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The Power of Enough · Spiritual Sense: Practical wisdom to quiet an overthinking mind and recharge your soul

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Many blessings and welcome back. In today's episode, we're diving into contentment, because contentment is the greatest of all virtues. If you are content, if you feel that you've attained everything, then you have attained everything. And Shireen has written these wonderful articles which I highly encourage you to read. There'll be a link in the description stories, and we're going to be talking about contentment in the modern world from the vantage point of these ancient mystical stories, because we can learn a lot things that have passed and how it applies to our lives now. So Shirin's been doing enormous amount of research and I'll let her speak for herself, but this is what we're getting into today. So if you're interested in being content, getting over discontentment, stressing out, worrying about things, and you want to learn about how to go deep into these feelings and learn about history, then here you are. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Blessings, Blessings. Blessings. Tell us what you've been up to.
• 1:06
  Speaker B: Blessings to you. Right. It doesn't feel very glamorous talking about history, but this is. It's. I'm working on the Ramayana and people
• 1:19
  Speaker A: don't know what that means. Tell people what that means.
• 1:21
  Speaker B: Ramayana is one of the epics from India. Two Mahabharata and Ramayana. They're two stories, different stories. Mahabharata is, of course, significantly bigger, but we'll take the Mahabharata out. So Ramayana is this story of a king, his queen, and what happens to the king and the queen and what happens to the queen and how they were the trials and tribulations around it, right, About Rama and Sita and his loyal brother Lakshmana and Hanuman and all of those people. It's very, very popular in India and some parts, some other parts of the world is very popular. But there's something about the Ramayana where it's very, very sophisticated storytelling. The question is, did it happen or not? I've had this very big argument with my mother recently about it. I don't know. I don't even want to go into that. Did it happen or not? But there was a sage who wrote it, right? And we'll come to that. Sage. At some point, it was like he had a revelation, you know, it was revealed to him what was happening and then he wrote it, right? So was it really happening? Did he write. Don't know, but he wrote it. And it's very, very sophisticated storytelling, right? Like the villains in it are not just flat villains, right? They have really very redeeming qualities. And what Happens. And you know, what happens when you have desire? What happens to the map of human consciousness when you give in to manipulation, when you give in to things that you don't want to do? And what happens when you really stay by Dharma? All of those things. It's a huge. I mean, so fascinating. Fascinating. And they say it was written about 2,500 years ago. It could be a few hundred years here or there. I'm not sure about that. But whatever they knew about human consciousness and the psychology of human beings at that time is the same right now. Same. It's almost like if you take out the external factors of the story internally, what's happening in their consciousness, you almost like you're describing a modern situation. That is what is so fascinating for me.
• 4:05
  Speaker A: So people haven't changed at all, have they?
• 4:08
  Speaker B: No. No. Right. No.
• 4:10
  Speaker A: You know, and it's like, I was reading the Golden Road is a great book you recommended the Golden Road. And they're talking about, like, in the Roman Empire, the women wanted their. Their fancy clothes and they wanted their special, I mean, perfumes. And, like, Jeremy is like, they spend so much money on. And the men are like, why the hell are they spending all this money on all this stuff and bankrupt. So this, like, certain things about how people generally are in any. It's like, it's. You go back to the Romans, the Indian, like, Chinese, you. It just repeats itself. And people get jealous, and then they get irritated and they try not to do things and they do it anyway. So the human psyche is very much across the board.
• 4:52
  Speaker B: I know, right? You would think that the people these days have invented, you know, life. That's how. When you're young, that's how you feel. You've invented life. And no one before you knew anything but something. When you read something like this, and especially in the context of really going into why the characters were doing what they were doing, you realize, whoa, it's so similar. Everything is so similar.
• 5:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. You can just. You could rewrite the story with. With smartphones and it would be, you know, the same.
• 5:25
  Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. The other.
• 5:29
  Speaker A: Fascinating.
• 5:30
  Speaker B: It is very fascinating. And the other thing I've noticed is, like, the happiness I feel while doing it. Right. Like, you go so deep into it that you've, like. There's such a detachment from everything around you, and you're so absorbed in it, and then there's so much happiness that's coming because the soul is not scrolling.
• 5:59
  Speaker A: It's better than scrolling. Is those yellow books behind you? Is that the Ramayana?
• 6:03
  Speaker B: Yes, yes. That's the Ramayana. That's the Ramayana. Right, Those yellow books. Those yellow books.
• 6:08
  Speaker A: So it's this thick.
• 6:09
  Speaker B: Those are all of the seven volumes. And that's how I started. Right about 10 years ago someone gave it to me as a gift for my birthday, those books. So it shows what a nerd I am. That's what I get for birthdays.
• 6:26
  Speaker A: Seven books, that's like a one foot thick worth of books. Yes, roughly. That's pretty serious story.
• 6:32
  Speaker B: Cuz I mean that's a full Harry pot.
• 6:36
  Speaker A: Actually Harry Potter is probably about the same thickness, isn't it? If you stuck them all next to each other. The whole series though. So it's the ancient Harry Potter series.
• 6:44
  Speaker B: Right, right. The whole story. That thing that you're seeing there, that's the whole story completely. It's not a retelling, it's a translation. So Valmiki was translated and that's how big it is because over the thousands of years people have been retelling it and you have different versions of it and things like that, but the original person who told the story is Valmiki and that's Valmiki. So what I would do over the years, I would pick a book, read and then put it back. Pick a book, read it, put it back and then go through it again and go back and say, but why did Ravana do this and how did he do this? And then again I would go back and read it and all of those things. Now I have Claude to do research.
• 7:44
  Speaker A: That's where the world has changed.
• 7:47
  Speaker B: That's where it really helps. It really, really helps to do the research. Really helps. Anyway, let's go to contentment.
• 7:57
  Speaker A: Right, contentment. So how does contentment relate to the Ramayana?
• 8:03
  Speaker B: Ramayana has everything. Ramayana has everything. Right, everything.
• 8:09
  Speaker A: So you've, you've given a very cryptic, vague explanation of what the Ramayana is. Oh, there's this guy called Rama and Sita and there's this guy called Ravana and Lakshman and then there's the Hanuman and people are going to be like, what on earth are you talking about?
• 8:24
  Speaker B: It's going to. That's how big that story is.
• 8:27
  Speaker A: That's how big it is.
• 8:28
  Speaker B: That's how big that story is.
• 8:30
  Speaker A: There's this king, he's a king. And then there's this other guy.
• 8:34
  Speaker B: Okay, so the main, I think one of the things.
• 8:36
  Speaker A: Okay, sorry, I'll, I'll mention something that, that I like. The, the main thing that we use in a spiritual context from the Ramayana a classic thing. Rama represents God. Right. That's how it's perceived. Right. Even though it's different from God. Right. It's just like the godly qualities and Ravan represents the, the, the seductive demonic energy. But what is interesting about the Ramayana that I think is fascinating is that in most religions, devils and evil and sinful things are all considered like one dimensional monstrous beings that are all like, the devil's all red and he's got pitchfork and he's in hell and he's poking people and there's fire everywhere and it's torture. But in the Ramayana, Ravan is very charming. He's a king. He's got an immaculate kingdom. Everything's really nice, everything's orderly, everything's taken care of. He's very virtuous person actually in many ways. And that is such a different perspective on the devil. Do you know what I mean? Compared to. Because even like, if you think about like a lot of novels like Harry Potter, like the Dursleys, they're so obviously they have got no redeeming qualities whatsoever. None of them. Right. Maybe one. But Ravan is in many ways more charming than he is anything else.
• 10:01
  Speaker B: Right? Right. And also he was very learned. Robin was very, very learned. And he was. Which is the. One of the most surprising things about Raavan. He was a devout devotee of Shiva, that if you ask, if you brought Ravana from the story and asked him what is your main thing that you want to tell the world? That's what he'll tell the world. I'm a devotee of Shiva and he was very, very devoted and he did a lot of tapasya.
• 10:33
  Speaker A: So you've got this demon king who's very devoted to God, does loads of meditation, he's very learned, he does his stuff. He has an immaculate kingdom, everything's nice. It doesn't sound like a demon really, does it now?
• 10:45
  Speaker B: And also the way he studies human character is so fascinating. The way he studies human character. Right. Am I getting way ahead of myself? We were talking about contentment.
• 10:56
  Speaker A: But, but the reason I'm bringing this up is because this is, this is like the, this, the whole point of this, this podcast generally and this episode is that there's a lot of nuances here, right. In spirituality and it's not such a one sided, like black and white thing. These are extreme differences of the gradients.
• 11:19
  Speaker B: Right.
• 11:21
  Speaker A: So anyway, let's come back to contentment. So what's contentment got to do with Ramayana?
• 11:25
  Speaker B: Okay. What's contentment got to do. So the story starts with sages. And so the way I'm writing the Ramayana is I inhabit the character and I see what's going on and I do a lot of research, get all of the things that Valmiki wrote about that character. And then I try to be in that character and then I start writing from first person, that character. And of all of the characters in the Ramayana, the one that I felt when I was writing, I couldn't tell the difference between me and the character I was writing first person. And I really felt I was writing me, I was writing like I was writing, right? It's not like I'm writing from a character I was writing. And that is Vasishta, the sage Vasishta. So Vasishta was a very, very intelligent, learned man. And he was a sage. And he was born what they call a Brahma Rishi. Brahma Rishi means very high exalted sage, right? Very high exalted. He was born that way. So Vasishta has an ashram. And in the ashram, so this is one of the stories, right? So in the ashram there is a cow called Kamdenu. And that cow is a fabulous cow. Very silent, very still. The cow looks ordinary, but it's just moving around. And as soon as it comes near you, you feel content and you feel sufficient, right? Sufficiency is the word. You feel sufficient and all is wonderful. And so Vasishta's ashram, or his, you know, his hermitage, you know, where they. So a lot of people were there. There were a lot of students, a lot of building. It's a very happening place, right? He had a very thriving school, you could say, right, in ashram. And so people, students studying and doing this and that, right? So it was kind of like a school that day school, those days version of school. And also it's not like a poor thing, right? Like if you think of ashrams, right? It wasn't a poor ashram. It was not opulent, but everything was sufficient. And he had this cow called Kamde Nu, right? And Kamde Nu means wish fulfilling cow. But people think wishful fulfilling cow means that someone's wish is going to be fulfilled and you can get whatever you want. That's not what it was. It was.
• 14:19
  Speaker A: It's not genie cow.
• 14:20
  Speaker B: No, it's not a genie cow, but it was a sufficiency cow. That means whenever Kamdehnu is around, whatever you need will come to you. Not whatever you want, whatever you need will come to you. And what People don't realize is this between want and need, that gap between want and need. That's where all of human suffering exists. And so, so this cow is around and Vishwamitra, Vishwamitra is a very big king and he is traveling. So Vasishta is very well known in the ancient world, right? Very learned man. Everyone pays his respects. He's very, very well known. And so Vishwamitra is a king. He's traveling and he's traveling with his whole army. Whole army. And so what happens is when Vasishtha, in one morning meditation, he hears this, right? Because first you hear the army before it comes. Because so many tens of thousands of people walking and chariots moving and horns, you know, horses and all of that, right? So he hears the king and he goes out and actually the king has come to pay his respect, respects to Vasishta. Just respects, right? And the king is a very powerful king, Vishwamitra. And so what happens is he comes and he pays his respects and then Vashishta the sage. So I'll just call them sage and king, okay? Because the names are not easy. So Vasishtha the sage and Vishwamitra the king. So Vasishta the sage, he says, he offers hospitality, right? Would you like to eat something? Whatever, right? He offers hospitality. And the king says no because he knows all his men have to be fed and all his horses have to be fed. Everything, right? So he knows all of that. And it's tens of thousands of people are there. So he says no because he looks at, it's not a poor ashram, but it has enough stuff, you know, it can't feed tens of thousands of people. And the sage asks again, can I offer you some hospitality? And the king reluctantly agrees. And so the king comes, sits down and then he calls Kamdenu the cow. And he says, produce six varieties of food for the army and the king. And from the it's a wish fulfilling cow, remember? From the stomach, all kinds of varieties of food and drink. And like very tasty, different kinds of taste. Everything comes out, right? And so all of the tens of thousands of people are fed. All the horses are fed. Everything is done. The elephants are fed, Everything is fed. And the king is shocked. He keeps looking at the cow. He keeps looking at the cow. His eyes are going wherever the cow is going. Because the cow is not particularly, you know, like striking or anything, right? It's just an ordinary cow. But then all these things come out. And so after he finishes eating the king and he tastes food he's never tasted before, right? So after he finishes eating, he makes a very reasonable offer to the sage. And he says, sage Vasishta, I would like to purchase the cow. And the cow actually would be better with me, because then the whole kingdom can use the cow instead of you in this ashram, right? It's better suited for the kingdom, you know, in the palace than here. Vasishta says, the cow is not mine to give. And the cow has come from deep Tapasya and my years of penance and all of that. The cow is here, but it's not mine to give. And then the king asks again. He increases his offer. I'll give you this many lands and this many things and this many jewels and this many blah, blah, blah. And he says, no, it's not mine to give. And so the king gets very angry. He calls his soldiers and he says, drag the cow away, right? Forcefully take the cow. And so what happens was, so the soldiers are coming and taking the cow forcefully, right? And the cow doesn't cannot believe this is happening. And so it turns to the sage and says, what are you doing? Right? Why are you not protecting me? You know, the king is taking me. Why are you not protecting me? So the sage talks to the cow as gently as like a sister, because that's what it was to him, sister. And he says, you know, the king is so powerful, we can't do anything and all of that. And then the cow, just before giving in to the soldiers, he. She looks at the sage and says, if you give me permission, then I will do it. So the sage says, yes. So what was the permission? The permission was to this cow to protect itself. And so the cow, miraculously, remember, it's the wish fulfilling cow. Whatever it needs comes out of it miraculously. Tens of thousands of soldiers and everything comes out right of the cow. And these soldiers that are coming out of the cow are going and fighting these tens of thousands of soldiers. And so by the time you realize what was happening, the soldiers come out, those soldiers are killed. Done. So the king came with an army. The king doesn't have an army anymore, but he does have one thing. He has his weapons. So now there's no foot soldiers. All of those soldiers are gone. All of them are dead. All of them are dead. And so it's gone. And now he has his weapons. And so now he says, I will start using these weapons. And so the sage has a staff. He puts the staff. So the cow is behind him now. So the cow protected itself but now the sage has to protect the cow from the weapons. And he doesn't do anything. Remember, he's a Brahmarishi. Brahma Rishi is the highest order of, you know, learned. Like, not just learned, right? Rishis are very mystical people. They have siddhis, right? They have a lot of powers. So he puts his staff and the weapons that keep coming will go back to him. And he comes with a lot of sons and hundred sons or something like that, and he comes with everyone. And so the weapons that were supposed to destroy Vasishtha and the ashram and take the cow, they go back and destroy whatever is left. Everything that is left is done, right? And all because the Brahma Rishi puts that staff. That's how much power the staff has. And so he's. Now he's standing in ruins. And. Okay, we can talk in another podcast about what happens to the king, but the king is standing in ruins, and the cow and the sage, they're all fine. And for me, from this story of that cow, right? Kamde Nu is kamdenu, okay? One of the things the sage says is you cannot separate the cow from the ashram. The ashram is the only environment the cow lives. You can't separate it. And so for me, the modern parallel was many times, right? We go to a retreat, we go somewhere, we go here, even we go to the beach, right? And we think, oh, I love the piece here. Can you bottle that piece and bring it home? No. Right? So what the king really wanted was he wanted the peace or the cow or the contentment or the sufficiency. He wanted that without the ashram. And so in our lives also, if we want contentment, there are some prerequisites, right? There are some consequences. Contentment comes out of consequences. And we have to make sure we are following the prerequisites, the pre consequences, before the consequences come, right? Am I following that? And that is how deep contentment and sufficiency and the difference between wants and needs and all of that, that's where it exists. So what are your thoughts running to your head, through your head?
• 24:22
  Speaker A: Well, it's a magical cow, isn't it? A magical cow. It's. And the king made a bit of a bad choice. He could have just left and. And happy, and he ended up destroying everything he had to try and get the cow. That's. That's very interesting. But yeah, so it's like certain magical powers. Because these stories, of course, are not. I'm sure they're not supposed to be Taken literally, because I'm not sure there's cows that can produce armies. But, but nonetheless, we never know. Maybe there are, but the, maybe there
• 24:59
  Speaker B: was a magical time when they could do it, right. Not right now.
• 25:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, who knows? Yeah, it's a different. Right now they're quite good at producing milk and that's a different story. So the, the contentment, the cow is producing whatever's needed, but only in a certain context. That, that's, that seems to be the essence of what.
• 25:25
  Speaker B: Yes, it only produces in the ashram, the every, the surrounding. And where the cow lives, right? Where the cow lives is as important as what it produces. That's very important. You cannot take the cow from where it's living and say, okay, produce, that's not going to happen. It has to be in that environment. And so the ashram or the. Let's say I want peace, right? I can't just go to one retreat in our time or just listen to a YouTube meditation and think, oh, I'm going to get peace, right? It's not going to work. Our whole life we put so much junk into our heads, right? And even to the center, right? I get a lot of people in the center and they come for one hour class and say, oh, we didn't get anything, we're not coming back. Thinking the whole life you put junk into your head in one hour, you expect that to change. So like we are expecting peace without, or we are expecting that cow without the ashram. If you want the cow, then the ashram is important, right? So if you want contentment, if you want peace, if you want joy, if you want anything, the surrounding environments for that are very important. They can't just arrive in your life because you want it.
• 26:56
  Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. So the cow, it's a mystical, the cow represents the, the gift giving, experiential, magical being which we, which you could say we can produce through our practices. But you have to be in the right situation to be able to allow that to happen. In other words, magical things or transformational things only occur under certain circumstances. And if you're not, if you're trying to shortcut your way to it or try and steal it, it's going to be a bad result like what happened to the king. And it's true. You know, I think the big problem we're dealing with nowadays is that step by step the frog in the pot has been boiled. You know, the, the, the frog goes in the pot and then they put the, the gas on and it starts boiling and the frog Goes, oh, this is fine, this is fine. Adjust its body temperature. And then, and then finally it just doesn't, doesn't jump out and it gets boiled to death. And I feel like we're sort of bordering on being boiled to death as it is in the modern world. And we kind of got used to it step by step. And so now we expect everything immediately because like we can look at the phone and get a kick out of something, we can eat a bunch of junk food immediately or whatever it is, but magical experiences and deep transformation doesn't happen like that. And even the meditation apps, I mean, of course I have a lot of meditations on these apps and people like them, which is great, but you have to do things long enough for them to actually.
• 28:43
  Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. And you have to really put yourself in those environments, right? You have to change your life. Okay, let's say you want peace and you go to a meditation app and you listen to some peace meditations. Wonderful. We should. Right? It's better than scrolling. You should definitely do that. But there's a lot of other changes that need to happen inside your head. And that is where your ashram is, right? The ashram is inside your head. It's not a physical ashram that you're going anywhere. You have to make your mind a temple and you have to put just the right things in it, just the right amount of whatever in it and all of the self sabotaging patterns and the conflicts and the nonsense that's going on, the quality of your mind and is so important that has to leave for peace or contentment or joy or any of that to come inside.
• 29:42
  Speaker A: So from the story, what is the practical thing someone can take that is related to this ashram, that your mind
• 29:52
  Speaker B: is the ashram and you have to tend to your mind, you have to the quality of your mind, the quality of your thoughts in your mind. They have to change. If you keep putting junk, if you keep scrolling, if you keep watching YouTube, you give you cop Instagram and TikTok and whatever, whatever that you're doing and you suddenly decide one evening I'm going to go sit somewhere and find peace. It's not happening. And so that is one thing is what you put in your mind, right? You have to put like virtues and powers and really good things in your mind and make it into an ashram, make it into a temple. And then the second thing, I feel the staff. Oh, the. At the end, right? At the end. So at that time the kings were the, the most, you know, powerful people, the Kings were the most powerful people in the land. And he realizes that his power is nothing compared to the sage's power. And for me, that is very important because the sage, right, he had a staff. And for me, that staff represents putting a full stop. And so in the Brahma Kumaris, now we are doing this initiative, you know, where we are giving certain, like a homework to our thoughts and stuff. It's all about waste. Thoughts, right? Finishing waste. And the one thing I'm learning from it, absolutely. The one thing that is going inside me so deeply is you cannot win by asking questions. The only way you can win is by putting a full stop. So let's say something happens. Give me an example in your life where something happens with someone.
• 32:15
  Speaker A: You know, someone's screws up a job they're supposed to do and it causes me a lot of wasted time.
• 32:21
  Speaker B: Okay? So someone messes up a job and it causes a lot of waste of time. And you keep asking yourself, but why did they do this and why did they do that and why did they do this, right? You know, how come they didn't do this?
• 32:35
  Speaker A: What should I do about it?
• 32:36
  Speaker B: What should you do about it?
• 32:38
  Speaker A: What's wrong with these people, right?
• 32:39
  Speaker B: What's wrong with these people? So all of that's going on and let's say you do find an answer, you do find an answer. What's wrong with that person? Or why did they do that? Or how should you do something, right? You do find an answer. What I've noticed is this is my personal experience in the last three weeks, Michael. It's just so deep realization that has come is if you do find the answer, you know what's going to happen. You will have 10 more questions to that answer, And then you find another answer. Then you'll have 10 more questions. So it's never ending questions, right? It's an open loop. The mind is trying to close an open loop. So there's an argument going on, the counter argument going on. And it produces more files of arguments, counter arguments, and this and that. And before you know it, you're in the middle of spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning of negative things. And you've totally lost your center. And what the deepest realization is, there are really no answers. The only thing that's going to help the soul, the most powerful thing I can do right now is put a full stop. If you want contentment, you want peace, you want joy, what do you want, Michael?
• 34:22
  Speaker A: I. I want to feel infinite joy,
• 34:25
  Speaker B: Infinite peace, Divine love, Divine love, infinite joy, infinite peace. Okay, pick Anything, right? Anything you want it, you have to put a full stop. Because questions are where they leak and that is the staff, the power of the staff.
• 34:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. So when you say, I mean, I know what you mean because I understand these things. But for anyone listening, putting a full stop, what's your understanding of what that actually looks like?
• 34:58
  Speaker B: Practically, don't get into it, right. Don't ask. Okay, so let's say someone did something in your work, right? And you keep thinking, why did they do that? You know, what were they thinking? What's happening, what's happening how?
• 35:19
  Speaker A: Trying to figure it out, trying to
• 35:20
  Speaker B: figure out the answer, trying to figure out. All of those are just waste thoughts that are leaking your power and they're just going away. So instead of all of this.
• 35:30
  Speaker A: Very interesting, yeah. It seems like, yeah, the mind wants to figure everything out. What's the reason? Why did it happen? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So what you're saying is, is you say, I'm not going to try and figure it out, Period, Put a. Period, put a full stop. It's finished. It's the end of the sentence.
• 35:50
  Speaker B: The end, absolutely.
• 35:51
  Speaker A: Like it doesn't matter. Like, I'm not trying to. I'm not going to get into it. I'm not going to try and solve it. I'm not going to try and philosophize about it or justify it. Because I think a lot of it's coming from being right. Either wanting, just either curiosity, which is a. Which is curiosity, of course killed the cat and it kills our mind as well. But it's also can be being right.
• 36:15
  Speaker B: But it's what I've noticed is the curiosity, there's no end to it. Right? You have an answer, then you will want 10 more questions. You'll have 10 more questions. The mind is so good at producing questions. So instead of all of those things, this is it. This is the drama, this is the way things are supposed to be. This is it. And all I need to do right now is not think about that and think about something more powerful and useful. And for us it would be soul, supreme soul, all of that, right? That's what we think about. But pick something this for our wonderful listeners, pick something that is really useful. And so I feel for me, that is the thing that we need to do these days. Because one of the things that's happening is now that I'm in the Ramayana, I really have to be in each of the characters, right? Each of the characters. What are they thinking? What's going on? All of that and so because you're there, you realize the quality of the thoughts at that time were very different. The quality of the people were very different. Though some things are very similar. The mind was much calmer. The mind was much sweeter. And so when you're going there, right, your mind is becoming calm and your mind is becoming sweet. And then you realize, oh my God, when the Gita says, your mind is your best friend and your mind is your worst enemy. Now I understand. And when we don't put that period or that full stop, we make the mind our own worst enemy.
• 38:12
  Speaker A: Yeah. It can never, it never ends, doesn't it? Especially the questioning of any. And especially even talking to AI. You know, what about this? What about this? And the Internet gives us. What's that song? I mean, I sometimes find myself going, what's the name of that song? I'm thinking about. I don't need to know what the name of the song is or, you know, what did some of something. Something. So, yeah, curiosity, of course. You know, it's. I think it's okay to be curious to some degree. But like if it's, if it's the continuous never ending thing and it happens especially. I think some people that get trapped in therapy, like therapy can be useful, but it can get, it can be a problem for some people. I've heard about this from various people where they try and figure out the root cause of all their problems. And it goes on and on and on and on and on. And then finally they might say, well, it's my. Because of my great, great, great grandparents, because of something, something, something. And then they go all the way back and then it's like, well, what are you going to do about it?
• 39:13
  Speaker B: No, Then why. Right. Then the question is, why did that happen to them? Right.
• 39:17
  Speaker A: Why did it happen? Yeah. So we need another two years of therapy.
• 39:20
  Speaker B: Why it happened. Right.
• 39:22
  Speaker A: And then, and I'm not saying you shouldn't do therapy, but like, end of the day, what are you going to do about it in the now? Like, what's. Where's the healing happening here? Where's the transformation?
• 39:32
  Speaker B: So that's a very good point you brought up, Michael. That's a very good point, is you can't keep going into the past and thinking you're going to get some kind of healing happening. No. Okay, go into it enough, but not like be there for year after year and not do anything.
• 39:50
  Speaker A: Yeah. What are you going to do about it? What's the. Once you, once you put a full stop, then what's the next thought, that's actually. Where's the transformation, where's the magic? Where's the power that's actually going to make a difference? So we can't just learn about a lot of stuff. We have to take action or change our thoughts. I mean, I can get lost in like endless research when I'm working on something and it's like, okay, fine, now you have all these long winded documents from AI they're like thousands of pages long. What am I going to do with it? I don't want another document. You know, it's not useful unless something happens with it. So the same thing applies to our thoughts. All right, I figured out that because of my parents now, therefore, blah, blah, blah, what am I going to do about it?
• 40:42
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 40:44
  Speaker A: So, yeah, put a full stop. Boom. Put this stuff down. So you have to be in the right context to have a magical cow in your life. Magical contentment producing.
• 40:54
  Speaker B: And the, the thing is your own mind. This is your own mind. The ashram is your own mind. No one's saying, go live in an ashram. Make your mind your ashram.
• 41:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. Unless you want to live in an ashram, which case, by all means. But even if you do, you're still gonna have to sort your mind out. So it's not solving anything moving somewhere else if you don't change the thought. So, so what are we taking into our mind and are we having, are we trying to figure things out so the next time you find yourself going, I wonder about this thing, let me do some research, see if you can say, just put a full stop. Don't even get into it. Just boom, it's done.
• 41:41
  Speaker B: You know, like that has gone into my heart. Full stop. Don't go, don't. Just don't go past full stop.
• 41:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's like a reset button, right? And. And if we do something we shouldn't do or whatever it is, put a full stop. Past is past, move on like a fresh start, like reset everything, we're back in the game. Because I think it can also happen where. Why did that happen? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 42:15
  Speaker B: It's mostly for, for most people, right? What you're saying is true for most people. It's what's happening with people. Why did they do that? Why did they say that? Why didn't you know? I was recently talking to a friend of mine. Why didn't he call? Full stop. It just full stop.
• 42:36
  Speaker A: It doesn't matter. Yeah. And you. Even if you figure it out, it takes. Sometimes it takes a Long time. And you don't know what did so and so. Think about me. Did I say the right thing? Should I have said it differently? Should I have done it differently? Did they mean this? Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah. And that's not really the best day ever, is it? Thinking those thoughts and thoughts, even if
• 43:00
  Speaker B: you know the answers to those questions, your mind is not going to be satisfied. It'll just ask some more questions. So before it goes off into any more questions, put the full stop for me. That's the staff. That's the staff. And remember, the cow was able to produce the armies, but the staff was able to keep the weapons away. So the full stop is that powerful. Anything that comes at you, it'll keep it at bay. Right there. I don't need it.
• 43:42
  Speaker A: So in summary, if someone wants a magical gift giving cow, what do they have to do?
• 43:47
  Speaker B: Create an ashram in your mind, a temple, ashram, church, whatever you want to call it. Beautiful, clean, no rubbish. No, this one did this, that one did that. None of that rubbish should be going on and two is put a full stop. What do you suggest? What are your thoughts?
• 44:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think, I think you've summed it up right there. And read Sherene's article.
• 44:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, substack.
• 44:22
  Speaker A: Because she talks about this.
• 44:23
  Speaker B: It's all for free.
• 44:24
  Speaker A: She's got her new thing. It's all for free. Give Shereen's just blessings. Blessings. She spent many, many hours researching all these. It's, it's. I haven't read all of them because they're just coming out right now, but they're beautiful prose, fascinating reads and I think when you learn through stories, it, it lands differently from just talking about stuff, you know, that's why the most. All the. I actually saw it in the Economist recently. There's a list of the. What people favorite books from thousands of people. They had a list. They're all fiction, they're all stories. Right. Like none of them are non fiction books as far as I could tell. I looked through this long, long list. Thousand Thousand Years of Solitude, I think was the number one book.
• 45:18
  Speaker B: I love that book you recommended.
• 45:21
  Speaker A: So. So anyway, stories are fascinating to read, but take the, take the essence from it and if you're interested in these deeper stories Shireen's talking about, let's go to her sub stack, subscribe to it and you're going to get plenty of fascinating stuff to read. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 45:42
  Speaker B: So. Blessing.
• 45:44
  Speaker A: Blessing.
• 45:45
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 45:47
  Speaker A: And yeah. And we hope this made sense, it was a bit of a different episode. Talking about mystical cows and whatever else, but that's. That's what we're into right now, today.
• 45:59
  Speaker B: Yeah. I was thinking 29, which is contentment.
• 46:04
  Speaker A: Great,
• 46:06
  Speaker B: right?
• 46:10
  Speaker A: Great.
• 46:18
  Speaker B: Ah, found it. 20, actually. Contentment. This is God's blessing for you. Contentment. The turbulent seas of your life are navigated under God's love. You found shelter in embracing peace and your real identity in every storm. Letting go of comparison with others. There is joy in trusting your unique path.
• 46:49
  Speaker A: Yay. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So, wishing everyone happiness and contentment and talk to you in the next episode.