How to choose our thoughts wisely – Science, Spirituality and Wellness

[Talk at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So I speak and write on the Bhagavad Gita and I found this knowledge extremely helpful for myself as well as for others whoever I shared it So the topic of the talk was Science, Spirituality and Wellness So I’ll start with this principle that all of us have to make choices in life Generally a student is considered intelligent and a student can make a lot of good choices There’s a multiple choice exam and the student chooses many right answers, the student gets good marks So we consider people as intelligent if they can make good choices the right choices Now if we consider the topic as Science, Spirituality and Wellness So we could say wellness broadly speaking comes when we make good choices with respect to eating if we eat good food, we stay healthy with respect to going out if we have the right clothes then if it’s warm if we don’t feel comfortable with wearing too many thick clothes if it’s cold if we are wearing thin clothes then we will not be comfortable So wellness is largely a function of the choices that we make and Science and Spirituality are two branches of knowledge which are ultimately meant or intended to increase our wellness increase our happiness when if we consider the age of science started the promise was that it will make life easier and happier I was in Cambridge just a few months ago and I went to Cambridge University to give a talk on Science and Spirituality I passed by the tree where Newton is said to have seen the fruit falling some say that the fruit fell in front of him some say it fell on him now whichever legend is true that was the time from which he asked the question what made this fruit fall now instead of Newton, a monkey would be sitting there what would the monkey have done he has picked up the fruit eaten it and gone so Newton asked the question what made the fruit fall this was a choice he too could have just eaten the fruit and gone his way so now when we see an eatable naturally the urge to eat comes with this and the urge to eat is not wrong because hunger is also a basic bodily need that we all have so if Newton at that time had simply gone and eaten that fruit then possibly the principle of gravity would not have been discovered and the whole age of science might not have started now when that choice is made what made this fruit fall the fruit is eaten and gone that choice involves intelligence all of us have something which we can call as impulse impulse is that which pushes us to act immediately and intelligence on the other hand is that which evaluates so if you have got a number of food items to eat impulse will make us eat that which tastes good but intelligence inspires to choose which is healthy and accordingly we eat so we all have even the age of science began with a good choice but now in today’s world from say 400 years 500 years since science has been going on what has happened is that science has increased enormously the choices available for us especially through technology in the past if people wanted to simply entertain at most they could go to some local village or town fair might be there or they could just go and see some river or some sky, some scenery not much option for entertainment now if you want entertainment just by pressing a few buttons on our phone or on our TV we can have hundreds, thousands of options open for us and the same applies to everything else with our society becoming more globalised in order to eat food we have, we can go to a supermarket where we have hundreds of items to choose from so through science and technology the capacity or the range within which we can choose has increased and at one level having many options is freedom people often think that I want this option or that option if a student is trying to study and decide a career the student has adequate financial backing then they don’t have to worry that I can afford his career or not whichever career I want to, I can afford I can go for it so freedom at one level means the capacity, having many options open for us and the greater the number of options we might consider the greater is the freedom at the same time that alone is not enough although the number of choices may increase what is equally important is our capacity internally to make the right choices without that capacity sometimes having more and more choices can be not liberating but burdening so science has opened through technology a wide variety of choices for us but science itself does not necessarily guide us about which choice to make science technically speaking is said to be amoral amoral means not moral not immoral but it doesn’t talk about morality here they are not talking about morality in the sense of one person judging another to be lower they are talking about morality simply in the sense of making choices Albert Einstein said that we can talk about the ethical foundation of science but not about the scientific foundation of ethics ethical foundation of science means is science being used in an ethical way or unethical way one of Einstein’s greatest regrets was that he sent the letter to president Eisenhower which eventually led to the development of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki so he felt he feared that Germany might develop that first in order to protect America but eventually it caused great destruction so what he says is that science can provide us weapons but science can’t determine whether the weapons are used well or not now our wellness depends not on how many options we have not just on how many options we have but on how well we choose among the options that we do have and for that choosing we need something more we have many choices to make if we are going to buy a new phone this phone or that phone if we are going to choose a career this career that career if we are going to form a relationship this partner that partner so at every stage in our life we have to make choices and all these choices begin with a fundamental defence and that choice is the choice of our thoughts the choice of our thoughts means that we all are always full of thoughts but we aren’t always thoughtful we are always full of thoughts full of thoughts means here when I say the word thought has two meanings one is I just got a thought that means it’s like something popped up inside us so here we use thought to refer to some stimulus which pops up inside us but the word thought is also in a secondary sense that is I have given this a lot of thought there what we mean is that I have systematically contemplated and analysed this so we are always full of thoughts means some thought or the other is constantly popping up within us right now we may have a thought this thought is something I am interested in but you know I have so many other things to do can I go there I have got so many messages on my phone I am not very comfortable on these seats is it too hot, is it too cold so many thoughts keep coming up within us so we are always full of thoughts but we are not always thoughtful thoughtful means that we don’t carefully evaluate our thoughts and this lack of thoughtfulness has serious consequences sometimes a thought comes up within us lets watch this movie lets do this lets go to this party, lets do that now I was at a university in America and there was this boy who was a brilliant student but just before the exam he had done very well in all the exams in the final exam but just before the exam he committed suicide and then nobody had any inkling that he was going to commit suicide because he had studied well, he had prepared well in fact he was helping other students to prepare and then what happened? just before the exam later on they found out that he loved soccer so what happened the previous night before he was preparing for the exam there was some soccer tournament going on and he started watching it on TV on his phone on his computer he started watching it and as he kept watching half an hour, one hour two hours, three hours and he spent the whole night watching he didn’t realise it at all and then the exam was at 8 o’clock and around 7.30 his friend came to him and said go for the exam but he just became so panicky there is so much I have to study so much I have to revise what did I do? what did I do? that thought drove him so wild this is such an important exam of my career how could I have been so stupid that I spent so much time watching a game and he felt so angry with himself that he killed himself just because of anger with himself yeah it was a stupid thing to do spend so many hours before the exam just watching soccer but killing oneself because of that is an even more stupid thing to do so what happens there is this there is one thought initially came up lets watch that we have to study just now watch this and ok watch a little more and then eventually what happened was a thought came within him kill yourself and he just couldn’t refuse it he just got carried away by it so where do these thoughts come from and he is talking about our wellness depends on our capacity to make wise choices so science can expand the choices we have but we need to be able to choose wisely among the choices that we are given so spirituality is the branch of knowledge that can help us to understand our inner world and thereby make right choices so what spirituality tells us is that our existence is three level the body the mind and the soul so the body if we compare to a computer system the body is like playing hardware the mind the software and the soul the user and suppose we using a computer have visited a particular site repeatedly suppose somebody has visited sports.com many many times and now today they come for a spiritual programme and they hear a spiritual talk and they go back home and they say oh no let me put more on spirituality and they open their browser and type S E what happens in the browser sports comes immediately so what happens so the past choice now comes as a default option and then even if somebody wants to go to spirituality sports is what pops up similarly for us our mind is like that software the kind of choices that we have made in the past those choices keep popping up again and again and with respect to a computer browser it will just if I type SP it will just show sports that’s all but respect to our mind the more we make a particular choice the more forcefully that choice comes the more forcefully that choice comes so it’s in some cases say if you turn on the computer you turn on the browser and then that particular window opens up but in some cases in the browser opening is a default programme so as soon as you press the power button of the computer then immediately the browser opens and the browser opens with the default sports.com the symbol like that for us our mind is a software in a way which constantly gives us propositions and those propositions are based on our past decisions so our past decisions they become impressions whatever we do that gets impressed and then that is what is proposed so as propositions keep coming we keep accepting them so we are thoughtful means the mind keeps proposing thoughts come on do this do that but we are always full of thoughts but we are not always thoughtful when a proposition comes we don’t always evaluate it we just sometimes accept it our wellness depends on our capacity to choose our thoughts wisely yes it depends on external choices wisely but external choices begin with internal choices and the most fundamental internal choice is the choice of our thoughts now we all tend to take our thoughts too seriously let us do a simple experiment do all of you have a phone ok you can pick up your phone don’t look at the phone just pick it up now think within yourself that I can’t lift this phone just think to yourself I can’t lift this phone and now verbalise this thought say to yourself I can’t lift this phone say once again I can’t lift this phone and now you lift it can you lift it? ok isn’t it? now you had the thought I can’t lift this phone but just because you had the thought doesn’t mean the thought is true isn’t it? so I may have the thought that I can’t lift this phone but the thought will be untrue now in this case I gave you this thought I said see I can’t lift this phone and because you have passed the experiment you can lift the phone so all the thought came within you you didn’t accept that thought you were able to act independent of that thought this is because you and your thoughts and the physical reality are three different things as I talked about three level existence body, mind and soul so you, your thoughts and your world these are three different things but quite often we equate ourselves with our thoughts and we equate our thoughts with the world around us that means if we get a thought life stinks nobody cares for me everything goes wrong maybe something is wrong with me maybe life is so depressing I am so depressed and as one thought leads to another what happens one thought one thing went wrong and from that one thought this also went wrong and in this way what happens is we start thinking oh the world is a depressing place I am a depressed person so the thought can shape our vision of the world and a thought can shape our vision of ourselves and in this way our thoughts are often unwittingly given far more power than they deserve now this simple thought experiment I can’t lift my phone the thought might come in your head but the thought is not true because this thought came from somewhere outside of you and because the thought is so contrary to your regular experience so you immediately are able to put that thought aside and do what you have done many times before but when the thought comes inside you when the thought arises from within at that time we fail to evaluate it completely we just accept that thought now the thought may come from any source, yes something bad may happen out there one thing goes wrong, second thing goes wrong but from there the thought comes within us and then we accept it and once we accept the thought it controls us as I said thoughts can shape our vision of the outer world and thoughts can shape our vision of ourselves suppose somebody becomes alcoholic for all of them it began with thoughtless drink nobody is born with a bottle of alcohol in their mouth it’s a little even if they are born in a family where people drink still they make a choice in their childhood they may have just run to collaborate but they grow up and they make a choice and that choice keeps growing, growing, growing so then even when they go to a place the first thing they see is there a bar over there and not only the vision of the outer world is shaped by is there a bar over there, where can I get a bottle to drink but in the interim it is also shaped I am alcoholic did not think of it in a negative sense constantly I can’t give it Oscar Wilde said that giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the whole world I have done it over a hundred times so I gave up smoking but smoking didn’t give me up that means I decided I am not going to smoke anymore but then the mind proposes come on let’s smoke once ok let’s smoke they say no for some time ok yes so our wellness requires that we be able to choose wisely and choosing wisely begins with choosing our thoughts wisely and spiritual knowledge is what helps us to choose our thoughts wisely so it begins with first of all understanding that we are different from our thoughts the Bhagavad Gita is an ancient yoga text and it urges us to become observers of our thoughts different thoughts will come within us and when we can observe neutrally dispassionately then we can evaluate which thought deserves our attention and which thought doesn’t deserve our attention and this firstly requires intelligence intelligence is defined differently intelligence quotient is what IQ is tested where people can do maths quickly they can do logical analysis quickly that capacity is called as intelligence now people have expanded the concept of intelligence as emotional quotient now when you are different kinds of people, emotional intelligence means you know what to speak to whom again there is a choice this person can speak like this, that person can speak like that but we make the right choice so generally whichever intelligence we have some people have very good musical intelligence what does that mean? that means they know which instrument they are using how to play the beats it all comes up being choices some choices are consciously done some choices happen subconsciously but intelligence means choosing intelligence means expertise in choosing at a fundamental level intelligence would mean choose the spiritual level at a fundamental level, intelligence means to choose our thoughts the spiritual knowledge first of all helps us understand that we are different from our thoughts and then further this is not just a it is at one level an intellectual analysis but it is also an experience Bhagavad Gita talks about the process of yoga yoga is a word which is multivalent it has many different meanings so one meaning of the word yoga as it is commonly understood is the physical exercises that we do to improve our health or improve our figure that is one aspect of yoga in a fundamental or etymological sense yoga means connection so the connection that we establish in a spiritual level as I said there is a body, there is a mind and there is a soul so the soul is the conscious energy and the soul is finite consciousness and there is infinite consciousness the connection between finite and infinite consciousness that is the essence of yoga to the extent we become spiritually connected to that extent we can become observant of our thoughts we can become observers of our thoughts we can become evaluators of our thoughts and we can become choosers of our thoughts but to the extent we are not spiritually connected even if we intellectually understand this thought is not good for me this will come with a force which is very difficult to resist one metaphor with which I conclude this talk suppose there is an ocean and we are in that ocean now we in the ocean waves may come from various directions and wherever a strong wave comes, we get pushed in that direction if we were situated in a raft we would have some security but if a strong wave came that raft could also be overturned we would not but if we were in that ocean and above us was a helicopter which offered us a rope that we could hold then we are still in the ocean but as long as we hold on to that rope the waves will come, the waves will hit us but otherwise we will be pushed in a particular direction as long as we hold on to the rope we will be able to come back to the position where we want so similar is the analysis for our thoughts see our inner world is like an ocean in that inner world many waves of thoughts arise thoughts may grow into desires intentions, actions and some waves are gentle some waves are stormy we may come to a college for a class and as we come to a class we greet someone and that person snuffs us just a sudden wave of rage comes, how dare you snuff me and immediately our revenge fantasy starts with us next time in front of everyone I will snuff you and for the next one hour you will be sitting in the class but you are not sitting in the class so that revenge fantasy is like a wave and physically we are sitting in the class but internally we are being tossed here, there and everywhere by that wave maybe I can do this how dare you do like this I am going to show you this wave will toss us here, there and everywhere so now in that waves of emotions waves of thoughts which grow into emotions later which arise within us so as I said the soul is here the mind is here the mind is like the ocean ocean of thoughts and emotions but we are like the soul the finite consciousness which is like a person in that ocean and we are tossed here and there I said earlier that we have intelligence by which we can choose our thoughts so our intelligence is like our raft it’s like if we are just in the ocean the waves will shake us much more if we have some supporting structure, raft a boat, anything like that that’s much easier to stay safe and to move in a particular direction but if a very strong wave comes then even our intelligence becomes overpowered it’s not that people don’t know what choices are right and what choices are wrong often we know it but still we are pushed because when the wave comes a wave, a very big raft, a boat, it will all just knock it off, similarly our intelligence alone is not enough for us to make the right choice but if we are in the ocean and we are connected to a helicopter with we are holding on to a strong rope then when a wave comes holding on to that rope is still difficult because the wave will push us but holding on to the rope is much easier is much easier than trying to fight against the wave the wave is everywhere what do you fight against? you punch the wave, push against the wave what can you do? the wave is everywhere so like that when thoughts arise within us and as they grow into a wave it’s very difficult to fight them where do you fight? if there’s a tangible enemy opposite outside you can fight against them but when a thought arises it’s very difficult to fight but yoga offers us that rope and if we hold on to that rope then when unfavourable thoughts, unhealthy thoughts come within us we can resist them so the yoga that connects us with the infinite consciousness that is called as bhakti yoga bhakti yoga is the yoga of devotion, yoga of divine love and it centres on loving service love is expressed through service when we love someone we want to do something for them so when we have a desire to lovingly contribute when we want to connect with the infinite, in a mood of contribution that establishes our connection a potent way we connect with the divine, we hold on to the rope is through spiritual sound so the mantra that we chanted is before this talk that is called, it’s a limb of bhakti yoga, it’s called mantra meditation and that connects our consciousness with the infinite and bhakti yoga has many different activities by which we can establish that vertical connection and to the extent we do that to that extent we will be able to resist the thought waves that rise within us and we will be able to persevere in our healthier choices our healthier plans, our healthier resolutions so when we are in the ocean this is the direction there is land this is where I want to go so all of us have certain aspirations in life this is what I want to become, this is how I want to contribute, this is who I want to be but when you want to go in that direction when the waves come the waves may push us in hundreds of other directions but if we have that vertical connection, then that will give us the strength, the stability by which we can push on through the waves so our wellness requires that we develop our spiritual connection the spiritual connection can be developed by association so if you have spiritual association programmes like this where you come and meet spiritual minded people that helps us understand and remember that there is a spiritual side to life and therein, through that association spiritual connection starts getting established if it is not there, and it gets re-established, reinforced if it is already there and thus whichever area of life we go in, whatever career we pursue, whatever aspiration we have of our life success in all depends on our capacity to make internal choices wisely and the capacity to make internal choices is what enhances spirituality so no matter how much you progress psychologically fundamentally our wellness will depend on not how many choices we have but how well we choose among those choices and that capacity to choose begins with our capacity to choose our thoughts that capacity to choose our thoughts is enhanced by spirituality that’s why spiritual practise is empowering at a most fundamental level for us it brings out an inside-out empowerment and an inside-out empowerment is what will sustain us, not just for a few minutes in our life journey but throughout our life journey so I’ll summarise I spoke about science, spirituality and wellness and I started talking about wellness requires good choices how we eat, what we dress in how we drive if we make good choices we stay healthy and science has provided us has expanded the choices available to us through technology however science is itself a moral it doesn’t tell us about right or wrong choices and many of us may be sabotaged by the wrong choices that we make and our capacity to make wrong choices will be increased because there are so many choices available to us so we need to increase our capacity to make right choices and for that I talked about how inside us the right choice begins with the right choice of thoughts so I talked about this boy who was a brilliant student but one night before the exam spent a whole night watching soccer and ended up so frustrated with himself that he committed suicide so I talked about how we are always full of thoughts, we are not always thoughtful so thought is like a stimulus that pops up within us in that sense we are always full of thoughts but thought in the sense of I’ve given you thought we evaluate our thoughts, that we don’t always do so to understand how we can evaluate our thoughts I talked about this three level model body, mind and soul which is like the hardware, software and user and the software if I visited a particular site it will pop up repeatedly that’s what will pop up so based on our past choices, past decisions which are stored in our mind as impressions they pop up as future propositions and they pop up more and more forcefully to the extent you choose more choose repeatedly and then when we have to choose wisely, how do we do it first we have to understand I am not my thoughts and the thought experiment of lifting up a cell phone and thinking I can’t lift it up so our thoughts can shape our vision of the outer world and our vision of our self our thought life stinks may make us feel that the world is a depressing place and I am a depressed person but there is just one thought intelligence means to choose our thoughts wisely to not give undue faith not have undue faith in our thoughts not necessarily assume the thoughts are true and to be able to evaluate our choices to evaluate our thoughts we need spiritual knowledge and not just spiritual knowledge spiritual connection talk about how our thought waves we are like an ocean and thought waves keep hitting and tossing us so just knowledge that this wave is different from me is not enough even if you have a raft that is like an intelligence that is also not enough we need to be connected with a high level somebody in a helicopter so that we are finite consciousness and infinite consciousness so the connection between the finite and infinite consciousness is the essence of spirituality and bhakti yoga offers that that connection through chanting of mantras and through activities done in the mood of loving service and to the extent we are connected in that way then we can resist the unwanted thought waves that keep coming and we can persevere in the direction of our aspirations and thus we can be successful in whichever area of life we choose to work thank you very much so is there any question or comment some people are fearing that what is the source of intelligence so where is intelligence coming from is it just it’s coming from the ultimate supreme source that means we must be able to connect with that supreme source and it is that’s where intelligence is coming according to our desire isn’t it hmm so where does intelligence come from does it come from the supreme source would that mean that we are already connected yeah there is intelligence we could say that that is a faculty that is there within us as I said there are different kinds of intelligences, some people have musical intelligence some people have verbal, linguistic intelligence some people have say artistic intelligence so all of us intimately from birth have certain endowments that we get every talent we could say is at one level intelligence so the soul we are souls and the soul is on a multi life journey of spiritual evolution so where we are in this life is determined by where we have been in previous lives so all of us the starting point where we are that is shaped by what we have done in the past that’s why all of us have different interests different collisions and different intelligences also so we could say at one level intelligence is an asset that we get right from our birth hmm but that is not all there is to it in general if we consider the hierarchy of various living beings from the amoeba of the grass and the plants through the dogs and monkeys to humans as this hierarchy moves upwards the defining difference between these various species is that all species have some inherited intelligence and all species have some acquired or learned intelligence so in the lower species the learned intelligence is very little it’s mostly inherited intelligence that’s why birds generation after generation will build the same kind of nest now when a sparrow builds a nest that requires amazing amount of human beings using some straws it will find very difficult to build the nest so they do have intelligence but more or less it is largely inherited intelligence there is some amount of experiential learning but it’s very little we humans also get a lot of inherited intelligence but we also have a large capacity for learned intelligence and this learned intelligence is what differentiates us from other species so yes we are all individuals and we all have certain kind of inherited intelligence that we have got but we also learn various things in life now ultimately everything comes from the infinite so the world comes from the infinite even our intelligence comes from the infinite but on a moment to moment basis say an alcoholic has decided that I want to give up alcohol and they decided at the pass by bar at the pass by bar something will say let’s drink once once will not say once these two voices come up now when these two voices come up depending on which one they listen to one doesn’t make a big difference you have been sober for so long you deserve a drink so as those thoughts start growing then what happens they get tired of that so at this time when we have a healthy choice and unhealthy choice the voice within us which prompts us towards the healthy choice that is the voice of our intelligence that is also the voice of the divine speaking to the intelligence voice of the infinite speaking to us through the intelligence but if we choose no I won’t drink, neglect this then after that we may use our intelligence to plan how to drink in such a way that we will not be detected one of my friend’s brother was alcoholic so he told me what all length people go to somehow drink alcohol so he had been put in an alcohol programme, there was no alcohol around him anywhere so he was quite a well to do person so once he went to once he went to somewhere for a party for a friend’s get together and he came back and there was always somebody with him so they said he was travelling back alone, he started from this car here and came back and when he came back he said it took him a long time because his car had blown up and he pushed his car over the last 100-200 yards and came and then he was completely tired and he went to sleep and that night he woke up and what he had done was along the way there was a bar so he had purchased liquor and he had emptied the fuel tank and filled that with alcohol and then he pushed the car and at night when everybody had gone to sleep he was drinking from the fuel tank so so even alcoholics have intelligence but that intelligence is used for doing something destructive that intelligence is abused for making an unhealthy choice for somehow finding a way to make an unhealthy choice so that means at one level intelligence is the capacity to choose this is good, this is bad at another level, intelligence is also the capacity to execute the choice that we make so if I have a strong desire to make an unhealthy choice then after making that choice I will execute it intelligently so that I can get away with it but that is the intelligence which works against the purpose of the intelligence the purpose of the intelligence is to make a good choice but it is the intelligence that helps us to make a bad choice and things that I can get away with it so therefore the intelligence that we have is something which can either be an inherited gift inherited characteristic or learned characteristic but which intelligence comes to us at a particular point an alcoholic may know the consequences of drinking alcohol an alcoholic may also know which ways I can still drink alcohol and get away with it now which intelligence comes up at that time that is determined by our desires the greater our desire accordingly the infinite reciprocates by giving us that intelligence so in that sense intelligence is something which we have but intelligence is not something which we can naturally access so that means the intelligence is there within me but even the intelligence to do right thing is there intelligence to do wrong thing also is there but which intelligence I get at that time that will depend on my desire and accordingly the reciprocation from a higher element so to the extent as long as we are sober as long as we are in good consciousness at that time we strive to make right choices we keep so there are times when the unwanted thoughts come forcefully come very difficult to resist at that time but as long as we are sober as long as we are watchful which is thoughtful at that time if we keep making the right choice then when the force of unwanted thoughts also comes up we will be guided to make the right choice does that answer your question? yeah you had a question? yeah okay so can science and spirituality connect are they two independent parts it depends on what we are talking about when we talk about science and what we are talking about when we talk about spirituality so the word science can be used in a technical sense it can be used in a generic sense in a technical sense as science is studied in science laboratories or as science is understood by majority of the scientists science is looking for natural explanations for natural phenomena so here natural means material you could say broadly speaking science operates on what is the principle of methodological naturalism as a methodology it will stay in the framework of nature when Newton saw the fruit falling Newton himself believed in God he famously said that oh God I think thy thoughts after thee that means he considered his scientific inventions scientific discoveries to be insights spiritual insights into the way how God had arranged for the universe to function but at the same time when he saw the fruit falling and he was asking what made the fruit fall he did not come up with the answer that time God made the fruit fall why? because he was looking for a material mechanism that would explain the fall of the fruit so science in that sense looks for natural explanations for natural phenomena now whether there is anything beyond the scope of nature that strictly speaking is not the jurisdiction of science whereas spirituality is intrinsically spirituality means we are looking for non-material spiritual and material so science by definition looks for material explanations for material phenomena whereas spirituality looks at non-material reality so in that sense science and spirituality are two different areas having said that it is not that science necessarily sticks only to natural explanations science especially when it goes to origins then it goes beyond natural explanations because when we come to origins we don’t know what happened the science magazine on its 120th anniversary published a special issue in which they had 125 questions for which science doesn’t have answers so the first question was where did the universe come from the second question was where does consciousness come from so these are fundamental questions science may give some theories which explain these but they are very tentative so in the area of origins science may point towards something but in that area of origins spirituality also talks about it because the spiritual understanding is that matter emigrates from spirit Aishwarya Ganapath would say that life comes from life so in that sense there are areas of intersection where science and spirituality do come together in today’s world especially at the level of the mind there is physical matter and there is spirit the mind is the intersection between the two so we can perceive the effects of spiritual practises not necessarily at a physical level but at a mental level by mantra meditation it is not that my muscles will become stronger but my thoughts will become calmer and today if we consider the spiritual is here the physical is here science studies primarily the physical and spirituality talks about the spiritual but the mind is the borderline between the two so as science is going in the direction of neuroscience for example where we study the brain and there is brain imaging that is done so there are a lot of studies that have been done which show that meditation, mindfulness mantra meditation all these bring about healthy changes in the brain states there have been studies which show that people who meditate regularly their brain actually changes even structurally in a healthier way so that indicates that in this particular area of neuroscience if it is understood if it is studied in a holistic way then that is where we can’t directly prove spiritual truths but the effect of spiritual practises can be experienced and the spiritual realm itself is beyond science but that doesn’t mean the spiritual realm is unscientific it is trans-scientific but although it is trans-scientific its effects can be experienced so the effects in terms of the presence of consciousness and the transformation of consciousness by spiritual practises that can even be quantifiably measured and one of the tests of science is repeatability so in meditation it is known that repeatedly people from different backgrounds if they conduct if they practise participatory meditation their brain states change for the better so these are some areas where we can have science pointing towards spirituality answer your question? yes I was just trying to think out loud how you mentioned about the spiritual side of it and the physical side of it and earlier you mentioned about we being an observer we make choices between the thoughts so I suppose we being an observer meaning that we take the position of a spirit soul and we understand that spirit soul is in a higher realm than physical realm that we have and I guess the point is that we know that as a spirit soul we don’t change we have much more capacity but then here we see that we get caught up to the mind like you know it gets our thinking process gets caught up to the mind so does it mean that like being a spirit soul soul doesn’t change but the consciousness is changed because of the mind or it’s influenced by the mind so what is more powerful mind or ok good question so if the soul is higher than the mind then how does the soul’s consciousness change because of the mind the soul is higher in identity but in its current level of experience current level of awareness it has forgotten its higher situation so as an example if we have a, this is a tube light so from the tube light, light is coming out now if around this tube light we put a red glass the light that would come out would be red the tube light itself is unchanged but the light coming out from it gets changed so the soul is like the source of the light, like the tube light and the energy coming out from the soul is its consciousness the consciousness is like the light coming out now when the consciousness comes out from the soul that is filtered through the mind and the body and depending on what is present in the mind and the body accordingly you could say the colour of the consciousness changes and the colour of the light changes so all souls are intrinsically pure but in a particular soul there may be in the mind there will be lots of impressions about cricket so then the consciousness is the same but when the consciousness comes out ok, where can I play cricket where can I watch a cricket match now who are the other people who are interested in cricket somebody is alcoholic according to them so the soul’s consciousness gets streamed out through the body-mind mechanism and when it is streamed out it gets affected accordingly now in this case whereas the bulb remains the light source remains as it is simply the light coming out from it changes in our case also the soul itself remains unchanged however because we are so caught in the outer world that’s why we identify ourselves not as a soul but as what the soul’s consciousness is streaming and just for example we may identify ourselves as sports fans, cricket fans as alcoholics or at a more non-destructive level I am an engineer, I am a male I am a female these are all the soul is not made of female but when the soul’s consciousness is radiating out through a particular body-mind machine then it is shaped accordingly and the whole process of spirituality is to reverse this contamination once the contamination is reversed that doesn’t mean that say if a soul is in a male body or a female body the body remains the same and the soul will be aware I am a male body the soul is also aware of one’s own spirituality that means having the body-mind alone is not the problem it is identifying with the body-mind that is the problem so as we grow spiritually we acknowledge the kind of body-mind we have but we also acknowledge our distinct identity beyond the body-mind complex did I answer the question? so that means we still live with that situation we function accordingly but for a higher purpose that means that once we understand our life’s purpose is spiritual growth then we will use the body-mind machine for that purpose so if that means that we were born in a particular country then we will be speaking that language we will be speaking that accent we will be liking that kind of food but we will spiritualise it all spirituality is not just about the actions that we do it is about the purpose that we pursue so if somebody has a musical intelligence somebody has a linguistic intelligence when they become spiritual it is not that a person with musical intelligence will suddenly develop linguistic intelligence or a person with linguistic intelligence will develop a musical intelligence whatever the intelligence they have is the same but they will use it for spiritual purpose whereas in the past the person may have been using music to just fill one’s consciousness with sensuality materialism now they use music to hear spiritual music to take spiritual music and to spiritualise their consciousness does that answer your question? okay just a comment I was thinking about well our thoughts and then how sometimes for me personally I can start to voice those thoughts whether it is to myself I was thinking sometimes dangerous situation because my partner on light reminds me, you don’t have to tell me everything you are thinking it becomes habit isn’t it? you have to okay so sometimes we get some thoughts and then we voice them and then some there is no need to voice them yeah actually I think this is two different things over here one is that all of us are of particular nature and some people are more effusive they just speak a lot some people are more reserved some people you have to tell them stop speaking and some people speak something so all of us are of different natures and we can’t entirely change our natures but at the same time whatever our nature we need to direct it towards our spiritual purpose so that would mean at one level regulating it also to some extent but the principle is not just regulation the principle is direction so somebody who is reserved they don’t like to talk so much when they talk if they are thoughtful they will speak very wisely because they have thought a lot somebody who is talkative they like to talk a lot if they are also spiritual they will talk a lot they will talk about spiritual subjects so it’s true that we don’t have to voice all our thoughts now sometimes if a thought is coming and we have a need to voice it we can voice it to ourselves we can journal it when we are alone and if that’s a need for us we can do it that way the important thing is that we don’t give inordinate attention to any and every thought that passes by for some people it is that the thoughts which they come in when you verbalise it it’s over, finished for some people when you verbalise it, it goes further so each one of us has to see what exactly is happening for us suppose some trivial thought came in our mind and then we spoke it and we got rid of it but we may speak it and then that may stick in somebody else’s mind oh you think like this and then so we got rid of the thought but they stuck with the thought so then for us that means we all need to process our thoughts and how best we process them whether it is that verbalise it and get it over or just internally neglect it and get it over or journal it and get it over each of us has to learn how to process our thoughts and not all thoughts can be processed in the same way sometimes if something has happened and we feel very excited about it or we feel very agitated about it now for somebody else it may be a small thing but for us it may be a big thing that we need someone to speak it to but we need the right person somebody who has the same similar understanding, similar life, similar attitude then we will understand it better and so basically we need to process our thoughts in a way that is healthy for us that helps us to deal with them but at the same time we need to process our thoughts in a way that is not unhealthy for us so for me if there is anger within me and expressing that anger will be good for me it gets out of my system but expressing that anger in the presence of someone else may be bad for them because it goes into their system so then I have to find a way to process my anger in a healthy way there is one senior devotee who told me that he has written a cupboard full of journals and he said that that’s how through the journal I process my anger and he said that he has written in his will that when he dies all his journals should be burnt why? because there is all that anger within he doesn’t want others to know about it so we need to find out how we can process our thoughts the best but we have to process it in such a way that it doesn’t adversely affect others thank you so thank you very much for your attention and participation Hare Krishna