Bringing out the best within us

[Session 3, Spiritual Seekers Retreat, Chicago, USA]

And I spoke in the last session about how to make better choices I spoke about how our past conditions, our past choices become like our impressions and they become our propositions. And therefore, if you want to change some behaviour so that we can make better choices, it is not just a matter of willpower.
If the floor is inclined in a particular way, it will require restriction, redirection and reconstruction. So, in this last session now, we will bring it all together. This is about bring out the best in you.
So, I mentioned briefly that how there is for reconstruction, we need to have an inner change that is purification. And that happens through the connection of the finite consciousness with the infinite consciousness. Infinite is all pure.
So, bring out the best in you. This can have multiple aspects to it. One is the body, there is the mind and there is the soul.
The mind is where the positive impressions and the negative impressions are present. And beyond them is the soul, which is a part of the whole. The whole, the infinite.
Now, the soul’s energy, the soul’s ability, the soul’s potential can be expressed outwards. And that is one aspect of bring out the best within. Along with that, inside us, the Bhagavad Gita explains that not only is the soul there, but there is also an aspect of the infinite, manifesting of the infinite is called as the super soul.
Super soul, you could say that is the presence of the divine within. Now, in science, in arts, especially those which are field changing breakthroughs that have happened, they happen not so much through conscious, logical, linear analysis as through sudden moments of inspiration. So, if you consider the finding of, we all know the story of Archimedes, how he was bathing and suddenly at that time he got the insight.
He was trying to find out how do we determine the purity of a particular sample of gold. So, he said, he was trying to determine, determine and he was just not getting an idea. And suddenly while he was bathing he got an idea and he was so excited that he forgot the fact that he was unclothed.
He just ran out from his bathing room, out to his house, through the passage, through the streets, right to the court and he told the king who had asked him. I found a way. He said, what happened to you? You never come in that condition to the court.
And that’s when he realised. So, he had been gripped by the delight, by the joy of that, that insight. He forgot everything else.
So, when we talk about inspiration, there are, that is a very dramatic example of it thousands of years ago. But at a smaller level, we all experience it also. Now, in the study of electrical engineering, electricity, there was a scientist, Gauss, who developed some very significant insights about how electricity flows and how electrical engineering works, made some mathematical laws, postulated it.
Now, at his time, there was no proof of these available. He just got those. This is how it works.
And now in maths, we need to have some linear step-by-step proof. He didn’t have that. Nobody had that.
But those equations worked. And scientists at his time, in his country and in Europe, so all over the world practically, scientists started using those equations. And after he died, several decades after that, the mathematical proof for that was worked out.
So, here, when he was asked, how did you get this? So, he said, just the answer came within me. And he attributed it to the divine, to some higher power gave it to me. Now, this inspiration refers to the appearance of an idea fully formed inside us, which comes independent of our effort that we may have put.
Similar in music, in art, in writing. We all may experience that we do put in our effort. And our logical step-by-step analysis, if we do, okay, this sentence, it works like this, good.
This doesn’t work like this so well. We’ll change this word over here. We’ll move this word over here.
Like that, we can move by mechanical step-by-step. But sometimes a full idea comes. This is how it is.
And if we went by mechanical linear process, it would take a long, long time. Dr. Richard L. Thompson is a researcher from Cornell Institute, Mathematician of Cornell, and he did a probability study. If we go, when people get some inspiration, especially some life-defining or field-changing inspiration, then if we go by linear step-by-step, like in mathematics, when you multiply some numbers, you go linearly, multiply this number by this number, carry over this digit over here, multiply this by this, like that, if we do, he showed that even if we have the whole brain involved, the linear, the sheer number of steps involved in mechanical reasoning from one point to another to another, till they get to the conclusion, they are so much that they just can’t happen in one moment.
And most of the time that people get inspiration, it is not even when they are consciously trying to figure things out. This background, something else they are doing, they are doing something in the background, this thought comes, it suddenly pops up in their mind. So inspiration is, in some ways, the voice of the divine speaking to us.
The sublime insights that sometimes we get, not all the voices inside are the divine voices, obviously. There can be quite negative voices also. But there are times when sudden flashes of insight come up.
This points to some higher presence within us. One of the most prominent mathematicians, not in terms of mathematical, abstract mathematics, but in terms of sheer mathematical number processing. There was a lady in India named Shakuntala Devi.
And she could just, you ask her to multiply 13-digit numbers. I could see interviews on TVs. The questioner would have to enter the 13-digit numbers into a calculator.
And before the questioner would complete entering the numbers, she would have the answer. And when she was asked, where did you get that answer? Because the calculator also has to take some time to process, to calculate. She said, I just look inside and get the answer.
So how does this happen? There is a higher intelligence that is ultimately guiding our ways. And this we see in the natural world also. If we see the migration of birds, it’s one of the astonishing phenomena that we see in nature.
Sometimes birds migrate from one continent to another. And they go thousands and thousands of miles. And a bird may be staying on one tree.
It migrates across to another continent. Say it goes from Europe to America. And then it dies.
And its offspring, then as the season changes, it migrates back from America to Europe. And it comes back to Europe, its offspring settles down in the same tree on which their ancestors lived. How do they even know that this was the tree on which they lived? Now we may say that it’s because of genes.
The genes are passed on. But genes are hereditary. How do the genes contain the information of where a particular bird was staying? And even if we could find out some explanation in terms of genes, the principle here is that genes are basically like a computer programme.
Say we ask a computer, what is the sum of, what is the product of two numbers? Now when we ask it, there is a computer programme which analyses that and gives an answer. So even if you could find a precise computer programme which is doing that, that is just a name. So there is a calculator function in the computer which does it.
But where did the calculator function come from? So even if we look for a biological mechanism, which explains things, where did the biological mechanism come from? The point which I am driving through all this is that there is a higher intelligence which exists within us and which shapes the broader world outside us. And that intelligence has a bigger plan for all of us. So we are all a part of something bigger than ourselves.
When we are flying in a plane, at that time we have the responsibility to make sure that we reach on time, that we take our boarding pass, we take our ID proof with us. But when we are getting into a plane, how many of us worry? Is there enough fuel in the plane? Has the pilot drunk alcohol? Is the pilot sober? We don’t. Now we understand that when we enter into a plane, there is a higher arrangement which will take care of these things.
If we do our part in the plane, get into the plane in time, with the required ID proof, there is an arrangement which will take care of other things. So we play our part. We are parts in that whole system of the plane flying.
The part needs to play the part of the part. And the whole will take care of the whole. So just as there is a whole system which will make sure that the plane reaches its destination, similarly for us, we talked earlier about how there are some factors in our control, some beyond our control.
Sometimes these factors beyond our control seem to work favourably, sometimes they seem to work unfavourably. But overall, however they are working, there is a bigger plan. And that plan is ultimately meant for our spiritual evolution, for our evolving towards higher understanding, ultimately our evolving towards eternity.
We all long for eternal life and for eternal love. We want to live forever and we want to love forever. And that longing is fulfilled at the spiritual level, where as souls we are eternal, the finite consciousness is eternal and the infinite consciousness is also eternal.
And the bond between the two is also eternal. And we are all meant to evolve towards that. And during the course of our lives, whatever is happening, it’s ultimately intended to promote that spiritual evolution.
And that spiritual evolution, of course, requires our cooperation, our participation. Just like in a plane, we need to go and sit in the plane. The plane will move to the destination, but if we are not there in time, the plane will go, we won’t go with the plane to the destination.
So our part is also important in it. And with this understanding, there is a higher plan Now that plan, sometimes we can gain some glimpse of it by our analysis, during moments of insight, sometimes we don’t get any glimpse of it. But when we, so there are things which are in our control, things not in our control.
The spiritual understanding of things helps us to see that things beyond our control are not out of control. They are under some higher control. So we’ll give you an example of ocean, which waves come when, the waves just appear arbitrary.
Sometimes one stormy wave comes here, sometimes another stormy wave comes in that direction, sometimes some smooth waves come. The ocean simply appears arbitrary. But with respect to life, life is not arbitrary.
Although it may appear sometimes like that to us. And there is a higher plan. And if we just play our part, even if there are bad things that happen, the bad will eventually lead to something good.
Ultimately, it’s not necessary that every single thing that happens in our life, we need to analyse it, weigh it and figure out how it is for the good. It’s more important is that we move forwards in our life. There are, when a person is in the ocean, now which wave is coming from where and why a wave is coming, that’s very difficult to know.
Sometimes if we have some understanding of meteorological science, we may understand, okay, there was this disturbance in water pressure over here, that’s why these waves are coming so forcefully over here. Oh, there was that hurricane over there, that’s why these waves are coming so far. So forcefully, that we can understand sometimes.
But more important than understanding each particular wave and why it is coming, more important than that is to move onwards towards our destination. So to bring out the best within ultimately means not just to understand our talents and to bring out those talents, also means that there is a presence of the divine within us. And when we connect with that divine through the process of devotion, through the devotion connection, through Bhakti Yoga, then that connection gives us access to a power far greater than our own power.
Our power is finite but the divine’s power is infinite. And to the extent we connect with that power, to that extent we can persevere no matter what happens. In the previous session I talked about being purpose driven rather than being goal driven.
When we all have certain goals in our life, it’s not that we can live without goals, we live in a competitive society and there are some objective parameters by which we are all evaluated. So we do have to achieve certain goals. And sometimes if the goals are not achieved that does create some problems.
But if we understand that there is an overall purpose to my life, then we can keep doing our best even when the result does not seem to be coming immediately. Let me give you two examples to illustrate this. Suppose a mother is taking two kids to a circus, to an amusement park, where they are going to have a lot of fun and it’s a two hour ride.
And two kids are sitting near the two windows of the car and looking out. And one kid is constantly asking, Are we there? Are we there? Are we there? And that kid wants to ride in the giant wheel and go around and have fun at that amusement place. But are we there? Are we there? Just impatient, waiting, waiting, waiting.
And the other kid sits near the window and enjoys the ride. Hey, that river is so beautiful. That garden looks so nice.
The sunrise is so good. Now both of them are going along the journey. But one of them is only thinking of the destination.
And somehow, suppose something goes wrong and after an hour’s drive, there is too tight traffic or the road has broken because of some storm or whatever, and they’re not able to get to the destination. For the first boy, the whole trip will be simply miserable. We just didn’t get there.
For the second, we went along the ride and okay, the destination would have been good, but the ride was also nice. So if one is focused only on the destination, then we miss on the ride. We miss on the joy of observing and enjoying and appreciating the ride itself.
So two don’t have to be contradictory. It’s not that to get to the destination we have to stop appreciating the ride and it’s not that to appreciate the ride we have to stop ourselves from getting to the destination. Both can go together.
So when we understand that there is a higher plan to life, then we don’t get fixated on particular goals alone. We strive for those goals, but even if those goals are not achieved, we understand the journey itself is fruitful. Through that journey, we are evolving.
Through that journey, we are growing. And that growth will contribute to our overall well-being. Even if the specific goal that we set, that is not achieved.
The fixation with the goals can not only distract us from enjoying the process, but the fixation with the goals can also dishearten us if somehow we are not able to get the result. If we don’t get the result, if we are not able to reach the goal, then we can’t enjoy the ride and we can’t even get to the result. So we lose in both ways.
So for us in life, if we see that every moment is an opportunity for evolution, for growing positively, then whatever negativities we may face in our life, it’s okay. They will come, they will be there, but we can grow through them. So bringing out the best within requires, certainly we need to have some targets in our life, but we can’t be so fixated on the targets that we become blind to everything else.
We need to actually relish the journey also. And the journey will take us to the destination. Even if not particular to the destination that we wanted, it will take us to some other, maybe even a better destination.
So the second point related with this is that when we look at our future, when we think of what is the best for me in the future, we look at the present and we plan the future. But there is a higher plan which works for us. There is the divine plan, and the divine plan often looks at the future and plans the present.
We look at the present and plan the future. The divine looks at the future and plans the present. That means that sometimes something which may seem to be pointless and planless for us from our perspective may be a bigger plan which we are not able to see right now.
Suppose a child is sick. Suppose a child is having some pain in the stomach and the child goes to a doctor. The child is thinking simply, let the doctor give some medicine and I’ll be cured.
And I’ll be free from this whole pain. But the doctor says, you’ve got some appendix issue. You have to do a surgery to remove the appendix.
Now, when the doctor does a surgery, actually the pain for the child increases. The child simply had a little pain in the stomach, but now when the surgery is done, the pain is much more. During and after the surgery, even if pain medication is there, still some pain is there.
Now the child may say, actually going to the doctor increased my pain. Now the doctor is seeing the future. Right now you have a little pain, but in the future this pain will become much more.
So looking at the future and planning the present. Doctor wants to avoid the future complication. So that understanding we have that there is a future plan, that there is a divine plan and that plan doesn’t just look at the present.
It includes the present, but from the present we may not have a holistic perspective of things. Then we can just be patient. Just let things flow and eventually things will emerge.
Eventually something positive will emerge through it. So one aspect of the divine plan. As I said there are two aspects, the things in our control and things not in our control.
When things beyond our control are working in a particular way, if you understand there is a divine plan, then we can appreciate the journey without fixating on the destination. And even if you are missing the destination, still we can understand that there is a better plan by which we will get to the destination. May be some other better destination.
There is the other aspect when we are functioning in life. So bring out the best means, if there is a higher plan working, let it work so that the best will come out. But we also have to play our part.
In playing our part, you asked the question that when do we understand that this is destiny and let me just leave it. So when should we endeavour and when should we just let go. So I use a three point analysis for this.
I call it TME. Tolerate, Mitigate or Immigrate. Tolerate, Mitigate or Immigrate.
Say if we are living in an extremely cold place and in that cold place we find the cold very very difficult to live with. Now I just came from Australia. It is winter over there.
So Melbourne, Sydney, Wellington, it is freezing. Perth at least it was better. And I came to Chicago, it’s summer over here.
So now if somebody is in the winter, if somebody is in a place which is extremely cold, then if that’s where the job is, that’s where their family is, they have to learn to tolerate. Just tolerate and live with it. Now some people can tolerate, some people just can’t.
So tolerate refers to inward change. So that there is more of acceptance. But sometimes when it is not possible to tolerate and there is too much discomfort, too much complications coming because of the cold, then one outward change could be mitigate.
We make sure that we have lots of warm clothes with us, we make sure there is proper heating in our cars, in our homes, in our offices and we mitigate the situation. And by mitigation we can be in a place where we can function better. And sometimes mitigation may also not work.
When mitigation doesn’t work, at that time the third option is emigrate. I can’t work at this place, let me move to some other place. I take a job at another place, I move my family, whatever is required I do that.
So one external changes, there itself changes the situation. Another external changes, move to another situation. So going back to the first session where I talked about some people think everything is in my control and some people think nothing is in my control.
So the eastern traditions often focus more on internal change and their stress is on tolerance. Just tolerate, tolerate, tolerate. The western world view focusses more on change, change the externals, mitigate.
If you can’t mitigate it, emigrate from there. It’s not that one is right and other is wrong. Any approach taken to extremes is a problem.
So how do we decide when to tolerate, when to mitigate, when to emigrate? It is purpose that provides perspective. It is purpose that provides perspective. If we understand through introspection, through contemplation, what is our life’s driving purpose? Then in the light of that purpose, we can evaluate.
Can I tolerate this or do I need to mitigate this or do I need to emigrate from this? A simple example to illustrate this. Say if we are travelling in a train. Now I believe the trains in America are quite comfortable.
Here in India and cities like Mumbai, the train with the capacity of 50 people and there are 250 people cram in that train. And when there are 250 people in the train, suppose we are moving in that train and we are standing, there is no place to sit also. And we are standing and some other person comes along, stand next to us and that person is like a bully, starts pushing, starts pushing us.
How dare you push me? I’ll show you my strength. I’ll push you back. And we push them back.
And they push us back. And we push them back. And we get so caught in pushing them and resisting their pushes that our station comes and goes and they are still pushing.
That is ridiculous. Because our purpose in the train is not just to fight for that space. Our purpose is to get to the station, get to our destination.
Now, if that purpose is clear, I don’t want to get involved with this person. You want to push me. And we just move away from there, stand somewhere else and wait till we get to the station.
So tolerance means to keep small things small so that we can focus on the big things. To bring out the best within us, we all need to be very careful about which battles we choose to fight and which battles we let go. There are many things which will be wrong around us, which will be wrong within us also, the circumstances around us, even with our own personality, many things which we could work on for improving.
But we need to choose our battles. Our time, our energy, it’s all finite. And we need to choose, what is my priority? For fulfilling my purpose in life, what is it that will help me the best? What is it that is most important for me? And with that purpose in mind, we get the perspective.
This, I can put, it doesn’t matter so much. I can bear this. And I can move on.
So, if in the train somebody is pushing us, okay, it doesn’t matter. But, if somebody starts pushing us, not just within the train, but somebody starts pushing us out of the train. If they push us out of the train, then, that’s the time we can’t tolerate.
Because that will mean that we are, we won’t be allowed to get to our destination itself. Our purpose, whatever we are doing, whatever the important purpose why we are doing something, if that itself is impeded, then tolerance will be, tolerance will be importance, tolerance will be destructive for our purpose. So, at that time, we may need to mitigate, we may need to push back, we may need to take a stand, maybe complain to some authority.
So, we may have to mitigate. And if there is no one over there, we might just decide to immigrate. Okay, we are just, the train stops at some intermediate destination, we get down, we go to some other bogie, some other part of the place.
And we move on to the destination. We might just decide to go to some other train also. Immigrate is also an option.
So, in the light of our purpose in life, we can face, we can channel our energies most effectively. Whatever is in our control, that we want, we are right now talking about that, how to shape that effectively. That is our control, outside our control, as I said, there is a higher plan.
And we, rather than obsessing, just accept the journey and move on. But with respect to what is in our control, whether to tolerate, to mitigate or immigrate, these three options, one of them we have to choose. And for that, our purpose is most important.
To the extent we have our purpose clear, to that extent, we will be able to decide. Suppose, say, many students come from India, China, other parts of the world to America to do their studies. And when they are studying here, the weather may be different, the social culture may be different, the language, the accent may be different, the food may be different.
And now to adapt to all this is not easy. So, when they are trying to do this, at that time they have to tolerate. So, the purpose is, I want to study, I want to have a good career.
And studying here is going to help me do that. So, if that purpose is clear, I want to have a good career, and this studying over here is going to help me in that, then that purpose helps us to see this in perspective. These are inconveniences, but I can live with them.
It is not that I have to live with them forever. I will get used to this, I will create my own space, and I will move on. So, this three point, and I will explain a few more minutes, and then we can do a thought exercise once again, like we did in our previous sessions.
This three point framework, that tolerate, mitigate or immigrate. Now, we can do this, each of these we can do with a positive attitude, or we can do with a negative attitude. The positive and negative attitudes refer here, not just to simply optimism and pessimism.
There is something deeper going on here. I mentioned earlier that, there is a connection between the finite consciousness and infinite consciousness. That connection is a connection of loving service, of service.
So, through every situation, if we have a mood of serving and contributing, how can I grow in this situation? How can I optimise my contribution in this situation? Then, I earlier mentioned about a river flowing towards an ocean. The river has many drops of water in it, many channels, lots of water going through it. It may be flowing through different channels, this channel, this channel, this channel.
We focus on going to the destination. Whichever channel works, we take that channel and move on. So, if we tolerate with a resentful attitude.
This person is such a pain, but I can’t do anything. I am powerless. So, I tolerate.
So, we can tolerate resentfully. And when we tolerate resentfully, all that negativity will be there within us. And sooner or later, it will erupt.
And often, the problem with pent-up negativity, pent-up emotion, is that when it erupts, it erupts indiscriminately. That means, sometimes you may ask someone, a family member, can you just take the trash outside? And suddenly they explode. You are always nagging me, you find so many faults, you do like this, like that.
What did I do? I just made a simple request. For them, maybe they had a bad day, 10 bad things happened in their life on that day. And all the negativity there is choking it inside.
And our small request was like, it opened the lid of that negativity. And everything came out. So, when that happens, if we are tolerating in a resentful mood, then we won’t grow by that.
It is just, we can tolerate resentfully, or we can tolerate purposefully. Like say, if somebody is pushing us in the train, and you think, this person is bigger than me, I can’t do anything, so I tolerate. Then, we feel resentful still.
And even if we move aside and get to the destination, if I have to go for an important meeting, then also we will be thinking, why was this person like this? Next time, I will teach this person a lesson. So, we will still be emotionally consumed by that person. And we may get to our important meeting, we will be physically there, but mentally we will not be there.
So, there is, we could tolerate resentfully, or we can tolerate purposefully. If you keep the focus on the purpose, okay, during the course of our life, sometimes bad things happen, sometimes good things happen. The important thing is, I have to move towards my purpose.
Similarly, we can mitigate in a purposeful way, or we can mitigate in a revengeful way. When we act, when we tolerate without doing anything, and we do it with a negative attitude, that is resentful. When we mitigate, again without a positive attitude, it’s revengeful.
You did this to me, so I will do this to you. So, this kind of revengefulness. Sometimes some people have done something wrong, and we need to correct that wrong.
But if we do it in a vengeful attitude, then again we get emotionally consumed by it. Remember I talked earlier about how there are emotions which are shaped not just by our situations, but also by our conceptions. So here, what we are talking about is keeping our emotional energy free, keeping our emotional energy unlocked, so that it is available for the most important things in our life.
That is how we will be able to bring out our best. So we can mitigate either in a revengeful way, or again we can mitigate in a purposeful way. That means, okay, this person was pushing me, we complained to some authority, we report to that person, and then, once that person has reported, okay, this person was acting in an inappropriate way, in a disruptive way, we reported that person, and we move on with our life.
But otherwise, if our mood is to mitigate in a revengeful way, it will be emotionally consumed. When will this person suffer for what they have done? And we will be suffering till they get their suffering. But in that process, actually, we will hurt more.
So that revengeful attitude is again going to obstruct us in our purposefulness. And lastly, we can immigrate. We can immigrate also in a purposeful way, purposeful attitude, or we can immigrate in a fretful attitude.
Fretfully means, oh no, why does this happen to me all the time? So we can walk away from a situation, or we can run away from a situation. When we walk away from a situation, that means that maybe I could have dealt with it, but I have better things to do in my life. My life is meant for more important things.
I’m not going to get involved in this person. I’m not going to get involved in this situation. And we move on because we have a bigger purpose.
But when we run away from a situation, that is fretfully, fearfully, that is, oh, this person is such a terrible person. They’re creating so much trouble for me. Ah, this person has more power than me.
I’m helpless over here. Better let me go away from here. When we move away fretfully from a situation, or fearfully from a situation, then again we are emotionally consumed by that situation.
Our emotions are still locked in that situation. And we are not free. Although we are moved away, still we are caught.
Still we are caught in that situation. And we will prevent ourselves from moving on in our life. So when we emigrate, we emigrate purposefully, not fretfully.
I have a better thing to do in my life. Now this tolerate, mitigate, and emigrate, we can apply to some relationship in our life, we can apply to some professional situation in our life, to various practical aspects of our life, we can apply the dynamic. And each choice brings with it certain opportunity and certain limitation.
If we are going to tolerate and we demand freedom from that person, it’s not going to work. Tolerate means we will have to work within that limited framework. But if we emigrate, we may have to start afresh.
So that also may give us the freedom of starting afresh, but that also means that what was done in the past, that will not be immediately available for us. So if we understand clearly each choice and its consequences, then we can purposefully choose and move on. And it is in this sense that we can create our destiny.
That by destiny when we put in some situation, and can we change that situation, can we change ourselves to be at that situation, or can we just relocate ourselves to go to some other situation. All these are options available for us. And it is for us to choose which option works the best for us.
And as I mentioned earlier, life doesn’t come with guarantees of the right course of action. Sometimes we make the right decision, and sometimes we make the decision right. That means we take a decision, this was not the best decision, but okay, I do course correction and then I move on after that.
So this point about making the decision right, I will elaborate after a few minutes, but here let’s have a thought exercise. You can look at some situation in your life, and think of some negative situation, some frustrating situation, some situation where you need to make a decision. And you can see if you can apply this tolerate, mitigate, immigrate, this dynamic, this analytical framework.
And you didn’t have to make a decision immediately. But this kind of analysis will give you a framework that will bring clarity. Okay, these are the options available for you.
And these options imply these consequences. And then let me choose, let me move on. So we can have about five minutes, and you can contemplate some situation in your life, which involves some difficulty.
And how you can, it involves some decision making which you have to do. So do you tolerate it? Do you mitigate it? Or do you migrate? You could also, if you’re not able to think of, in a situation that you’re facing right now, you could look back at a situation in your life, and think of how you chose in a particular situation, a particular course of action. And what was that? Did you choose to tolerate, mitigate, or immigrate? Could you have done anything else in that situation? So we can have about three minutes now, and we can discuss thereafter.
Thank you. So I think there is a post-lunch lethargy that is there for all of us. So maybe this is not the best time for thinking deeply.
So I’ll conclude this discussion in a couple of points. And if you have some questions we can discuss, or we can, I’ll draw home what I discussed in the four sessions. So I talked about this point of making the right decision, or making the decision right.
Sometimes we may obsess so much, should I do this or should I do that? And we just get caught in paralysis by analysis. We don’t move forward at all. So we just have to move forward in life, take some decision.
Say if we are, again, if we take a wrong decision, there is a higher plan which can guide us forwards from that wrong decision towards a better course also. Say if we are travelling from place A to place B, and using Google Maps to go. And Google Maps tells us at this intersection turn right.
And somehow we turn left at that time. So when we turn left, that’s a wrong turn. But what does Google Maps do at that time? It recalibrates, it reroutes.
And then it directs us, okay, from here you take this turn. Now it says okay, you move straight and then you turn right. Again, if you turn left.
Again, what does Google Maps do? Again, it reroutes. So no matter how many wrong turns we may take, Google Maps can still reroute and show us a way to our destination. Now, of course, each wrong turn will have a consequence.
We may go further away and getting to our destination may take more time because of all the wrong turns that we have taken. But still we can get to the destination. No matter how many wrong turns we have taken, there is a path to the destination from wherever we may be.
For some of us, it may be that we look at our past and we find that we made some mistakes in the past. We made some wrong turns. And sometimes we get so consumed by guilt and negativity, we start beating ourselves up.
Why did I make that decision? Why did I make that mistake? Why did I make that mistake? And that disempowers us. So if you understand, okay, what has happened in the past, that is not in my control. But from where I am, I can move forwards.
I can move forwards from where I am and a path will emerge. So if rather than looking at the past and looking at the mistakes of the past, we focus on our purpose from the present and move onwards in that purpose, then we can get to the destination. So sometimes we can make the right decision.
And sometimes if we find the decision is not right, then we reroute from where we are and make the decision right. Life is, we don’t have to catastrophise any particular situation or particular decision. Rather than catastrophising it, we contextualise it.
Life is not like a 100-metre sprint that we win or we lose. It’s like a 100-mile marathon. Even if in one leg we fall back, we can make up, we can make ground in the previous runs.
So when we have this long-term vision of life, even if there is a wrong turn, we can always take a right turn back and come back on track. So ultimately making our destiny, bringing out the best within us means that we, I’ll summarise this, integrate what I spoke in this particular session now, that when we are to bring out our best, that means there are two parts to it. Whatever is in our control, we do the best within that.
And whatever is not in our control, we leave the rest to the higher arrangement. And the first half of the session, I talked about leaving our understanding how there is a higher plan. I talked about our inspiration is the, is some insight coming from within which doesn’t come by our linear logical step-by-step processing.
It’s as if the answer arrives readily formed from within. That is a higher intelligence that is within and that is acting. And there is a higher plan to life also.
Talked about when we enter into a plane, we have to just do our part of getting the ticket, getting the boarding pass, getting the ID proof and making sure that everything else in the plane is taken care of. That’s not our part. So there is a higher plan and that higher plan will work on the things that are not in our control.
So we let go of those things. Even if sometimes we are going towards the destination and we are not reaching the destination, still there is some other way by which you can get to the destination or you can get to some better destination. We focus on just appreciating the ride itself.
Like the child who is obsessing on getting to the destination, getting to the amusement park and can’t get, the child’s ride is still vain. But a child who agrees to enjoy the ride, the child has a good time on the ride, even if they don’t get to the destination. Then as far as what is in our control, therein I discussed about the situation that are in our control, we want to bring out our best within.
That means that rather than we, so the best within is not just, our mind is that is positive and negatives and beyond that there is a soul and beyond that there is a supreme soul. So life is a spiritual evolution wherein the soul, the finite consciousness connects with the infinite consciousness and that connection happens through devotion, through a mood of loving contribution. So whatever situation we are in, we have a bigger purpose for our life and if we can keep that purpose in mind, then the situation that we are facing, we can choose how to deal with it, tolerate, mitigate or immigrate.
Tolerance doesn’t mean passivity, it means keeping small things small so that we can focus on the big things. Like a person is pushing us in a train, we don’t keep pushing back and miss our destination, we move aside so that we can get to our destination. Tolerance can be done either in a resentful way or in a purposeful way.
Mitigate means we change the external situation. That can be done in a vengeful way or again that can be done in a purposeful way. And immigrate can be done again in a purposeful way or in a fretful way.
When our purpose provides us perspective, then we can make the best choice within the particular situation we are in and move forwards. So sometimes we make the right decision and sometimes we may need to make the decision right. So okay, I went that way, but now how can I make the best out of it? I talked about how Google keeps rerouting us even if we take wrong turns.
So like that, even if we have taken some wrong turns in our life in the past, rather than resenting them or rather than lamenting about them, we just focus on our purpose right now and we’ll be guided forwards. And in that way, when we keep working, we will be able to overcome the negativity that is there within us and bring out our positivity and our spirituality. And thus, we’ll be able to bring out the best within.
Thank you very much. Jai Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? That’s true.
Yeah. Maybe we could just… You want to make some announcements?