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A Mental Health Checkup · Inspiration and Transformation

0:04
Welcome to inspiration and transformation from the banks of the Gunga with Sadvi Bagwati Saraswati,
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an American Sanyasi living at the parmarth Nikitan Ashram in Rishikesh, India.
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Sadvi is President of the Divine Shakti Foundation, a charitable organization bringing education,
0:23
vocational training, upliftment and empowerment programs to women and children. Sadb is also
0:29
Secretary General of the Global Interfaith Wasash Alliance and director of the world famous International
0:35
Yoga Festival. Joined the musings of an American Sanyasi as Sadvi shares the wisdom
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and teachings of her Guru, His Holiness Pujiswami Chininant Saraswatiji, welcome everyone to
0:51
inspiration and transformation from the holy banks of the Sacred Gunga River in the land
1:02
of Rishikesh, India. So this evening on the God and the Arty who
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just want me to was speaking about oneness and togetherness and the beauty of the
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teachings from our scriptures that could be pretty much summed up in the line respect,
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love your own, worship your own, but respect all worship the Divine.
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However you worship whatever path, whatever religion, whatever form, whatever name
1:46
or no name or no form, doesn't matter. Worship in your own way,
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whatever that may be, but respect other people's ways. And so he's
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asking, how do I do that? And especially how do I do that
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with people who don't respect my way? And is that even necessary? Do
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we even need to have that conversation? The idea of worship your own,
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but respect all could be extended into almost every area of our lives. If
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you've substituted the word worship for love or enjoy or live by your own but
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respect all, then it could be a teaching about not just your religion.
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It could be a teaching about how you feel about your own mother or father.
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Right, so, everybody loves their mom or their ad, but we
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respect other people's moms and dads. Everybody lives by their own sexual orientation,
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but we should respect others. People have their own gender identity, we respect
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others. People have their own path that they choose in life, their darma,
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you could say that they walk, but we respect all. So the
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best way to do that really is Interestingly, the more comfortable you feel with
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your choices, the more open you tend to be to other people's choices.
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You know, they always say the ex smokers are the ones who are the
3:57
most arden and passionate and even obnoxious to those who are still smoking. That
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if you've never smoked, you tend not to be that judgmental of those who
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do. You may not want to be near it. You may say,
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you know, don't smoke in my house, but you're not going to necessarily
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be that judgmental. But those who are ex smokers tend to be the ones
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who are the most judgmental of those who still smoke. So, meaning my
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own now not smoking is something I'm not yet so fully comfortable in, and
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in order to feel comfortable, I need to point my finger at others.
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In order to feel comfortable about my choice, I judge other people. So
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one of the most powerful way is to actually stop judging others and to start
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respecting them is to actually feel really deeply comfortable in yourself. The more comfortable
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we are in ourselves, the more we create the space for other people to
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be comfortable in theirs themselves. The more peaceful and happy and whole I feel,
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the more of a container I create to bring other people peace and joy
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comfort. So that's the first piece. The second piece is an awareness that,
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especially when you're talking about religion, that really they're all just different paths
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to the same place. We're all going to the same place, just in
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different ways, different names, different forms, you know. One of the
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ways that I I like to think about it because even within Hinduism, there's
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so many different ways to worship God, there's so many different names, forms,
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paths, and there's even intra religion conflict between different paths. And the
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way that I like to think about it is you think, Okay, I
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love Karen, who sitting right here, and I love her so much,
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and I tend to be someone who's an eyes person, and so when I
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write about her, maybe I write poems, maybe I write songs. Maybe
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I'm a sculptor. I'm gonna write poems and songs about how beautiful her eyes
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are and how I can see my soul in her eyes, and I'm gonna
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paint pictures of her eyes. But Pretty sitting next to her also loves her,
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and maybe maybe Pretty likes to have a hand to hold on her her
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journey through life, and so she's gonna write poems and songs about Karen's hands,
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strong firm but also soft, smooth, always there. She's gonna draw
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pictures and make sculptures of hands. And maybe someone else also loves her very
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much, but they they're at a time in their life when they need a
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shoulder to cry on, and so they're gonna write poetry and songs and whatnot
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about how wonderful her shoulder is just broad enough for their head to be there,
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but soft, not bony, right, and they're gonna they're gonna do
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pictures and sculptures of shoulders. Now we all understand, we're loving the same
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woman, no problem. The problem becomes in our descendants. Now you fast
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forward thousands of years. My descendants think that Karen is eyes. Preachy's descendants
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think Karen is a hand. Someone else's descendants think Karen is shoulder. And
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now we fight and we kill each other. We hate each other because we've
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lost the perspective that we're talking about the same divine energy. I mean,
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one of the things every religion agrees on is God is infinite. I don't
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know of any religion that says God only exists in this box over here.
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That's not God. If God lives in a box, it's not God.
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God is infinite. So if God is infinite by nature, it means that
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God can be known in infinite ways. That God has manifested, whether we
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believe in a form or not, in a form, in multiple forms,
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in one form, whatever it may be, but that that energy has an
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infinite number of possibilities. And so we love, we worship the way that
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we connect to God. I'm an eye worshiper, preathes a hand to worship
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or no problem, as long as we don't limit ourselves to thinking that that's
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all God is. And so for you, I would say, try to
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think about God like that that. Okay, yeah, this is my way
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in and think about Gunga here. The point is to get in Ganga.
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Whether you go down our steps at parmarth Nikatan, or you go down river
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a bit and you go in from gitabarvan's Got or Ivan Prastashramsgat, or you
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go up river and you go in from the sandy beach at Ramjula, or
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you jump in from a rock up at Lakshmanjula. Doesn't matter. What matters
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is that you get in. Gunga is not giving extra blessings to people who
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get in one way versus the other way. She's not saying, oh,
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you're the one who did the triple flip off the rock. Okay, you
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get, you know, the best blessings. It doesn't matter how are you
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getting. So worship your own love it, use your path. It's perfect
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for you. But recognize other people get in different ways, and that's also
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okay. And when you're with people who don't respect you, you know,
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it really depends. It depends how important the relationship is to you, whether
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it's really worth getting into it about. I mean, look, there's no
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way that everybody is going to like you. There's no way everyone's going to
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respect you. It's just part of the package deal of a life in which
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you actually know a lot of people. Inevitably, there will be people who
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don't respect you. Whether it's your religion, whether it's what you look like,
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whether it's what you do. I mean, we've got an innumerable number
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of reasons not to like someone if we don't want to, But don't let
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that determine your life. Somebody likes you, doesn't like you, respects you,
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doesn't respect you. That doesn't need to determine how you feel. So
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in general, you may not necessarily want to waste all of your time trying
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to get everyone to respect you. But if there are people you're close with
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and you that there might actually be an educational possibility, a possibility of opening,
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then why don't you share with them? Share with them the idea that
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you know you you love God and they love God and maybe maybe you all
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could just agree to love God in different ways. But if they can't,
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don't blame them. You know, my really good friend my first year at
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Stanford, she lived down down my dorm hall. She was a devout Christian.
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I come from a Jewish family, but I was not religious. She
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was very religious, and she used to try to convert me, to get
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me to come to Bible study and whatnot. Now we were eighteen nineteen,
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religion was the farthest thing from my mind. It's my first year at college,
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right, I mean, it was all about work and school and parties
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and boys and whatnot. The last thing I was thinking about was Bible study
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or my religion or anybody else's religion. And I remember saying to her,
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Laura, just drop it, Let's just be friends. You know I won't.
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I won't talk to you about religion. You don't talk to me about
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religion, and that's just. And she said to me something that has stuck
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with me since then. She said, I talked to you about it because
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I love you. She said, if you were dying of cancer and I
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were convinced that I had the cure to cancer, what kind of a friend
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would I be if I didn't try to force you to take the cure.
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And it's stuck with me all these years because you realize, okay, well,
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they may not necessarily be trying to change you or not respecting you because
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they're awful or horrible people or narrow minded people, but it may actually be
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something as simple as what my friends said to me. In her religion,
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they are taught bring other people in. She was doing what she was told
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was the right thing to do. And so maybe you can just find it
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in your heart to have compassion and love and even respect for other people's love
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of their own religion, even if they don't necessarily respect you and hopefully hopefully
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your respect of them, We'll make them respect you. When we get treated
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with respect, we tend to respond with respect. So see whether you can
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be the one to open that up for them and create a container of love
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and respect and it's important to talk about because in our world there's way too
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much violence around religion, and if we don't become active in our acceptance and
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our embrace of others, then we become silent contributors to conflict and violence.
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So whatever your way, maybe just make sure that you are living openness and
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to inspiration and transformation. I'm so glad to have you all back here with
18:22
me. It's difficult to implement because of this thing called maya, the illusion
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that keeps pulling us out of our truth. We know the path to real
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happiness is spirituality. But you walk out into the world and everything is shining
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and blinking and calling you. Come here by this, do this, you'll
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be happy. And so we get swept up. It's very bright, it's
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very loud, it's very compelling, and so we get swept up by it.
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But don't worry, don't get upset with yourself. It's like meditation.
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We get distracted, we come back. You get distracted, just come back.
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But use also your power of introspection to remind yourself every day at the
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end of the day, check in when you were living spiritually, when you
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were offering to God, how did it feel? And when you were not,
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how did it feel? And just ask yourself look back over the day
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and really allow your conscious mind to become really clear that actually you are happier,
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you are actually more at peace, you are actually enjoying your life more.
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It's not a burden, it's not a drudgery. It's not like studying
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in school a subject that you hate because you know you want to get into
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college and so you've got to get an A in this class. It's actually
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something that when we do it, the rewards are immediate. We feel happier,
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we feel more at peace. If you ask people to list the ten
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best moments of their life, I mean, just think about it in your
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own mind, the best moments of your life. They're all going to be
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moments that are rooted in connection, connection to the divine, connection to yourself,
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your true self, connection to others on a very very deep level of
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a soul to soul connection. Nobody's best moment in life was when they got
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a new car. Nobody's best moment in life was when they got a raise
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or the you know, interested rates went up or stock market went up,
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and so now they've got, you know, some more money in the bank.
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These are not the best moments of our life. So use your own
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power of contemplation of introspection. So it's not just your doing it because you
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came to such song and I said you should, or because you read a
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beautiful scripture in the scripture said you should think about it purely in a selfish
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way. It's actually what's bringing you the greatest joy, and so naturally we
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all want more of the real joy. So run after those moments, create
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those moments, make that your priority. Once you become really clear that this
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is not where your happiness comes from, it's going to be hard to convince
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yourself to run after it more and more, but you just have to keep
22:42
remembering, keep remembering, and slowly you'll find that you're making those right choices.
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This is OTRFM, part of the IOM Radio Network. Home Times Magazine
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two two peta Welcome back. This is Sadvi Bagavati Saraswati with inspiration and transformation.
24:38
Mental health management requires a lot of different things. It's like saying,
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what's the best way to manage my physical health? Now? Assuming that you're
24:51
healthy, to begin with we could come up with four, five, six
24:56
great ways of staying healthy. Get enough sleep, eat the right foods at
25:03
the right times of day, at the right times of year, get some
25:11
good exercise, drink enough water. Right. I mean, it's not rocket
25:17
science. You just have to go to Google or listen to anybody these days.
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And there's lots and lots and lots of methods to maintain health, assuming
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that you're healthy to begin with. But if someone comes to you with heart
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disease or cancer or some other illness and says to you, what's the best
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way to maintain my health, Well, these four or five things I've just
25:55
mentioned certainly would be helpful to them, but they also need a lot more.
26:03
They need some more very specific, guided treatment. And it may fall
26:07
in those categories. It may come under the right food, but it's not
26:12
going to be just a matter of get enough fruits and vegetables and grains and
26:17
stay away from meat and sugar. There's going to be something more specific,
26:22
more tailored based on what your ailment is, and you may need something even
26:29
beyond that. There may be medicine you need, whether it's allopathic medicine,
26:33
whether it's Iurvedic medicine, homeopathic medicine, naturopathic medicine. But there may be
26:41
additional things required. And the same thing is true with mental health. So
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we can say, if you are very mentally healthy, to begin with well,
26:56
to maintain it, to stay healthy, some of the similar things.
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Get enough sleep, Actually, lack of sleep has a huge impact on our
27:10
mental functioning, on our mood. So does our food, So does our
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diet. So does proper hydration amazingly so it does exercise, and we would
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add do yoga, meditate. Have a spiritual connection. A spiritual connection is
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one of the most powerful predictors of mental health. Have deep connection, deep
27:44
connection ideally a deep spiritual connection, but also deep connections in your life with
27:52
others. Serve, use your life to serve others, Do something meaningful,
28:03
so that at the end of the day when you go to sleep, it
28:06
mattered to someone that you got out of bed that day, Because to get
28:12
up every day and not have any kind of a ripple impact upon the planet
28:19
or anyone's life was depressing. I mean, the fact that the planet would
28:26
be no different whether you got up or didn't get up. That's a very
28:30
depressing thought. Even if I'm not depressed to begin with. So assuming that
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you've got robust mental health to begin with, maintaining your physical health, bringing
28:45
in a spiritual component through meditation, through prayer, through devotion, yoga great
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for the body, great for the mind, great for the heart. Service
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connects us to others, makes us realize how much divine flows through us.
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But if you're dealing with a situation where you've already got mental distress, well
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you may need a lot more than that. May take components of that,
29:30
but you may need more if you've been traumatized in some way, if you've
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got anxiety, if you've got depression, if you've got any one of innumerable
29:44
illnesses, if you're suffering from addictions, from eating disorders, from so much
29:49
that we struggle with in so many ways, well, some additional assistance is
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of great benefit. Therapy, again, there's a whole variety of different types,
30:07
but some way in which you are working directly with what you're suffering from,
30:15
and medication, you know, in some cases, for some people,
30:22
for some certain periods of time, it's really helpful. I'm not anti medication
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at all, as long as it's not used instead of doing the work.
30:37
So if I'm suffering from depression. Let's say, and I'm so depressed that
30:42
I cannot drag myself out of bed, I cannot get out of bed in
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the morning, and I'm suicidal. I want to kill myself, and medication
30:56
can help me get out of bed keep myself from killing myself. Well,
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that's fantastic. But then I need to use the fact that I've gotten out
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of bed and I'm still alive to actually do my work to overcome my depression.
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It's not just oh, now I take these pills and I feel better.
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The pills are that which are used to help us be balanced enough,
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have the energy enough to stay alive, to get out of bed, to
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do our work, to show up at therapy or counseling or yoga wherever we
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go, so that we actually can heal. So I would definitely not say
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they're a magic bullet by any means, because we're not just chemical beings.
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To say that medicine itself was the cure all implies that mental illness is simply
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a chemical problem, and it isn't. Yes, there's chemical compoundents, but
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it's a problem rooted in issues of our society, issues of the way that
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we run our systems, our communities. It has to do with our individual
32:28
experiences that which we've been through. There's so much that leads to mental illness
32:36
that's not just about a chemical imbalance. So medicine is not the cure all,
32:45
but it is fantastically helpful, fantastically beneficial for some people with some illnesses
32:54
for some period of time, and I'm all in favor of that. It's
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like, if you've got diabetes, and you're gonna die from diabetes, long
33:07
before you can get your exercise program. We're working long before your life style
33:14
changes in eating habits changes can bring down your blood sugar. By all means,
33:20
take whatever you need to take to keep your blood sugar low enough that
33:23
you don't die, while you bring about lifestyle changes so that ultimately you can
33:35
take less and less of the medicine and even ideally at some point be able
33:44
maybe to go off it. So I think of psychological medicines in the same
33:47
way. There are things that we use ideally temporarily to help us through a
33:57
period of time to be able to do the work that we need to actually
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heal. Now, there are some illnesses, psychotic illnesses, mostly in which
34:13
people will be medicated for most of their lives. People with schizophrenia, for
34:19
example, will be medicated for most of their lives. People with some forms
34:22
of bipolar disorder will be medicated for most of their lives because there is a
34:29
huge chemical component that doesn't respond nearly so well at all to non chemical forms
34:38
of treatment. But what's most important is to realize there's nothing wrong with that.
34:45
It doesn't make you weak any more than needing medicine for diabetes makes you
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eat. The point of our life is to use all tools that we have
35:00
to live a life that is meaningful, fulfilling, deep connected in love,
35:09
in peace, in awareness, en joy and if a medication can help me
35:22
find that when I'm unable to find it for a period of time, as
35:29
I learn the way to find it myself, there's nothing to be ashamed of
35:35
there. Lastly, then in terms of de yoga and meditation just help us
35:45
manage the anxiety or become free. We can become free. It's it's one
35:55
of the greatest truths of the world. And it's an interesting thing to talk
36:00
about because just today, exactly as the day that Jaiko, which is a
36:07
big Indian publisher, has released today the Indian edition of my memoir called Hollywood
36:17
to the Himalayas, and it was published last summer in America. But the
36:23
Indian edition, taken up by Jaiko, has literally just come out today.
36:30
And I mentioned that here because my journey was a journey of healing and transformation.
36:39
As the subheading of the book is, I struggled a lot. I
36:45
suffered a lot. I found through spirituality, through yoga, through meditation,
37:00
through surrender, through devotional practices, through inquiry and gon and study, actual
37:12
freedom from it. I used to think before I came to India that the
37:15
best you could do was manage your life. I was twenty five, and
37:21
to me, that was the highest goal. I had learned personally to manage
37:28
my life. There had been times of my life when I wasn't managing it
37:30
nearly so well. But by the time I was twenty five, I had
37:34
gotten to a point where I felt like I was managing I was managing my
37:42
pain, I was managing my anger, I was managing my struggles. I
37:46
was managing my relationships. I was managing my school. I was in the
37:52
midst of getting my PhD in child nurse psychology, because that's an interesting thing
38:00
about mental health and mental illness is remarkably a lot of us, even as
38:07
we suffer, are amazingly highly efficient and effective. And you would have no
38:16
idea from the outside in how much we're suffering, so you can't. And
38:23
it's an important point to mention on Mental Health Awareness Day. People struggling with
38:30
anxiety, with depression, with addiction, with all of that we struggle with,
38:37
do not necessarily look different. They don't necessarily writhe around on the floor
38:45
in pain and anguish for everyone to kind of walk around them like this is
38:50
a person in trouble. We don't all stand on soapboxes on a corner and
38:57
people cross the street because we look really crazy. A huge percentage of people
39:04
who are suffering are highly proficient in so many ways. But it wasn't until
39:15
I came to India that I actually discovered I could be free, not just
39:20
manage that. It wasn't about management, it was about freedom. So as
39:29
we start to get the beautiful blessings of a cash gunga, the gunga from
39:36
the sky, yes you can be free, yoga, meditation, spirituality,
39:45
doing your own work. You've got to do the work to let go of
39:51
that which is creating the anxiety of those patterns and then yes, you actually
39:59
can be come free, not just managed. This is OTRFM, part of
40:05
the IOM Radio network. Home Times Magazine is one of the leading online content
40:10
providers of positivity, wellness, and personal empowerment. A philanthropic organization, their
40:16
net proceeds are funneled to support worldwide charity initiatives via Humanity Healing International. Through
40:22
their commitment to creating community and providing conscious content, they aspire to uplift humanity
40:29
on a global scale. Home Times co creating a more conscious lifestyle. Do
40:36
you have time to read that inspiring book or that blog post you've been meaning
40:39
to get to in your busy world? How do you improve yourself and keep
40:44
your life going? I, Lisa Kay and my Between Heaven and Earth Radio
40:47
show can transform your life just by listening. Be uplifted with inspiring topics,
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Treatment of Animals seven five seven six two two peta Welcome back. This is
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Sadvi Bagavati Saraswati with inspiration and transformation. Can you offer some spiritual advice to
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someone who has just started their spiritual journey? Like what kind of meditation should
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I be doing? Thank you so much. What kind of meditation you do
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is much less important than actually doing it. I always say there's no wrong
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way to meditate other than hitting the snooze button and going back to sleep.
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That's the only wrong way to meditate. Otherwise, there's so many different lineages,
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schools, teachings. I don't think there is one that's better than another.
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I think in general, if you look back throughout history, our sages
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are saints, are riches, the yogis. They weren't all doing one form
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of meditation. They hadn't all gone to one grow or one ashram or one
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course. They were in solitude and silence and caves, and the Himalias in
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some cases under the tutelage of a specific group, in some cases just on
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their own. And then if you look out at other religions as well,
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and you look at mystics and masters of different religions as well, they all
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had some practice of meditation, of contemplation of divine connection, and it worked
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for them. And there's enlightened masters, mystics what we would call yogi's.
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They may use a different word in so many of the different religious traditions,
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if not all of them. So there's not one way that's better, unless,
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of course, I'm planning to charge you a whole lot of money to
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use my way, at which point I would be sure to convince you that
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it was not only the best way, but it was the only way.
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But if you go back to the days prior to people having to pay large
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sums of money to learn a specific technique, there really was no emphasis at
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all on it must be this way or that way, this school or that
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school, this grew or that grew. What matters most is just do it.
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So I would say, the type of meditation you should be doing is
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the type that works for you. Doesn't hurt to try three four dif diferent
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types before you've set alana specific technique. Give each of them, you know,
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a week, two weeks. You're not going to necessarily become an expert
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that quickly, but you'll certainly get an idea of whether you're making any progress.
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Is your mind quieting, are you able to bring awareness, consciousness,
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love, presence into each moment? Are you feeling the impact of that meditation
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in the rest of your day or does it go away the moment you open
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your eyes and stand up off the cushion, And you know, just give
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yourself a little bit of time, and if you want to give more time,
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you can give more time. Give a month, give two months to
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a handful of different practices. Unless you discover with the first one that this
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really works, and stay with it. If it works, that's your path.
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Otherwise, feel free, try a few different things and figure out which
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one quiets your mind the quickest, allows your mind to be quiet for the
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longest period of time, opens your heart the most, has the most lasting
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fragrance. Right if you walked into a department store and you paid a huge
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bunch of money for a perfume and you sprayed on yourself in the store,
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but by the time you walk out of the store fifteen minutes later, it's
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gone. The fragrance is gone. You'd think, well, this is not
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a very good perfume. If it's a good quality perfume or essential oil,
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it should last. It should stay with you for at least a few hours,
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not the whole day. So meditation should be like a fragrance. It
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should stay with you for as long as possible, should ripple out into the
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rest of your day. So choose whichever one works. These days you don't
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even have to necessarily go anywhere. It used to be you had to go
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for a meditation retreat. These days you can actually just create a retreat at
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home. Go to YouTube, listen to meditation videos. I mean, if
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you can take some time out, come to an ashram, spend some time.
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Nothing like it. It's a highly charged atmosphere. But if not,
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don't worry. Don't feel like you've got to wait till you can come.
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In order to start a meditation practice, start it wherever you are, whenever
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you are, whenever it occurs to you to start, and then just make
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sure that you keep doing it, that you actually get up and do it.
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If you find that when you set an alarm for four or five,
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every single time you hit this news button and go back to sleep, set
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it for six, set it for a time when you actually can get up,
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because you're not achieving anything by setting an alarm for brumma mort if you
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don't actually ever get out of bed. You're much better off setting an alarm
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for a time when you can reasonably get out of bed and then meditate.
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So as you start your spiritual journey, yes, meditation is it's critical,
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it's the foundation and it's the energy. But recognize also as you start your
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path that our spiritual path is not just that which we do on the mat
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or on the cushion. So while it's very important to have a good meditation
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practice, a good yoga practice, ultimately your spiritual journey is that which happens
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when you walk off the mat, when you stand up off the cushion.
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And so as you start the journey, see how many times during the day
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you can remind yourself that you're on the journey. Otherwise you'll remember in the
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morning for your meditation. Then you get to work, or you get to
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school, or you get where you're going and you completely forget. You're swept
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up, and it's not till at night you're about to go to sleep and
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you realize, oh my god, I'm supposed to be on a spiritual journey.
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I forgot all day. So make opportunities all day long to just remind
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theself. Some of the easiest ones are before you eat anything, Just before
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you eat, take a few moments, close your eyes, reconnect. If
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you've got a mantra you like to chant, chant it, say grace,
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be grateful to God, or simply just take a few breaths and sink into
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the core of who you are before you drink water. And I choose these
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because there are things that all of us do every day, many times,
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and so it's this constant opportunity to just reconnect, act and remember, oh
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yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Because life is full of distractions.
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You could set a reminder on your phone every half an hour, just a
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little bing. Let it be the only notification that actually goes off, just
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to remind you. Maybe instead of a being, you can program it to
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say, oh, whatever you want to do, get creative, use that
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which you're already doing in your day to help remind you that you're on a
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spiritual journey and choose, choose love, and choose peace as much as you
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can. For me, those are really the corner stone of a spiritual journey.
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As I move through the day, there's so many opportunities to be upset,
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to be stressed, to be frustrated, to be critical, to be
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judgmental, to be negative. Maybe it's just things of your mind. You
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notice something it makes you angry, or you notice something and it makes you
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upset. Maybe it's somebody actually provoking you. Maybe it's actually somebody in your
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face, not choosing love, not choosing peace. Either way, whether it
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comes just from the depths of you inside or it comes directly from outside,
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there's all these opportunities to not be in peace, to not be anchored in
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love. But we have the option every single time, regardless of what the
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provocation may be, to choose love, to choose peace. And I think
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that that's perhaps one of the most critical pieces, and for me, it's
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it's core to my practice. Every minute, every moment. Am I choosing
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peace in this moment? Am I choosing love in this moment? And if
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not, why why would I voluntarily hand over my piece. Why would I
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voluntarily pollute myself with hatred, with judgment, with negativity. Love feels so
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good. It's why we love being in love. It's why we love romance
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movies. That's why we love romance and books. I mean, whether it's
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us being in love or someone else being in love, we love it.
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Why would you choose not to love? Because, of course, love is
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so much bigger than romance. I mean, ask any of us who have
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chosen a path of celibacy. There's so much love in the world, so
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many opportunities. To love doesn't require romance. Why would you choose anything else?
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Why would you choose anything other than peace? Peace feels good. That's
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why everyone wants to be in peace. So remember that you should always remind
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yourself that you have this possibility, this choice, this opportunity to be in
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peace, to be in love every moment, and that should stay with you
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as you begin your spiritual journey and as you walk in. This brings to
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a close this hour of inspiration and transformation. Thank you so much for joining
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me. I'm so glad to be together with you all each week, and
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I look forward to being together again next Thursday, same time on home time's
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radiom. But it can't be the B because to be looking look on the
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we can okind of get the I couldn't be pay w a