But just because we
- 14:01don't necessarily give everyone in every circumstance doesn't mean that we should close our hearts.
- 14:09We should not. We should actually hold on and value that heartbreaking.
- 14:18And if we can't give that one for some reason, like I know this
- 14:22kid is part of the mafia and the guys you know, sitting on the
- 14:28bench over there on the side of the busy street. And if I do
- 14:31give this kid, fifty other ones are going to rush into a busy street
- 14:35of Delhi. But allow your heart to break anyway, because in that broken
- 14:43heart you will be inspired to do something for other children. You will be
- 14:54inspired to help, which we all must. And that's our that's our calling.
- 15:07And so should we give money to every single beggar we see? If
- 15:16you can do it safely? Yeah? Why not? I mean, who
- 15:20are we to decide who's deserving and who's not. There's a beautiful line and
- 15:26a poem by Khalil Gibran that says something like, and I hate that I
- 15:35have to paraphrase because he's so so perfectly beautiful. I just can't remember exactly
- 15:41the line, but it says something like, if God, if the universe,
- 15:48if the divine has deemed this person worthy of their days and their nights,
- 15:56who am I to decide that they are are unworthy of whatever I have
- 16:03to give? Like? Who am I to decide who's worthy? If the
- 16:08divine has decided they are worthy of their days and their nights, surely they
- 16:15are worthy of all else from me. So yeah, if you can give
- 16:22safely without kids rushing into a busy street, give it'll help them, and
- 16:33it'll help you. Don't think about it as for your good karma. Think
- 16:37about it as a way to keep your heart open in the midst of days
- 16:44that are so busy and distracted. Think of it as a way to remind
- 16:48you that we are all connected, and it doesn't mean you have to give
- 16:53them everything. Keep change on hand, keep fruit on hand, keep packs
- 17:02of biscuits on hand, whatever it may be. When I lived in San
- 17:07Francisco and I would pass these homeless people every day on the way from the
- 17:14subway it was an above ground public transportation kind of train, I would keep,
- 17:22you know, sandwiches and loaves of bread and things like that in my
- 17:26bag because I knew I was going to pass them. So just plan ahead,
- 17:33keeps your heart open, keeps you connected, and don't worry about it
- 17:38negatively impacting their karmac journey. It won't. I promise. They've been put
- 17:45in front of you for a reason, and that reason is for both of
- 17:52you to benefit from that interaction. And lastly, if you can't give them
- 18:00money or food, maybe because you don't actually have any with you at that
- 18:06time, maybe because it is a busy street and a big city and you
- 18:10can't safely give it to them, don't avert your eyes. At least look
- 18:17at them. Don't pretend they don't exist. It's hard, it's hard to
- 18:26look at that and not do something. But that's critical for us, and
- 18:37it's critical for them. Even if you can't give them money, they are
- 18:41still human and they deserve to be seen as humans and even if you don't
- 18:51have something to give them, you can give them the gift of being seen.
- 18:59And you can give you yourself the spiritual practice of seeing that which you
- 19:10can't change, but that which must be seen. And that's a really critical
- 19:19spiritual practice for all of us. So if I'm in Delhi and we're stopped
- 19:26at a light and someone comes up for money, I don't give it to
- 19:29them because I know it's not safe. But I make sure to make eye
- 19:33contact. I make sure to see them with as much as much love in
- 19:40my heart as I possibly can, and not to avert my eyes, not
- 19:48to pretend I don't see them, not to tell the driver to move ahead
- 19:52a little bit, because then we suffer and we lose, because we disconnect
- 20:00ourselves from life, and then we are depriving those who are already without so
- 20:10much. We're depriving them of their very humanity, of their ability to be
- 20:15seen. So at least give them that. You're listening to OTRFM, part
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- 21:37this station. Welcome back to inspiration and transformation. I'm so glad to have
- 21:48you all back here with me. Ignorance is definitely not bliss. Ignorance might
- 21:56be a numbing sensation, a bit of superficial level enjoyment. Mazzat right,
- 22:15but you can't really be in bliss with ignorance, because otherwise, what's the
- 22:26source of your bliss? Right, where does bliss come from? I mean,
- 22:30you can't order it on Amazon. Where does it come from? So
- 22:37it's either going to come from outside or from inside. If it's going to
- 22:44come from outside, and I'm in a state of ignorance, what are my
- 22:51options? Right? Drugs, alcohol, that type of musty right, Well,
- 22:59that's that's not bliss. That's called chemical intoxication. And you come down,
- 23:10it's got a half life, a very short half life. In a
- 23:14few hours, it's over. Then you're hungover. So that's not really bliss.
- 23:23Things like parties or movies or shopping trips or a good meal, you
- 23:30couldn't actually call them bliss. You might say you enjoyed the food, but
- 23:36you'd have to be living a really shallow life for you. The most bliss
- 23:44you get to come from just a meal or a movie. Sure you enjoy
- 23:51it, But if you don't have an inner bliss for something you're experiencing outside
- 24:00to hook into, it's going to be really superficial. Then it's just enjoyment,
- 24:07momentary enjoyment, momentary pleasure, some reward chemicals going in our brain.
- 24:15It's not bliss. So the peace that you want, it's also not peace
- 24:25because The truth really is, at the end of the day, when you
- 24:30lie down to go to sleep, we know a lot more than we let
- 24:36on during the day. We're not quite as stupid as we may look or
- 24:42as we may act in order to convince ourselves that we are happy and everything
- 24:49is great, right, in order to sort of curate our identities on social
- 24:56media, as though this cappuccino with you know, the flower drawn in the
- 25:03foam that I've taken a picture of and pasted with a selfie really is the
- 25:10highest source of bliss. Well, we know it's not, And in a
- 25:15quiet moment at the end of the day, we know we're not blissful.
- 25:22So ignorance doesn't actually lead to the bliss or the piece. We have to
- 25:27stay very, very busy to keep ourselves from being quiet enough to realize,
- 25:38my god, I'm actually not happier at all, or certainly not deeply happy.
- 25:49And so it's a beautiful question that you ask, you say, for
- 25:53our generation, for the younger generation, And it's interesting because you're right.
- 25:59The older general narration really did seem much more able to find it, and
- 26:07the reason is, interestingly, they were less drawn by a lot of this
- 26:15external world there was a lot more emphasis on spirituality, on values. I
- 26:26mean, if you asked your grandparents how many hours in the work week your
- 26:33grandfather worked, it's very unlikely unless he was you know, bonded laborer somewhere,
- 26:45you know, the equivalent of sort of a slave somewhere. If he
- 26:52had his own choice in his own work, it's very likely he was working
- 27:00one hundred hour workweeks. It's very unlikely that by the time he and your
- 27:07grandmother had time to be together at night, it was ten thirty. Very
- 27:12unlikely, very unlikely that someone else was waking their kids up, your parents
- 27:21up and putting them to sleep at night. Change has happened, and we
- 27:25can't rewind the world. Nothing is good or bad, better or worse.
- 27:30With development, with progress, with time, we get changes. Our world
- 27:37is different, and it doesn't serve us in any way to say better or
- 27:41worse, good, bad. We simply say, okay, here we are.
- 27:47But we look at it eyes wide open and we say, wow,
- 27:49that's so interesting. Maybe I actually could implement some of that in my life.
- 27:59So, for example, if I worked, you know, fifty sixty
- 28:07hours a week at the company at the office instead of a hundred i'd bring
- 28:12in significantly less money. I'm aware of that. Maybe I wouldn't actually make
- 28:18it to senior vice president. But with all of that extra time that I
- 28:25could spend with family, with friends, doing yoga, meditating, my hobbies
- 28:32in nature, doing volunteer work, save I engaged in something that makes a
- 28:38difference. Isn't it possible that actually I would find myself much happier on a
- 28:48deep level? Then I think I will be by whatever this hundred hour work
- 28:55week promises me at the end of however many years it's going to take me
- 29:00to become the person at the top of the company. Maybe there is some
- 29:10wisdom in what our grandparents and great grandparents and ancestors taught us. And just
- 29:18to allow the idea to kind of percolate in your mind and really ask yourself.
- 29:26You say, how do we find peace? Well, I would say
- 29:27to you, what are the moments in your life in which you feel peace?
- 29:36Surely, surely you have experienced peace at some point, maybe just for
- 29:41a few moments. What are those moments? Are they moments in department stores
- 29:48shopping Are they moments at weddings showing off your brand new clothes? Knowing that
- 29:56everyone is jealous of you? Or are they moments of something much deeper,
- 30:10something much richer. Ask yourself the moments in your life that you have felt
- 30:19bliss, What were you doing? Where were you? Chances are the moments
- 30:30are going to be moments that involve deep connection, deep connection to the divine,
- 30:44maybe through connection to another human being, maybe through watching a sunset over
- 30:51the ocean, Maybe through lying on your back and looking at the stars in
- 30:56the night sky, maybe through helping people, serving, allowing yourself to be
- 31:06used as an instrument in God's hands, maybe singing Kirtan with Putaswamiji and the
- 31:15Gungarthi. But ask yourself, these are questions that yes, I can I
- 31:26can guide you, of course, but you actually know the answer. The
- 31:33real key is allowing ourselves to disngage from the machinery of a system that says,
- 31:45oh, you want happiness, you need this much money, this title,
- 31:52this much power, this many followers on social media, this type of
- 32:02house, this type of car, this type of popularity. Just allowing yourself
- 32:13to be disengaged, and you can do it really through a process of gyan
- 32:17yoga. Really ask yourself, Okay, yeah, it's nice to get a
- 32:25raise. It's nice to make money, but internally, just do kind of
- 32:30an inner check in. How does that feel compared with the joy that you
- 32:38get in doing something different? Ask yourself. And the beautiful thing is you're
- 32:52very young, and so you've really got this opportunity to make a decision.
- 32:58And I'm not saying quit your jobs and you know, go live in caves
- 33:01in the jungle, but you've got an opportunity to decide what is your work
- 33:07week gonna look like? What is your version of success? How much do
- 33:14you really need? I mean, this is a great question to ask yourself.
- 33:21If you are anyone on a career path in which you believe that that
- 33:30path is going to bring you happiness, have a check in, you know,
- 33:37choose a few times a year, maybe a birthday, maybe the New
- 33:44year, maybe a holiday, but choose, choose three or four moments a
- 33:49year and just simply ask yourself, is it enough yet? Is it enough?
- 34:01Because every year presumably you're going to have more than you had the year
- 34:05before, So just keep asking yourself is it enough? And yeah, you
- 34:15shake your head. Now, it's never enough, It's never enough. And
- 34:22at some point you realize that is so interesting It's like, I don't know
- 34:35if you've ever tried to quench deep thirst with you know, some kind of
- 34:42a sugary drink, a Coca cola or something, And despite what every single
- 34:46advertisement will tell you, it doesn't actually quench your thirst. Makes you more
- 34:54thirsty. The body is craving water, and when you throw sugar into it,
- 35:08it actually needs more water. When you're really hungry, and instead of
- 35:17having a proper meal, you have a bag of chips or cookies, like
- 35:22you decided forget it. I don't have time to make a proper meal.
- 35:25I'll just eat a bag of potato chips. Well, your stomach is full,
- 35:31but you're not satiated. You don't actually feel like, ah, wonderful,
- 35:38now I'm great. You feel like, oh god, what if?
- 35:44What did I do? You do that enough times and eventually you realize a
- 35:50potato chips are not the answer to when I'm really hungry. It's not actually
- 35:55giving me what my body is wanting. So don't rely on me. Ask
- 36:02yourself how much is enough? And no one can answer it for you,
- 36:09but you can, And I think what you'll find is some direction there then
- 36:16about what your what your days will look like what your weeks will look like,
- 36:22what your years will look like. Once you realize what it is that
- 36:29brings you bliss and peace, will you you go after it? And it's
- 36:36a beautiful time as you start your married life together, you know, spend
- 36:42some time sit on the banks of Ganga together just you know, quiet in
- 36:46meditation, just the two of you, and really really have these sorts of
- 36:52conversations. How much do we need, what are our priorities, where is
- 36:58our joy going to come from? What are we looking at? And lastly,
- 37:02I would say, look at what you've seen, because we've all got
- 37:07not only parents, but we've got our parents friends, We've got the parents
- 37:13of our friends. There's a lot of people in the generation above us for
- 37:19us to look at and say, who is where I would like to end
- 37:24up. Who's got something that really feels to me like, yeah, yeah,
- 37:36that's what life's about. Not who's the one that just everybody thinks,
- 37:42well, buddy, admire, but really, who's got something that when you're
- 37:49with them you feel like, yeah, this person really And then see how
- 37:53you can how you can mold your life or ask that person for some thoughts.
- 38:00That's where mentors come from. You know. We look at people who
- 38:06have something that we think I would like to have them in my life.
- 38:10How'd you get it? You learn? This is OTRFM, part of the
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- 39:23Treatment of Animals. I grew up loving circuses and other traveling animal shows,
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- 39:47Animals five seven six two two PETA. Welcome back. This is Sadvi Bagavati
- 39:57Saraswati with inspiration and transformation. How can we stay in the present moment all
- 40:08the time? It's a wonderful question because what we know is the source of
- 40:15everything we want can only be obtained when we are in the present. We
- 40:25want to be happy, but you can only be happy right now. You
- 40:31cannot be happy tomorrow or yesterday. Your only opportunity for happiness is in this
- 40:40moment. You cannot be in peace yesterday or tomorrow. You can only be
- 40:49in peace in this moment now. If you are happy and in peace in
- 40:57this moment, chances are you'll can carry that into the next moment, and
- 41:02the next moment and the next moment. But if you're sitting right here worrying
- 41:14about tomorrow or daydreaming about yesterday, you have all sorts of feelings. Maybe
- 41:24you have nice memories, maybe you have some memories that are not so nice.
- 41:29Maybe you have hope, maybe you have dreams, maybe you have anxiety.
- 41:37I mean, there's a lot of different feeling states that we have when
- 41:43we think about the future. But happiness. Even if I think, oh,
- 41:50when I get this thing, then I will be happy, that's an
- 41:54idea. That's not actually happiness. There's no happiness happening inside of me when
- 42:04I think, oh, when I get that car, then I'll be happy.
- 42:09That's just a concept. It's a thought, that's all. It is,
- 42:15an idea. Maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. Maybe i'll get
- 42:21the car. Maybe getting the car will make me happy. Maybe getting the
- 42:24car won't make me happy. Maybe I'll be happy for one day and then
- 42:30frustrated every day after that. But there's nothing for sure. Maybe I won't
- 42:36even get the car. So the happiness I theoretically I'm going to have in
- 42:45the future is merely an idea. The only possibility for real happiness is right
- 42:57here, right now. And here's what's interesting. If you can't access happiness
- 43:05now, it's very unlikely you're going to be able to access it in the
- 43:10future unless you change something inside of you. We think something's going to happen,
- 43:23but like from the sky, things are going to happen, things are
- 43:28going to change. Then I will have happiness. But happiness comes from within,
- 43:34and either you have the the ability to experience that from within through gratitude,
- 43:45through love, through being present, through service, through surrender, or
- 43:57if you haven't developed any of those skills. Do not kid yourself that some
- 44:04amount of money, or some opportunity or some possession is somehow going to carry
- 44:10happiness into your life. If that were the case, the richest people would
- 44:17be the happiest people. But we actually know that isn't true. And so
- 44:29this moment, right here, right now is all we have to work with,
- 44:36and that which we create in this moment stays with us into the next
- 44:42moment. So this is why so many different spiritual traditions have a practice of
- 44:52meditation, of contemplation, of mindfulness of some thing that is requiring me to
- 45:05be here now, To not be in yesterday, not in regrets, not
- 45:14in you know, wistful memories, not in tomorrow, either the anticipation or
- 45:22the anxiety, but just to be right here right now. It's why there's
- 45:30so many practices of chanting, of prayer, of quiet, meditation, or
- 45:40contemplation in different religions. Different traditions teach it differently, and the practices,
- 45:52of course are slightly different, but one thing they all have in common is
- 45:58they bring you into the present moment, right here, right now. I
- 46:04mean, yeah, you could theoretically be doing your juppo while your mind is
- 46:07somewhere else. But I mean, who are you kidding? Right? I
- 46:13mean, Jeppa is between you and God. Obviously God knows if your mind's
- 46:16there. You know if your mind's there. So if you both know your
- 46:22mind's not there, what's the point, right, You're not kidding someone else.
- 46:29So they're all practices of coming into the present, and so is the
- 46:40questioner asked, How can we be in the present techniques? Practice? First
- 46:49to realize that it's not your fault that it's difficult. The nature of the
- 46:54mind is to jump around. This concept of a monkey mind is something that
- 47:02our scriptures, those writing commentaries on the scriptures, those the sages, the
- 47:10saints rishis have been talking about for hundreds and even thousands of years. So
- 47:20the monkey mind is not created by how much you have to do today.
- 47:27It's not created by your present job, or family situation or social media.
- 47:35These are just newer opportunities for the mind to jump around. It's like their
- 47:43new toys for the mind. But the nature of the mind is to jump.
- 47:49It's like you could give a monkey a tennis ball, you could give
- 47:53it a ball of string, you could give it a banana. I mean,
- 47:59you could give it a hundred do different things. It's going to play
- 48:02with them all. It's not the fault of the thing. The thing is
- 48:07just what the monkey is using at the moment to be a monkey. In
- 48:14the same way, the mind is just using what you offer to it.
- 48:22But its nature is to keep jumping. So whatever you give it, it's
- 48:25going to keep jumping. That's its nature. So don't don't feel badly,
- 48:34don't bate yourself. Recognize it is the nature of the mind. But also
- 48:42that there's a lot of beautiful tools and techniques that our sages and our saints
- 48:51and our resis have given us. And these techniques range from the very very
- 48:59simple, what you could call just really sort of cognitive behavioral work. Watch
- 49:07the breath. Hey, even if you pull it out of religion pull it
- 49:14out of spirituality, pull it out of devotion, just to behavioral practice.
- 49:20Watch the breath brings you into the present moment. Be mindful. There's so
- 49:30many paths teaching mindfulness today that are separate from any religion. I mean,
- 49:38hospitals are teaching it, corporations are teaching its, Schools are teaching it across
- 49:46America, across so much of Europe. Even because it's really good for us.
- 49:53It's good for the mind, it's good for the body, it's good
- 49:57for our productivity. So even if you don't have spiritual aims and objectives,
- 50:07you can bring practices of mindfulness. It's very simple. Mindful eating, mindful
- 50:19drinking. So many of us when we eat, when we drink, when
- 50:24we walk, we're constantly doing other things, whether we're actively on our phones
- 50:34or chatting with someone or watching TV, or whether our minds are just thinking
- 50:37about other things. When I get where I'm going, here's all the conversations
- 50:43I'm going to have right walking to a meeting. Well, we're practicing all
- 50:47the conversations in our mind before we get there. But instead, can you
- 50:55just alle yourself to actually feel your feet as they touch the ground. Can
- 51:06you actually feel the water, the food going down, didn't you? Can
- 51:15you just be aware of it, be aware of the breath, be aware
- 51:22of every step. Can you brush your teeth mindfully? I mean really,
- 51:30everything we do is an opportunity to just be mindful. Right when you brush
- 51:37your teeth, what are you thinking about? Well, many of us are
- 51:42planning the day right. Maybe we didn't get enough sleep the night before,
- 51:49maybe we overslept, we didn't make it to the gym, whatever it is,
- 51:53but our minds are already going instead mindfully, brush your teeth, mindfully
- 52:05walk, whatever you do, bring bring mindfulness into it and what that'll do
- 52:14as it'll bring you into the present moment. And obviously if you can bring
- 52:20a spiritual component to it, it's going to be only that hundreds of times
- 52:25more powerful, more rich, because then not only are you here now,
- 52:35but you're here now in love, you're here now ingratitude, you're here now
- 52:49in connection. So if you've got a devotional practice, as you're aware of
- 52:55the breath, another beautiful way to be here now is the practice of Amantha.
- 53:04Allow that recitation of the mantra to fill you with love, to fill
- 53:21you with divine connection. So there's lots and lots and lots of practices,
- 53:27but it takes practice. This is why we are taught abias, abyas and
- 53:34the bug of a Gita. Why Krishna emphasizes abias because it doesn't come naturally.
- 53:40It's not the nature of the mind. So we train it. We
- 53:46train it, we train it. And the good news is that even though
- 53:52the mind is not actually like a muscle biologically like the tissue of the white
- 54:00matter and gray matter is not like the tissue of muscles, nonetheless it actually
- 54:06works much like a muscle. I've discovered. Whatever you do with it is
- 54:12actually what it learns how to do. That which you strengthen is that which
- 54:16gets strong. That which you ignore is that which stays weak. The paths
- 54:23that you tend to go are the paths that tend to work for you.
- 54:30So use it like a muscle. Strengthen it, and it'll bring you,
- 54:38at the bare minimum, it'll bring you peace. At the bare minimum,
- 54:47it'll bring you an experience of joy, because, believe it or not,
- 54:53this moment is actually really beautiful. Doesn't mean you're not in the midst of
- 55:01all kinds of turmoil and things going on. But if you can isolate,
- 55:07just the moment, not the story, not everything that led up to the
- 55:13moment, not everything that you've got to deal with after the moment, but
- 55:16just this moment, just this breath. It's actually really beautiful. So at
- 55:28the bare minimum you get peace and an experience of joy, and if you
- 55:37bring spirituality into it, well then the doors of everything open and the practices
- 55:47are simple, not easy, but simple. This brings to a close this
- 55:55hour of inspiration and trans formation. Thank you so much for joining me.
- 56:04I'm so glad to be together with you all each week, and I look
- 56:09forward to being together again next Thursday, same time on Home Time's Radio