From destructive competition to constructive competition – 2
That is something which no one which we can tap but which we rarely tap it's like if in a room things are very hot or very cold outside a house and within that there's a room which is temperature moderated we can retreat there and get strength get comfort and then we can re-emerge and face the situation similarly our spiritual side is something which can give us shelter and strength by which when the external competition seems to be overwhelming we can go within ourselves strengthen ourselves and then re-emerge to face whatever issues we do have to face and i talked about how competition is a fact of life but it doesn't have to be the only fact of life it's like animals are characterised by survival of the fittest but we humans find as most ennobling the sacrifice by the fittest when we do something at risk of ourselves but for the humans are meant to live according to a higher value system so let's move on go ahead yeah so it's a quote I say to Einstein it is that if if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life thinking that it is stupid so that is the tragedy when we do not recognise the distinctive attributes that everyone has then whatever a fish can do that a monkey can't do but if a fish starts comparing itself with a monkey then the fish will get feel stupid will get an inferiority complex will get self-esteem issues will get depressed may even become suicidal so now when we see a fish and a monkey you can see very radical difference but when all of us are human beings all of us are from a maybe a similar educational background or we are pursuing a similar career then it may appear that the differences in us are not that significant rather the similarities are quite similar quite significant and so we may feel that we have to compete where we need to become better than others yesterday I talked about reconceptualising success so success can be defined as becoming the best where the world has set up certain goals and as per those goals we think that if I can achieve I can climb to the top of the mountain then I have succeeded but we can also define success as bringing out our best and bringing out our best may or may not take us to the best at the top why is it defined by society but we might even trail a new path and create a new landmark so as long as we are externally focused the competition will tend to be destructive because the benchmark is something which is not innate to us so in our life there are two distinct trends there is individuality and there is you could say conformity now everybody wants to be individual I want to be my own person that's natural at the same time in any kind of social structure some amount of conformity is required so for example if students are being assessed after a course there has to be some standard parameters for assessing the course and those standard parameters create some conformity when there is an interview for a job at that time there are certain standard examined vetting process that is there so when we have to go through that process and we have to succeed in that process we have to to some extent conform to what is the expectation so there is the tendency there is a tendency towards individuality where we would like to be our own person at the same time there is a need for conformity and both need to be balanced it's like when let's say as a musical performance is going on at that time other people can come and join the music but the way they join the music should be harmonious not disharmonious otherwise if it's harmonious then it becomes orchestra if it is not harmonious then it becomes just a mess so there is individuality and there is conformity now if the need for conformity becomes too much then the individuality gets suppressed and then when the conformity okay this is what you have to do then when we have to conform at that time we feel choked internally and our own individuality cannot be expressed so there are certain parameters in which conformity is required that is as a exam we have to do what it takes to clear the exam if there's an interview let's do what it takes to clear the interview but life is not reduced only to the exam or the interview yes those moments are defining significant moments in life but our overall life journey is not just about those moments so our individuality is what we bring distinctively to the table of life and when we bring it to the table of life at that time if conformity crushes us then we cannot make our contribution so there is the need for individuality and the need for conformity both combined together go ahead now like i mentioned yesterday that every organ in the body is an individual organ and at the same time each organ has to function in cooperation with other organs so when all of them grow harmoniously that's when the body grows but in the case of cancer one set of cells starts going disharmoniously and when it starts going disharmoniously that is growth but that growth is destructive and it can be so destructive that person can even die so similarly when we envision competition as based on a destructive paradigm now most of us may not directly think of destroying anyone but if that is the basic operating platform the my success requires someone else's failure then the result is that our growth becomes like a cancerous growth so cancerous growth means that it's like in sports there are some sports which are individual sports some sports which are team sports now in individual sport the individual's performance determines the success like in tennis singles if we have each player has to play and based on how that player plays the success happens now if we consider a team sports like cricket in cricket also individuality is important different individuals have their different roles somebody's opening batsman somebody's a middle order batsman somebody's all-rounder somebody's a baller spin baller now all of them have their roles so there is the individuality of each player but there has to be overall harmony the team is working together now one team may compete against another team but if the team members start competing against each other if one batsman in order to score more runs and the other batsman deliberately calls the batsman and sends them back and gets him run out then the batsman may get a record of having scored more runs but the result would be the team will not perform so now how do we define a team in life the team vision can be okay say India is playing against Australia and India is one team Australia is another team in life we also may be in small groups maybe in one team another team but a broader understanding if we acquire a spiritual vision is that it's not that we are competing against others we are all ultimately a part of the same team we are all a part of the same one whole in which through which we are connected the basic difference between a spiritual vision of life and a material vision of life is the vision of connectedness or the vision of fragmentation at the material level with the scarcity mentality if you get the pie i don't get it but the spiritual level we see that we all are connected and we all can contribute and we all can grow so i'll explain this a little bit more can you go ahead yeah so now as i mentioned destructive competition our success requires the failure of others we sabotage others so that they don't succeed the well-known example of crabs in a well is there or frogs in a well one of the bees tries to go out but others don't want us to go out so they pull down so none of them are able to go out so all of them suffer and all of them perish so this is destructive where no one is allowed to succeed now there can be destructive competition against others where in our action we sabotage others but destructive competition can work inside us in our intentions can you go ahead in our intentions when we compare ourselves with others and those negative comparisons they de-energise us they disenthuse us and thus they sabotage us so all of us want to succeed in life but there is a voice inside us which often works against us you are not good enough it will not work you are going to make a fool of yourself this negative voice that is there within us it keeps discouraging us and if we have a basic paradigm of destructive competition even if we don't harm others but that paradigm by which we will harm us you are just not good enough you can't do it so what happens in this case we will be striving for success externally but internally we are being pulled back so the example for this kind of self-sabotage that is given in psychology is there is an ant and the ant is moving south on an elephant which is moving north now what happens the ant may be moving laboriously but the elephant's movement is far more domineering and the ant will not get anywhere in the south it will just go in the north so what we what we refer to here by the ant and the elephant is the ant is our conscious intention this is what i want to do but the elephant underneath is our subconscious conception we all have certain conceptions about ourselves about others and about the world we live in often when we meet people as soon as we see people inside us something passes comment this person very lazy this person irresponsible forgetful this person insensitive so we all keep passing comments now these sort of this sort of voice within us which keeps passing comments it those comments emerge from the conceptions that we have so we all may have intentions nobody starts out on any endeavour planning to fail nobody starts out wanting to be a dismal failure but although they start with a particular plan at a conscious level but we all have certain subconscious conceptions and those subconscious conceptions are what have a far greater influence on us than our conscious intentions just like say if this floor were inclined in this way like the floor is inclined in this way i if water falls over here even without our effort though without our doing anything the water will flowing in this start flowing in this direction now if there is a sink over there and we want the water to go over there then we will have to push the water forcefully in that direction so that it will go into that sink and as soon as we stop pushing the water will flow back in the direction of the inclination of the floor so our intention i want the water to go over this our intention is like the push which we are giving to the water from above but the inclination of the floor is the subconscious conception that we have so to the extent our conscious intention is strong okay i'll keep pushing the water in that direction it will push as soon as it stops then the water starts relapsing in the start flowing in the opposite direction so similarly for us we all have certain conceptions and those conceptions act often at a subconscious level we don't even notice what we are doing till it is done till what did i do i didn't want to do it so this at a subconscious level we all have certain conceptions and these conceptions affect our destinations our destiny much more than whatever intention we may profess to have so there is a conscious intention with which we may function there's a conscious conception which is also working and a couple of examples to illustrate this point in our day-to-day life say we all have certain ideas of what our strengths are and what our weaknesses are now those ideas may be reality or they may not be you may think i am good at something where you are not good at or we may be actually good at something which we think we are bad at so our conception is like our map and the reality is like the territory if we have the map of the right place then that map can help us to the map we have the map of the territory we are in the map is helpful otherwise the map simply obstructs us so for us we have certain conceptions and there is the reality now the map that we have if the map is wrong then no matter how much we work how much we try we can't navigate the territory because the map itself is wrong so for us the scarcity mentality is like one map the abundance mentality is like another map so if i have a conception that one conception could be i'm not good enough when actually i may have the abilities and the other is that oh i'm great when actually we need to be cautious when we don't have the right abilities if we are driving a car at that time often the rearview mirrors come with a warning now objects appear to be at a different distance from what they actually are we have to be cautious so similarly for us whatever we observe we don't observe the world as it is whatever we observe is filtered through the conceptions that we have and those conceptions are present within us in what the yoga texts from india the bhagavad-gita calls as the mind the mind acts like an inner filter which processes and sometimes distorts whatever we observe so if i want to know what my conceptions are one way to know it is what do my thoughts go to when i have nothing to do when we are having some purpose we will think okay i have to get this job then i have to buy this i will travel here i have to go there so we will direct our thoughts at that time that's like the power of conscious intention taking the water in a particular direction but when we have nothing to do you're sitting relaxing idly at that time where do our thoughts go to that is a fairly good predictor of what our subconscious conceptions are that reflects the inclination of the flower so wherever our consciousness will automatically slide towards that so those conceptions when we understand them then we can evaluate so the self-observation especially when we are not consciously having any intention to do anything where do my thoughts go to that's what gives an idea of our conceptions but the conception can be about various things i may think okay cricket is enjoyable i watch cricket so my thoughts go to cricket i may think movies are enjoyable i want to watch movies these are different kinds of conceptions but more foundationally what is our self-conception and what is our world conception we all put on a image in front of others we all for the purpose of functioning we act in a particular way that's fine but apart from that we are something and what is our own conception of ourselves what is our conception of the world around us these conceptions shape our actions often at a subconscious level and to the extent these sub these conceptions are working against us to that extent whatever we do we will not be able to be effective so to give an example to talk about how the mind works we have a computer system in which there is the hardware that the software and there's a user so similarly the yoga wisdom from ancient india explains that our the conception of the self is three levels there's the body there's the mind and there's the soul the spiritual side so the body is like the hardware the mind is the software and the self the source of consciousness is the user and among these three the body is the external that we have that is often the basis on which we perceive all competition okay i look better than someone else oh that person looks better than me oh i speak more fluently than that person oh that person speaks more fluently than me so all these comparisons that we do they are largely based on the platform of the body now different people may have different hardwares for the computers the hardware may be what it is but if the software gets corrupted even the best hardware is of no use the software is just as if not more important than the hardware and in the world we live in we often define progress in terms of improving the hardware we define success also in terms of getting the best hardware okay i have the best house i have the best car then i am the most successful person so it could be in terms of what we achieve or what we parade what we show to others but either way if while working on a computer we are focused only on the hardware aspect and neglect the software aspect then i might have the best software with me best hardware with me but a corrupt software will make my system useless i won't be able to function at all similarly so the the same point here the elephant moving in one direction the ant moving in another direction so at a physical level we may be planning to do certain things okay i'm going to do this i'm going to do that i'm going to do that but at a psychological level if there's an elephant moving in another direction that's like the software that is corrupted and we will not be able to function so this self-sabotaging mentality which can act where we try to sabotage others because we feel i'm not good enough or we sabotage ourselves because of the feeling that i'm not good enough both ways it works against us you go ahead so if we move with a spiritual self-understanding that every one of us is individual every one of us is unique and we are in a world which requires conformity to some extent so we can't not look at others but we can see others as spurs not as threats see others as spurs means that the presence of others the performance of others that inspires us to perform better but when we see them as threats then the result of that is we want to push them down either we feel insecure or we feel insecure and we we can't perform or we feel that they are threatened we want to push them down so at one level in life we are all running a race like horses are running somebody's car driving a race is there or horse race is there so okay the other horse if it gets first and get the first prize if i get first i'll get the first prize but that's only one conception of success but if we see that every one of us is individual and our success is bringing out our best then when we see others as spurs okay this person is doing this much let me do this then let me also excel let me also improve let me do my best but not to push the other person down to bring out my best can you go ahead so yesterday i talked about looking inward to find strength at our core now i'll talk another aspect of the spiritual perspective that there is the outer world if we look at the world around us at one level it may seem to be like a place of competition and struggle for existence with survival of the fittest everyone has to compete and fight for success but at another level we see that our basic needs are provided for we have thirst there is water provided we have hunger food is there in nature we need heat and light there are sources of heat and light so what our basic needs are are provided for now provision does not necessarily mean ready availability provision seems means it means it's available every morning when the birds wake up the birds start chirping and the birds start searching for their food so when they start searching for food they have to labour we have to fly a long distance sometimes to find some worms some grains but the birds flying is not creating the grains by their flying and searching they're not creating the grains the grains are already there they're simply finding them so there is in nature a provision for our basic needs what our endeavour to acquire are there is provision and there is acquisition acquisition is when we get it so the provision comes by some higher arrangement the acquisition is what we need to do if there are no grains the birds can search for a whole lifetime and they will starve and die but the provision is there and the birds search to acquire so similarly if we understand that what I am looking for in life it is not that I alone am an isolated being in a big bad world where I have to fight against the world and get what I am meant to get if the birds have to fly that requires labour but there is a provision of its needs of the birds needs similarly actually there is a destiny that each one of us is meant to fulfil and when we move towards that destiny there are higher powers at work so if the second the first aspect of spiritual understanding spiritual perspective is that we have a core at which is imperishable which is beyond the binaries of life and which can give us strength but what about the world outside there is a plan out there also so the plan in the world out there is something which we cannot perceive if we are too caught with our own plans every day we eat food now this is probably lunch break for most of you either take a meal or you are going to take a meal now when we eat food we simply chew it and it goes inside our body what happens after that we hardly ever think of it researchers have found that actually the food we eat it requires a huge amount of energy to digest that food if you consider the body's stylistic movement by which the food goes on the alimentary canal and we consider work as force into displacement then the amount of work that is required to digest one handful of food is actually more than the amount of work average human being performs throughout the day we are not doing that work but that is being done if that work were not done then we would not have energy so we eat the food but the digestion happens by some higher arrangement the digestion happens by some arrangement that we are not even aware of usually the only time we think of our digestion is when it doesn't work we don't think of it otherwise so we are a part of a larger whole and we need to focus on playing our part suppose we fly by a plane tomorrow i am flying from here to sydney so when i go by a plane i will basically worry about whether i have my ticket whether i have my id now i am going to get into a plane i don't worry whether the plane is adequate fuel or not whether the pilot is trained or not whether the pilot is the pilot drunk now i won't worry about all this because there is a system for taking care of that i have to take care of my part and there is a system that will take care of the rest so similarly actually when we have a spiritual understanding of life and we see that we are a part of a larger whole and as a part of the larger whole we need to just do our part when we go seek destructive competition when we try to push others down we think that the whole is dependent on us we if we focus on understanding that i am a part meant to play my part then we will focus on doing the best we can on the facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg when he gave a valedictory address he said that actually we can connect the dots of life only in retrospect okay this happened because of this has happened this happened this happened this how things are working out that the dots we cannot connect them first we can connect the dots and see the pattern when we look back at our life but when we are looking ahead we don't see the pattern and that's why we may feel that i am fragmented isolated alone and i have to fight my way through the world yes we do have to fight just like the birds have to fight to have to fight in the sense that the birds have to fly exert themselves and search for grains but the grains are already provided for similarly now we at our level we cannot discern the whole pattern but we are parts of a larger whole and being parts of a larger whole if we just play our part things will move on so i talked about there is a subconscious intent subconscious conception which often sabotages us so how do we deal with that the power of conscious intention that means if i decide that i am going to do my best and in this particular situation whatever is my best i will do i will not worry about what who is doing when we worry actually what we essentially do is that we lose our energy on that which is not in our control worry is often like the interest that we pay on loans we haven't yet taken worry is the interest we pay on loans we haven't yet taken why loans we haven't yet taken in the sense that the problem that we are worrying about it has not yet come but this may go wrong that means and in worrying about all that may go wrong we go wrong because we can't do what we could otherwise have done we all will face challenges in our life but the challenges that we face today are manageable today however when we are sabotaged by this subconscious conception which are negative then we pile on top of the problems of today the problems of yesterday and the problems of tomorrow and when i pile the problems of yesterday and the problems of tomorrow on today then even today becomes unbearable so the power of conscious intention means i focus on what i can do right now i understand that i have certain potentials which i can bring out there is a higher plan and i just need to do what i can right now if we focus on that we focus on doing our part then we attract forces which are beyond us forces that we may not normally even be aware of but those forces work in our favour in physics or even in music we have the concept of resonance when multiple forces get aligned in a particular direction then resonance occurs and when resonance occurs then the combined effect is much more than the individual effects brought together similarly when we work with conscious intentions striving to do the best that we can then we resonate with the higher powers within us and by resonating within the higher powers we attract forces beyond ourselves now this whole idea of higher powers might seem just like some mumbo-jumbo what is this idea of higher powers but actually if you consider science which is an eminently which is considered to be an eminently rational body of knowledge we see even in science the biggest breakthroughs happen not by rational thinking not by rational step by step by step thinking the biggest breakthroughs in science also happen by inspirational thinking a rational thinking can take a step by step along a path but it is inspirational thinking that shows us a new path and Einstein said that the rational mind is actually the servant it is the creative mind that is a source of discovery so if you consider the phenomena of inspiration all of us have had times when you just got inspired i got an idea this is such a good idea in cartoons or in movies when somebody suddenly gets a good idea that is shown by the bulb lighting there's a person a bulb suddenly goes on bright bulb that means somebody's got an idea so now when the bulb lights when we suddenly get an idea so even when we even when we use the word say i got an idea i got an idea well i got when i got somebody must have given some from where it is gone i got it where did i get it from so most of the most of the major breakthroughs in any field they happen through inspiration and inspiration is not something that comes through rational thinking Goss was one of the prominent scientists who developed electrical engineering in the 19th century especially and he he came up with certain equations in electrical engineering i was thinking about it thinking about it thinking about it suddenly he came up with the equations they just came to him and started using them and he found that they worked they worked very well but he had no idea of how to prove them and after that his equations started getting widespread they were used he he was he got old he died and several decades after his death then the mathematical proof for those equations came out so here is an example of something where the rational an example in science where rational thinking came decades after the inspirational thinking so where does this inspirational thinking come from when we get an inspiration it is almost as if the idea the insight it is it appears within us from somewhere we just receive it and then we use it it just comes almost like ready-made planted within normally even when someone gives us something i say if we are sitting on a table we are working and i feel hungry and then i'm looking at my computer i'm thinking when can i go and take lunch i look down hey there's a lunch plate over here where did it come from we look maybe someone maybe a friend a colleague brought it we look where did it come from so if something comes ready-made we will actually look where is the source so especially something which is not only comes ready-made but something which we need where does that come from we'll ask that question but with respect to inspiration often we don't ask that question because the inspiration is not a like an object that comes externally it's an insider idea which comes internally but still even if it is coming internally it's coming is still miraculous it's still astonishing because at one moment it is not there the next moment it is there and dr richard l thompson the cornell university mathematician he did a elaborate mathematical paper on the phenomena of inspiration and he said that if we consider he took around 10 different examples of scientists who came up with brilliant insight through inspiration and he took the state of knowledge in their field and their own particular knowledge before the moment of inspiration and after inspiration and he analysed if you consider the brain working with all its neural circuitry to the fullest extent still the number of step by step logical steps required to go from the state of knowledge before inspiration to the state of knowledge after inspiration it's such a quantum leap such a huge leap that it's not possible within the few moments within which inspiration comes so inspiration is a very good example which we all have of ideas which can be often breakthrough ideas is coming to us so there is something beyond us which helps us so going back to the metaphor of the bulb then the person gets the idea the bulb turns on that's how it is shown so we may trigger the inner bulb but we don't power it the trigger is what turns on but the power has to come from somewhere else so our effort okay i want to solve this problem how do i do this how do i do this our effort to try to tackle the problem is like the trigger we are pressing the trigger we are turning on the power switch but the power is coming from somewhere else so the the spiritual understanding when we are looking at life is not contradictory to the material understanding it is complementary we accept at a material level we have to take steps practically to deal with issues but often are dealing with issues with our logical step by step method it works to some extent but one moment of inspiration can tackle issues which hours and even years of step-by-step thinking may not lead to a resolution so there is a higher power within us and when we define ourselves only as material beings when we define ourselves only in terms of our hardware then we rule out the role of inspiration so all of us are endowed in particular ways at the external level but all of us have access to a power far greater than ours that is the power of inspiration and inspiration is something at one level it just comes to us but is there a way by which we can channel inspiration more regularly that is through the process of meditation meditation the essence of meditation is not sitting in a particular posture the essence of meditation is not regulating the breath the essence of meditation is not even looking at a light or looking at a particular at a mountain or some natural scenery the essence of meditation is shifting our awareness from that which is constantly changing to that which is unchanging the essence of meditation is shifting our awareness from the external material reality to the internal spiritual reality when we practise meditation there are different forms of meditation you are talking about in different traditions but meditation connects us with our core and it connects us with our source when we connect with our core we get calmness we get strength and when we connect with our source we become a channel for wisdom far greater than ours so inspiration can sometimes just come serendipitously without any plan without any prediction but by practising meditation and cultivating a more spiritual frame of consciousness we can become more receptive to higher insights we can more become more receptive we can become greater conductors for the current of inspiration to flow to us and to flow through us so constructive competition ultimately rests on the understanding that we are not limited by what we have right now but rather we can be channels for something much bigger than what we have or what we are so when I think of myself as one isolated individual and we think of others as isolated individuals with you I have to become better than them or I have to make sure that they don't become better than me that leads to destructive competition but if we see that we are parts of a whole and we can become conductors for a force far greater than ours then there is no need for this destructive competition where we feel I am limited and others are better than me I have to push them down now even if we are finite beings we can become channels for the infinite and thereby we can access powers far greater than our normal powers so all this how do we apply this in the corporate world where we have deadlines to meet we have huge amounts of workload we need to get lots of things done get more and more done and get it done faster and get it done better so when this is the kind of pressure that we are in we may feel that let me just work harder and harder but that will simply exhaust us because we at the physical level at the mental level have limited capacities but if we take some time out to connect with our core to connect with our source to rejuvenate ourselves spiritually then we access strength far greater than ours I'll conclude with this point that we all are always under time pressure and we feel I just don't have time I have to do this this this this this yes we have hundreds of things to do but we often measure the availability of our time in terms of the activities that we do yeah a b c d I have to all these things however our time is not taken by our activities alone our time is also taken by our thoughts a somebody insults me and that insult may happen in 30 seconds but for the next six hours there's a roar in my head how dare you do like that how dare she do like that and in those six hours I may be doing many activities but I'm not doing anything because externally I went to this meeting I did this I worked on this job I did this I read this because the thought was consuming that time so our time is not just taken by our activities it is taken by our thoughts and quite often the thoughts that come in and go around within us are quite unregulated and because of that we can't function effectively but when we give time for changing our conceptions developing a more spiritual conception developing a stronger spiritual connection then the time that is wasted by our random thoughts by disorganised disorderly thoughts that gets substantially decreased and we'll find that in the same time that we have if our mental and our physical is harmonised we can function much more effectively than what otherwise so we will not lose time by nourishing our spiritual side rather the time that is lost because our mental side is out of sync with our physical side our thoughts are going elsewhere our actions are going elsewhere that time that is lost we will regain that time and thus with whatever time we have we will be able to function more effectively so constructive competition ultimately centres on aligning ourselves with our spiritual side and becoming channels for bringing out our best so I'll quickly summarise I spoke today about in the second session about constructive competition based on understanding the outer world and how there is a plan there for that I talked initially about if I quoted that if a fish starts comparing itself evaluating itself by how well it can climb up a tree it will always feel stupid so we often compare ourselves with some external parameters and that comparison is inevitable because we live in a society that requires harmony to that conformity to some extent but apart from the specific certain times when the conformity is required as an exams or certain assessments we are our own individuals and we need to bring forth our individuality so for that purpose to have that confidence that if I just bring out my best that will be enough for me for that we look outward and see how there is a higher plan if we do not have this conception of higher plan we sabotage ourselves by our actions we try to pull others down or by our conceptions we pull ourselves down we want to push the water in one direction but the inclination of the flower puts in another direction the ant is moving in one direction but the elephant is moving in another direction the ant is like our intention but the elephant is like our conceptions so to correct that conception the conception may be that oh I am not good enough I can't do this that kind of self-sabotaging conception to overcome that we look at the how we are a part of a whole and in our life there is a higher force which takes care of things we get food but we don't digest the food is digested by an arrangement which we are not even aware of the bird search for grains but the grains are already provided for so we are parts of a whole and we need to just play our part not worry about the whole when we board a plane just focus on having our ID and our ticket the planes flying will be taken care of so if we understand that if we don't think that I am a isolated lonely person fighting against the big bad world but we see that there is a higher plan in which I have to play my part then we give up the conception that requires us to compete destructively we can fight it off and constructive competition means we understand that there is a higher force which I can channel if I become more receptive if I become more spiritual and this presence of a higher force talked about through the example of inspiration wherein insights or ideas suddenly come to us almost as if readily formed and they come with such a huge distance from what we knew earlier that they could not have covered the distance in one moment through rational thinking so there is a higher intelligence which gives us that insight that inspiration and that inspiration can completely change the game if we get it so by becoming more spiritually receptive by practising meditation to connect with our spiritual core and our spiritual source we can become more receptive conductors for inspiration and insight to come through us come to us and through us and by that even if we ourselves are limited even if in a competitive scenario others are in some ways better than us but we are not limited to the resources that we have by spiritually connecting we can become channels for higher energy and thus for high with that higher wisdom streaming through us we can make our own distinctive contributions and if for spiritual connection we feel I just don't have the time then understand that our time is taken not just by our activities it's also taken by our thoughts and the thoughts which can consume our hour if they become disorganised they become calmed and harmonious with our actions when we do not have the subconscious fear insecurity or negativity that is sabotaging us thus by adopting a spiritual self-understanding and a spiritual vision of the world we can move from destructive competition towards constructive competition thank you very much so does anyone have any question my one question.