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I’ve Read So Many Spiritual Books… So Why Am I Still Stuck · Spiritual Sense: Practical wisdom to quiet an overthinking mind and recharge your soul

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Have you ever felt that despite all the retreats and books and all the knowledge, that you're not quite as far along in your spiritual path as you'd like to be? Maybe you know what you need to be doing. You know how it all works. You've done all these different studies, you've got journals, but you might still feel a little bit stuck. I was talking to someone recently who was saying, you know, they've done everything. They've read this book and this book and this practice and this practice and this practice, and they go to this thing, and yet fundamentally, they weren't feeling like they were actually making any real progress and kind of stuck at a certain level, like it wasn't making any difference. So if you feel that way, which is very common, by the way, then you're in the right place. We're going to talk about exactly what's going on and exactly how to get out of it so you can start making progress and becoming the highest version of yourself in real life. So welcome, welcome, welcome. Yay. So, Shireen, have you had any experience with this? Met anyone who's stuck?
• 1:06
  Speaker B: I thought you were going to say, have you had any experience personally? I'm perfect, Michael. Did you not know this? I'm perfect.
• 1:14
  Speaker A: I've never had any problems. I just. Just know. Learn something and immediately it comes true straight away.
• 1:21
  Speaker B: All right, all right, okay. It's easier for me to talk about someone else, but I did meet someone recently. They've done. They know every spiritual center in the area. They've gone to all of them. They've gone to all the retreats. They've gone to everything. Right. And I don't see any progress. I shouldn't say that I'm sure they are progressing inside, but that's what they said to me, that they feel still stuck.
• 1:57
  Speaker A: So, I mean, this is quite common. So if. If we've done everything, we've gone to the retreats, we've listened to the podcast, we've read the books, we've done the guided meditations. Right. And it's still not making a real tangible difference what's going on. How can we get out of that?
• 2:17
  Speaker B: I always feel the thing that is so important is dosage. And also applying some things. Right. This story, I think you sent it to me about the acres of diamonds, about this man in Africa who found. I don't know if you sent it to me or. I found.
• 2:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, I sent it to you.
• 2:43
  Speaker B: Yeah. When I was researching a trust. When I was doing the trust course, I was researching and so there was this man in Africa who had a. Apparently a true story, right? He had a beautiful farm, and he was hearing that all his neighbors were making so much money or people in far off lands were making so much money because they were finding diamonds right in places. And so he sold his farm and he went in search of these particular places that he wants to go find diamonds, right? And he, at the end of his life, he didn't find any such place and he passed away. But the person he sold the farm to, he found something in a stream, you know, like crystal kind of things. And he brought it, put it on the shelf, and there was a man visiting him and he said, where did you find this? And he said, oh, I found it in the stream in my land. And lo and behold, those were uncut diamonds. They looked rough, but they were uncut diamonds. And so this man who sold the farm went all over Africa looking for diamonds, and he had diamonds right under his, you know, right under his feet, so to speak. But he didn't really take the time to look for what actually is a diamond. How do I look for a diamond? How does it look? Right? There's so many things in that story you can learn from is first, I take time to see what a diamond actually is in the rough, what is a diamond and how do I make it from a rough diamond to a good diamond. All of those things,
• 4:41
  Speaker A: acres and acres of diamonds. Yeah, we can look outside, see someone else has a better thing, better thing, but we're not seeing what we have. And, and the thing with this story, if you dig a little bit deeper, he had to actually look long enough and do some proper work to find the diamonds in the. Because they're in the ground, right? Then they're not, right? You have to do some work to get the diamonds out of the ground. And so I think that's a lot of the issue is that we're looking, oh, there's another retreat. Oh, there's another course. Like, I have all kinds of courses and programs, right? And many of my students have told me they join my course and they're like, oh, this is the best thing ever. And then after a certain amount of time, they go on some social media thing and they see another course. Oh, so then they, they do that course and then they go, and then there's another one. And, and then, then I hear from them like a year later, and they're like, you know what? I got totally distracted. I'm coming back to your course. This is what I needed because it's so easy to just keep going around and around and around and around, isn't it? Because it's always fun to like have a new book compared to actually using the book that you already have.
• 5:56
  Speaker B: Right, right. You know the other thing I feel about this diamonds, this man and his diamonds, right? He sold his farm for pennies on the dollar and the person he brought it from made tons of money with the same farm, right? And so not only is the whole idea of not digging enough and all of that, but not having the right perception, not having the right attitude, right? Always thinking there's something somewhere else going on. Something somewhere else is going to fulfill me. The next something is going to fulfill me. And the analogy I have is for spiritual people, when this person was telling me, oh, I went to so many retreats and I'm still stuck is that if you go into a place and you're looking for water or you're looking for a diamond. And let's say even if he did find this man, he realized there were diamonds in his backyard, right? He can't dig 1ft hole one day, then go another place and dig another 1ft hole somewhere else and then go somewhere else and dig another feet hole, right? One feet, one foot hole. And so what he'll have is after 50 days of digging, he will have 51 foot holes and no diamonds. And if he spent 50 days digging the same hole, then he'll have diamonds. So not only that he didn't find the diamonds, he didn't even look for diamonds in his property. That even if he did find it, there has to be some kind of shift going on inside to actually mine the diamonds. And so. And that's what we do, right? I'm also, you know, guilty of these things. Is okay, this book and this method and then this book and this method and then this and then this method and then this and then this method. And before I know it, I have know a lot of methods and no transformation.
• 8:24
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's prodding, prodding at it, isn't it? You know, oh, there's a new method. Oh, and it's always the ego likes new things that the, the naive inner child that we have inside of us is, is a sucker for sparkly things. It's always a sparkly thing, you know, because I actually have tons of books in the house, right. And like I, I have read quite a few of them actually. And I try and apply what I learned, but I've got more books than I got time. That's the truth. Of it. And sometimes I just pull a book off the shelf and I look at it and I'm like, such a great idea, right? But knowing having it on the shelf or no.
• 9:05
  Speaker B: Best thing ever, right, Michael?
• 9:07
  Speaker A: It's the best thing ever. It's the best thing ever. Exactly.
• 9:09
  Speaker B: And then it's the best thing ever.
• 9:11
  Speaker A: It's the best thing ever. But is it, Is it gonna make any difference if I don't use it or if I don't use it long enough? Biggest problem is not having the patience for things to work out long term. You know, there's the great book called the Slight Edge, which basically has a graph of, like, successes up here. And time is along the bottom, right? And when you start something new, nothing, there's no real change straight off the bat. Most of the time, it's like, it's very, very slow progress. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. And then gradually the graph goes up and you get success. But it doesn't happen for a while. And a lot of the time when we start new practices, it makes our life worse temporarily. So not only does it not make it better, it makes it worse. Because, like, for example, if. I mean, Shreen and I, we've given lots of methods in this podcast, right? For example, like if you were to sit down and write down your thoughts for an hour, right? It will probably make your life worse by doing that in that hour. Because you're like, oh, my God, what am I thinking about? This is just shocking, right? If you write it all down, it. So there's an immediate shock because paying attention to something, or let's say you do exercise. Oh, it hurts. It hurts. Oh, my God. So it doesn't necessarily do anything for us when we start something and then we think, well, it might. My arms hurt. I felt really bad. Most, many, many people say, I can't meditate. And then I say, well, what do you mean exactly? And so, oh, I sat there and I couldn't stop my thoughts, and I just thought, this is no point. And I gave up. It's like, well, for a start, you're not supposed to just not think anything ever again. And secondly, how long have you done this for? Oh, I tried it for two minutes. You know, it just doesn't work for me.
• 11:07
  Speaker B: So.
• 11:07
  Speaker A: So if we don't stop long enough, of course, it's definitely not going to work, is it? I mean, I. I've never got good at anything right away. You know, everything. I mean, you might get like a fluke occasionally where you try something and it's Fun and it's easy. But a lot of the time mastery is this gradual process of improvement.
• 11:33
  Speaker B: Also what I've noticed is when you were talking about meditation, for me there is no such thing as a bad meditation. Just me sitting down and considering myself to be a soul sitting down, remembering the Supreme. Even if I tried it and only I was able to be successful for one minute. That's something. There's something. And it takes, like you are saying, it takes so long to really stabilize the mind and we can't just think that. So I feel the goal, right, like we are too results oriented. Too results oriented. The goal should be that I need to have a discipline of doing meditation, let's say half an hour every day at this specific time. And I'm not going to do anything else but meditate. That itself is success. To be, to continue to do that, that is success. That is a good meditation. The fact that I'm sitting down is a good meditation.
• 12:45
  Speaker A: That reframes it, doesn't it? Because if otherwise it's only counts as good meditation if I experience ecstatic joy, an infinite bliss. Infinite bliss, which of course is possible.
• 12:57
  Speaker B: We will, we will.
• 12:58
  Speaker A: But it comes, it comes towards the end of the meditation, normally not at
• 13:02
  Speaker B: the beginning, Right, right. And it comes from consistency. So there's acres of diamond, right? The other thing I feel is not only that nowadays, right, it's become such a fashion for all of us to sample, to have a buffet, right? Let me go to this retreat and take this, let me go to this particular Buddhist meditation and then this Raj yoga and then this Christian thing and then this unity thing. So I'm having all of this wonderful array of samples, but every master, every master, it's not, we are saying it, every master says that if we want transformation, then there has to be depth, not sampling, right? Not dig 51 foot holes everywhere, but really go deep and dig a 50 foot hole for 50 days. Dig a 50 foot hole, not 51 foot holes. But the other part I feel is in one of our previous episodes you were talking about letting go, right? And you have to have this practice of letting go constantly. Constantly. You have to have this practice of letting go. And you need to do that maybe a thousand times a day. And so any practice, right, whether it is a Buddhist practice or Raj Yoga practice, a Christian practice or any other practice, if you have done it for thousand times the dosage, really the dosage is thousand times. If you have done it a thousand times and it's still not working, then we need to talk yeah.
• 14:53
  Speaker A: If so, it's like one is, what are we reading a book for? Or whatever it is, or listening to a podcast? Are we listening to it for entertainment? Which is fine. Like, it can be that learning things is. It'd be better to listen to this podcast or some other spiritual podcast than to have some other content, let's be honest, right? Just. Just purely the effect that.
• 15:15
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 15:15
  Speaker A: On your brain. So learning stuff, studying is in itself valuable because we need to know what we're doing first of all, and it's better than something else. So for that reason alone, anyone who's studying spiritual stuff gets, you know, blessings just. Just for doing it. But then if we want to take it more seriously, we need the dosage to be sufficiently high. You know, Bruce Lee said, I fear not the man who's practiced a thousand strikes once, but I definitely fear the man who's practiced one strike a thousand times. And so what. What are we doing? Are we doing thousands of stroke? I practice this thing and then this thing, right? But then, like, you don't. None of them are any good, so. And I think a thousand times a day is a decent number because, of course, depends on what it is, right? But a lot of the time, like, for example, like letting go or remembering your soul, if I think, oh, I'm a spiritual being, okay, I did that, I'll think about it next month, it's probably not going to sink in very deeply. It needs to be done again and again and again and again and again and again. And there's a certain threshold where it goes from theory to experience. And the experience is what changes us on a deeper level. That's how our transformation happens. That's how we feel different and our life changes. But we don't get to the experience without the practice, and we don't get to the practice without a bit of perseverance and putting up with some tedious stuff where it doesn't look like anything's happening. So this is. So it's worth asking, have you done whatever practice you've done a thousand times a day for a month? Or. Or have you got. Oh, I. I read a few pages of this book, and I'm just gonna go on this retreat. Oh, I've met this teacher. And. And are we. Are we waiting for blessings? That's another one. Like, am I sort of walking around saying, where's the masters who can bless me? You know, nothing. Not this.
• 17:38
  Speaker B: Right.
• 17:39
  Speaker A: Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but it's like, at a certain point, we have to do some work on ourselves.
• 17:46
  Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. That's a really good one. Michael is somehow. Right. All of us feel that we can get away with not doing the work. Right. There's like some. And I feel that's a carelessness we all have. Like, somewhere deep inside there's a feeling, oh, I can get away with not doing it. It's not laziness. Exactly. That's not laziness. It's just carelessness. To think that somehow I'm so special I'll get away with that. Not without doing the work.
• 18:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, because I know about it. And for me, I mean, I remember about 10, 15 years ago, I can't remember what it was. I was in Hawaii and I was reading something that said, all of this knowledge will disappear, everything you're learning, and all that's left is your. The change that you've had in yourself. And that. That really shocked me, actually, because up until that point, I had thought, because I like, you know, so we have all this different knowledge and all these different things and books and everything. I. I was under the impression on some psychological, like, background level in the back of my awareness that knowing about something sort of counted as having something. Like, I know I'm a spiritual being. I know I'm eternal, and that this is a great game. And I sort of thought the knowledge itself was kind of like a thing that I actually owned. But then I realized that it's all going to be destroyed because everything's going to end right at some point. Like, we don't remember everything, all the books. And so it's all just. It exists in the actual thing itself. And that's going to go over there. And only what I've imbibed and brought into my being, what I've embodied, is actually something that I have. So in other words, only the practice. The only thing I have is the pre. The knowledge gives. Gives the opportunity to practice. And then the practice changes the self. And whatever's changed belongs to us. And that is really. That was really quite shocking to me. Now I understand believe that now, but at the time I was like, oh, my God, I have to re. To reassess everything here.
• 20:18
  Speaker B: You know, the other thing, like you were saying, better to listen to this podcast than go on the feed and do other things. Absolutely agree with you, but we need to sit down and do some work, right? Whatever. When we give framework something, write it down and do it right? Write it down, do it, do it for a period of time, and I promise you, guaranteed money back. Guarantee that it's going to work. It's going to work because we tried it on ourselves and it works for us. And so one thing that I feel we are not accounting for is most of the time the mind wants entertainment and we need to get away from that. Even though listening to this podcast is better than doing other things. Just watch when we really feel like, oh, I want entertainment. Because entertainment is different from transformation. Entertainment happens. Transformation happens. They actually don't meet in transformation. There's really very little entertainment. And there is a method for the transformation, but it's not through entertainment. And so if we want entertainment and then we are looking for transformation, it's not going to happen. And so we have to be careful. Is this what I really want, right? Do I really want to transform or do I want entertainment? Do you know people, Michael, who feel that they are above everything else or, you know, they don't need to do the work or. Oh, spirituality is another form of entertainment.
• 22:09
  Speaker A: It can be, can't it? You know, all these different retreats. I went, a friend of mine said she went to see some popular spiritual person and she said it was basically a, like a festival, a variety, a variety sort of festival show. But for spiritual things, there's a bit of this and a little song and then this little fun little thing and then this little thing. And not that there's anything wrong with entertainment, but it's not the same thing as to actually change our thoughts and feelings and like, really see what's going on within us and have a good look at it and be willing to like, put our desires in abeyance and, you know, not do stuff that's bad for, I mean, it's not easy to do. It's all these different things.
• 22:54
  Speaker B: No. And there's no entertainment in that.
• 22:56
  Speaker A: No, there's not. And not only that, we have to be willing to like, because I, I, what I've noticed myself is that when I feel distraught in some form, whether, whether it's physical pain or whether it's some sort of stressful situation I'm dealing with, there's a knee jerk reaction to try and avoid my feelings through some sort of distracting thing, right? This happens. It happens instantly. And because we all have cell phones, we, we can potentially distract ourselves from our feelings and from doing the work all day long, potentially. Right? So if we want to make some progress, we actually have to notice what's going on and then not do anything except do the inner work. And that is fundamentally unpleasant actually, in the moment, you know, so my personal mission Nowadays is I want to become extremely good at feeling my feelings, because I've come to realize that not wanting to feel what I'm feeling is the cause of pretty much all my problems, actually. Because if I can sit here and feel whatever I'm feeling and not run away from it, then I'm no longer a slave. Otherwise, I'm always going to be on edge thinking, how can I try and manage this? You know, so.
• 24:26
  Speaker B: Right.
• 24:27
  Speaker A: So it's not easy. Yeah, we have to. And there's a lot of. There's a lot of spiritual entertainment. There's actually like, books and courses and stuff that actually is entertaining spiritual stuff. I mean, that's what it's. There's a whole genre of that sort of stuff, and it's not, unfortunately, going to change.
• 24:41
  Speaker B: But it's not transformative.
• 24:43
  Speaker A: It's fun.
• 24:44
  Speaker B: It's right.
• 24:45
  Speaker A: It's.
• 24:45
  Speaker B: It's interesting, it's fun, but it's not transformative till you really apply it in your life and do the hard work. It's not transformative.
• 24:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, we could. Anything go, oh, this is fascinating. Oh, what a great quote. I read this book and it was so inspiring. So inspiring. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And then next day, you forgot everything.
• 25:02
  Speaker B: I heard this podcast and, you know, and nowadays, right, Everything. I didn't realize how much. Because I've. I don't go on social media. I didn't realize how much people are doing performative things, right. So someone came here and said, oh, this is. There's no performance here. Right. So everything is the right cushion, the right environment, the right lighting, and even before you sit down, you take a picture for Instagram, a selfie, and then put it on. And so it's so performative. So performative. And I actually watch myself nowadays to see am I doing this, like doing things just for performance, Right. For someone else, for show. Right. It's not necessarily for Instagram, but anything for show. Or I can ask myself the question, do I want transformation? And most of the time, the answer is, if I want transformation, Nothing can be for sure because internal work, you cannot see. Absolutely cannot see. It's not anything we can post on Instagram, you know, here we go. This is the internal changes I've had.
• 26:27
  Speaker A: Yeah. Look at me out in nature, you know, look at what a cool place. I'm doing meditation, blah, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, it's. It's. It's what we do when no one's looking. That's where the transformation happens. No one's looking. No one knows. What you're doing, there's no cameras on you in your private secret moments. That's where the transformation happens, if we
• 26:55
  Speaker B: want to know, right? To summarize, if you really want to know, is transformation going to happen? We have to ask ourselves three questions. What have I learned? Like, let's take a book, right? Let's take one of my books, right?
• 27:11
  Speaker A: If you're reading on transforming you, then you should read one of Shireen's books.
• 27:18
  Speaker B: Well, they're not entertainment for sure, because some of those books, when I was writing, I was not thinking of entertainment, especially soul fitness, right? Like there are 50 prints, practices, what every practice should do and how you should do it. And now when I look back and I'm thinking, no wonder no one bought that book.
• 27:38
  Speaker A: Yeah. Who wants. And I remember telling you sh. I was like, this is a bit. Bit like a bit much really, with a little bit of. Because, you know, we want stories, we want fun and games, you know, but it does have a lot of practices in it.
• 27:49
  Speaker B: So it does have a lot of practices. And I still get feedback from a few people who seriously are doing the book. So that's good. And so anyway, so let's take a book, right? Any book. Let's take Soul Fitness as an example. The first question is, what have I learned from this book? That's the first question. That's easy. That's the easy part, actually. And the second question is, Am I practicing it? Right, Michael?
• 28:30
  Speaker A: Yeah. What am I practicing? Like, so one is, you know, what does it say? But then the second thing is, based on what it says, if it's a practice, how much am I practicing? Have I practiced it? Have I done any practice?
• 28:42
  Speaker B: Right. What's the dosage? Yeah, absolutely. And the third one is, did it make a difference?
• 28:50
  Speaker A: Is it working? Yeah. Is it changing me? And. And most time it's not going to work at all because we don't practice anything or not long enough. So it's same with this could be a book, it could be a podcast, okay? So I learned this podcast. I learned 15, 000 methods. That's great. Wonderful. Congratulations. And then how much did I practice it? Well, I sort of thought about practicing it a little bit occasionally. And then what's the effect on my life? Well, you know, there's nothing wrong with entertainment for its own sake if that's something you want to do. But let's not think that spirituality, just being entertained means we've changed. You know, like, you can have a comedian who makes you laugh, and that's where you feel good, but doesn't mean you're permanently change when you come across challenging situations the next day or next month. So it's worth thinking, okay, is. Is the method that I have, the books that I have, is the method actually even something that would. Would work if you applied it? Because if it wouldn't work, then that's another problem, isn't it? Right, so let's say you've got 50 books, right? They're not all going to be of the same caliber, are they? Because everything's different or different teaching. So what's the best teaching you could possibly have? Has it worked for anyone else?
• 30:22
  Speaker B: And each one is. Feels differently, right? You're attracted to different things. Yeah, like I'm really attracted to serious, like serious drills and something serious drills, right? Okay, give me a drill. And this is the, the drill we need to do. But not everyone feels that way. And that's fine, right? To feel what. But it has to be some shape, something that you can practice, right? Even if it is simple and profound, like letting go. That's very simple and very profound. But there is a practice in that. Letting go, right? Just letting go or even feeling the feelings. It's very profound and very simple, but you need to feel the feelings. And so what have I learned, right? Did I practice enough? Whatever that practice, did I do it enough? Like I would say minimum 4,000 times. Did I do it 4,000 times? And then after I do it, did it 4,000 times? Did it make a difference in my life? We cannot measure it made a difference in my life without doing it 4,000 times.
• 31:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So let's just, just think about anything you're doing right now, whether it's a book or course or training or something or other that you've learned on Tik Tok or something. Hopefully you're not getting your spiritual information from Tik Tok. Good, Evans. But anyway, and I think before you do anything, it's worth. Does this practice, whatever it is, work for anyone? Right? Has. Has there been any evidence that someone has practiced this thing and got results? Because if, because there are some practices that just don't work at all, actually. And there's nothing wrong with you. It's just because the practice was wrong, you know? So does this practice work for anyone? And do you resonate with the practice? And does it make sense? And if the answer is yes, then you can give it a tick. Okay, what did I learn? What? And then it's worth, like, really thinking, well, what exactly is this practice specifically, like what does it practically look like to do it? Right. So for example, I'm practicing, one of my practices is letting go, right? Just noticing things come up and surrender them to God. So there's a method to that which is allow the feelings to arise, whatever it is, whatever's going on, don't resist anything, notice it and then surrender it. It's actually very advanced practice, even though it's very simple, but it needs to be done thousands and thousands of times. But I know what it is and I know how to do it. If I didn't know what I was doing, then I couldn't practice it because I don't know what it is. So, so you have your books, you write everything down. What is the practice? Make sure you really understand what it is. And if you need to talk to someone about it, make sure you understand it. And then do it for 4 to 10,000 times over a period of time and you'll be all right. And if it doesn't work after that time at least you tried something out and actually there's no harm in it because as long as it's a good practice, you get the habit of doing practices which more people don't know.
• 33:46
  Speaker B: Michael let's say there is a really fat person selling weight loss. I come and lose weight and I have the best snake oil here. Come and lose weight, Right. No one would go by that because that's very obvious because the person who's selling it is not either not using it or using it and not working. Right. Something is going on there. So there's a mismatch and you don't go and buy. But when it comes to spiritual things, when it comes to inner transformation, it's very hard to see who's selling you a snake oil. It's very hard to say because in terms of weight loss, it's very obvious.
• 34:44
  Speaker A: That's true. Yeah, you can't. I mean, you could say, are the people happy? Do you resonate with them? Do they have good vibes? You know, but
• 34:52
  Speaker B: sometimes those are deceiving because I, yeah, I want to get up at 10 o' clock in the morning and you know, go to the bar and yeah, it's easy and would I resonate with it. But is it any transformation going to happen? No. So easiness and all of that. Right. Because the mind has a great capacity for self deception and you have to be really careful about the real thing. And so I feel to even get to the point of, should I practice this? Right. Okay, you want entertainment and you read A hundred books, fine. But the thing is, pick one. Pick one that you feel is going to challenge you. Not the one, the easiest, not, not none of that. It has to challenge you. If it doesn't challenge you, it will not change you. So if it challenges you, then you start the practice.
• 35:59
  Speaker A: Yeah. It should be resonate with you and be beyond where you're at. Otherwise what's the point in doing it? And, and it needs to be done long enough and to go through the threshold where it doesn't seem to be working. So it just takes time. You know, like many, many times I've, I've done, I mean, I've done hours and hours and hours and hours of meditation and many, many times. The beginning part isn't necessarily the best meditation I've ever had in my life, but if as long as I do it long enough, I mean, I've had some such profound meditation experiences, but it's always the second half where, or the even, depending on how long it is, where the magic happens. And so just because something doesn't feel good all the time doesn't mean there's something wrong with it. I think that's very important to realize. Because that, that's why, that's why a lot of people don't practice things. Oh, I read this book, I practiced it a little bit, I didn't like it. So then I read another book and I practiced that a little bit and didn't like that one either very much because it was a bit difficult. So then I read a third book and. But my friend recommended this new book.
• 37:12
  Speaker B: You know, should we go through a, go through a practice experience, like a practice. Let's go through a practice. So I want us to take a moment and of all of the things we have read, let's say in the last one year or gone to retreats or any of those things, all of the things we have done is we make a mental note. And if you have a pen and paper, you can write it is, what did you learn? What did you learn from the past year? So take your time. Write down one thing that, that you have learned. And now we take a moment and see. Ask myself the question, am I willing to practice? Have I practiced this? If I have not practiced this, am I willing to practice this ten thousand times or thousand times even? Right? Am I willing to practice this, that particular method? Am I willing to practice it? And am I willing to practice it enough times? That's the question we have to ask ourselves. And after we have practiced it, right after we have practiced it 4,000 times, 10,000 times, thousand times. Whatever you feel your number is, then you ask yourself the question, did it bring about transformation? And if it did not bring about transformation, then go pick another method. But we can't give up on ourselves, right? Because spirituality is not going to happen through, you know, a Reel or TikTok or it's not going to happen through those things. They're wonderful. They're entertainment, and it's wonderful feed, which is very addictive. But let's leave that for another thing. But if we want transformation, if we want our mind to do what we wanted to do, if we want to have the right space, inner space, then we have to practice certain things. Then we go back again and ask the same questions, right? What have I read? What have I seen? What podcast have I heard? What retreat did I go to? Let me find a method. Let's see if I can practice that method a thousand times and then see if transformation happened. So those are the three questions we need to ask.
• 40:30
  Speaker A: So pick one method. We haven't really given any methods today, but we have in plenty of other episodes, so you can go listen to those. If you want any methods for us,
• 40:38
  Speaker B: just listen to the last episode.
• 40:40
  Speaker A: This is the last episode, but it's good to just have some way of assessing what's going on. And. And if you are just going to read random stuff just for fun, then just be honest. That's what you're doing. And there's nothing wrong with that, because you might choose one of those methods later on. But it's much more enjoyable when we have a life, a spiritual life, where we're actually doing the work, because then we get the results and we feel much, much better. So hopefully this has been helpful. If you've been stuck, this is exactly how to get unstuck. If you're not making progress right now, and you want to, now you know exactly why it happens and exactly how to get out of it. And we'd love to hear your experience. You can leave a comment and we'll hear more about that later. So let's finish with a blessing. Shereen, what's our blessing today?
• 41:37
  Speaker B: This is God's blessing for you. Positivity. Your mind is tranquil, allowing you to see the hidden truths in the ebb and flow of life. This serene clarity unveils the silver lining in all scenarios, enabling you to appreciate that everything unfolds for the greatest good.
• 42:08
  Speaker A: Beautiful.
• 42:13
  Speaker B: Everything unfolds for the greatest good.
• 42:18
  Speaker A: Yeah. Whatever happened is good. Past is good, present is better. And the future is the best. So if you have any questions for us, there'll be a link below the video. You can leave us a comment. If you need any help with anything, just let us know. We're happy to do episodes or meditations based on what you need. We also have free courses trainings that you can get access to the links below. And I hope you figure out one thing to practice and practice it thousand times. Let's see what happens. Lots of love and many blessings.