Inner Change – 3 reasons why changing ourselves is tough and 6 ways to make it easier

[Talk at University of Maryland, Washington DC, USA]

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
And I’ll speak on this topic of inner change. So, just about 10 days ago, I was in Silicon Valley and I spoke at Stanford on a similar topic.
And all of us have at some time or the other felt that we want to become a better person, a better student, better professional, better family member. We all have felt at some time or the other we want to change ourselves. Is there anyone who feels that the way I am right now is completely perfect? Yes, there is a lot right about us and there is also a lot that needs to be fixed.
No. Broadly speaking, you could say there are two kinds of people in the world. Some people are wise and some are otherwise.
So, it’s not just that there are two kinds of people. We ourselves oscillate between being sometimes wise and sometimes what? Otherwise. Sometimes we make a resolution.
Maybe I am going to be, I am going to wake up early in the morning, I am going to go more disciplined about my studies, about my spiritual practises, about my diet, about my exercise, whatever. We decide I am going to be a new me. And at that time you have all kinds of good plans, good thoughts and there is a new me for a few days.
And after that, while the new me is not looking, the old me suddenly comes back. And you find out what’s happened. Last year I had I was invited to have a TV talk show on new year resolutions.
That time I did some study. Around 90% of people’s new year resolutions are not new. We made this resolution the previous year and somehow we couldn’t stick to them.
And that’s why this new year we hope to be able to stick to them. So today’s topic will be on this. We all want to at some time or the other feel that I should change myself for the better.
But it seems that these efforts get sabotaged. So why does this happen? And what can we do about it? So I will talk this in four parts. The whole talk will be centred on this diagram.
The world, the mind, the worldly objects, the sense objects. And then the process of bhakti yoga. The process of spirituality which can empower us to transform ourselves.
So when we do something which we decide I won’t do. Say I won’t waste time surfing on the net. I won’t waste hours and hours chit-chatting on social media.
So many things we decide I won’t do but we do it. So why does that happen? We might say this is just sometimes we might beat ourselves up saying that I have no willpower. But it’s not as simple as that.
If somebody says I have no determination. I have no willpower. But actually suppose somebody says sleeps a lot and doesn’t wake up in the morning.
Everybody wakes up and they keep sleeping. I have no determination to wake up. But that means you have determination to keep sleeping.
Everybody is waking up and you are still asleep. So to do anything difficult requires determination. Now that difficult thing might be something which attracts praise and appreciation or sometimes it may attract condemnation.
If you see somebody is addicted even addiction requires determination. It’s a perverse form of determination. But somebody is addict.
They sometimes they will steal, rob, lie to get some money so that they can get some shot of drugs or a drink or whatever. So one of my friends is an air crew assistant and they were telling me that even in the airline, sometimes in the aircraft people have a craving to smoke but actually there are people who have trained themselves how to disable the smoke detector inside the aeroplane restrooms and they disable it and then they fix it also. They are so desperate to smoke.
So nobody can say that I don’t have determination and actually I have no will power. It’s like a extremely unhelpful answer. Okay, if I don’t have determination what do I do then? I just don’t have.
No. We need to better understand why we do what we do. So let’s look at the first point over here.
The world’s nature. The world often makes us uncomfortable. Discomfort can come in various ways.
Discomfort can come through overwork. It can come through stress. It can come through loneliness.
It can come through say physical exhaustion or sickness or it can come to worry about the future. So basically we feel uncomfortable and now whenever we feel uncomfortable as the word itself suggests being uncomfortable is uncomfortable. So we don’t want to be uncomfortable.
And what do we do? We look for some relief. How can I get out of this discomfort? And more often than not in the discomfort we go towards some destructive behaviour. So this is one trajectory.
From the discomfort to destructive behaviour. So I am very worried about my studies. What do I do? So much tension.
So much tension. Maybe I’ll just take a drink. I’ll feel cool.
You take a drink to calm yourself. And then what happens? First the drinker takes the drink. Then the drink takes the drink.
And then the drink takes the drinker. So we get carried away. So when we do some destructive, we act in a way that is harmful for ourselves.
Then the person gets drunk. They can’t do anything. They have a headache.
They have a hangover. The next morning they wake up. Why did I waste so much time? So what happened was? There is discomfort.
And the discomfort we responded to it in an unhealthy way. So it is not that necessarily that alcohol was that attractive or that irresistible. It’s possible.
But it’s not necessarily only that. Sometimes some people say, I just spent so much time on social media. It could be not because social media is so attractive.
It is because their real life is so lonely. And that loneliness is uncomfortable. So whenever we do something which we had resolved not to do, instead of beating ourselves up, we can think, what was it that I felt before this? Before I did this, what did I feel? I felt uncomfortable.
Now what caused the discomfort? If we understand that, that can help us to create a checkpoint over there. The world will never stop making us uncomfortable. That is for sure.
There will be worry. There will be loneliness. There will be overwork.
There will be stress. These things will happen inevitably in the world. But when we want relief from it, if we default during the seeking of relief towards destructive behaviour, then we will be entrapped.
And unless we find a healthier way to gain relief from distress, beating ourselves up for having low willpower is not going to help us. And this is the first point. So what I’ll do is, I’ll talk about this point.
Then I’ll talk about the way we can address it in a normal way. Each point I’ll talk about it. And after each point when I complete, I would like to have a short reflection or question if any of you have.
So the class will be in four parts. First I’ll talk about the world’s nature, the mind’s nature, the object’s nature. Then I’ll talk about Bhakti Yoga.
And then we can have final question answers. Now if you understand that the world is going to make me uncomfortable, then what do I do about it? With knowledge, first we’ll talk with knowledge and then we’ll talk about spirituality further. With knowledge, we need to understand that feeling uncomfortable is not unnatural.
It may be unpleasant, but it is not unnatural. And the feeling of discomfort will come, it’ll stay for some time, it’ll go away. We don’t need a knee-jerk reaction to it.
The feeling of discomfort is like a wave. Now when the wave comes, the wave rises, rises, rises, rises, rises, but it’s not going to rise forever. Afterwards, it’s going to come down.
And if we just, instead of getting swept away by the wave, we just go with the wave, observe the wave, rise the wave, it’ll go down. I was just, 15 days ago I was in Hawaii, so I was speaking about a similar concept and they said that, that’s what surfing is. Surfing a wave is, when the wave comes, you don’t get swept away by it, but you go with it.
It rises and it comes down. Another way to understand the discomfort is that when the discomfort comes, it’s like an arm wrestling match. And this applies to everything that our mind does, but I’ll talk about it a little later.
But in an arm wrestling match, the other person seems to be very strong. He’s pulled us almost down now. Now we’re trying, almost down, I’m lost now.
How long can I hold on? I’ll give up. But if you understand that this is a timed arm wrestling match, each round is 3 minutes. And if for 3 minutes we can hold on, then, next time when we start, it’ll not be from here.
The next round, we’ll start from neutral ground. The next round, we’ll start from neutral ground. So, whenever we feel discomfort, we feel, I’m feeling lonely, I’m feeling stressed, I’m feeling overworked.
This is how it is going to be forever. How can I tolerate it? I’ll need some relief. No, it’s not going to be like this forever.
It is a feeling which has come. It’s real right now. But it’s like a timed arm wrestling match.
So, if you just understand that discomfort is not permanent. Especially those high levels of discomfort which make us want escape at all cost. Discomfort will come, rise, and it will go down.
So, by understanding the discomfort is not unnatural. It is unpleasant, but it is not unnatural. We can avoid letting the discomfort take us to destruction.
Let me just view it. Just like say, another example to understand discomfort would be, if you go, if you do some workout, you lift weights. When we lift weights, it’s uncomfortable.
If somebody told you that for the rest of your life you have to lift this weight, we’ll not pick it up only. But when we are doing exercise, we want to pick up the weight, but only for a short while. And that discomfort can actually increase our strength.
So, discomfort is not unpleasant, but it is not unnatural. It can be something which can strengthen us. So, this is the first point.
Why do we go towards destructive behaviour? Because that destructive behaviour is our escape way from discomfort. And if you could just become comfortable with being uncomfortable, discomfort will come, but it is not going to be there forever. If we become comfortable with being uncomfortable, we would not gravitate towards destructive behaviour.
So, any comments? Any reflections? Any questions? By reflections, I mean, after you go in this class, this talk, what point would you like to carry with you? Somebody asks you, what did you hear? Something which you might want to share with others. Anyone like to share any reflections? Or if… Yeah, that’s a good… Oh, yeah, that’s… Discomfort is natural and it is temporary. We’ll start from a normal level, not from the same discomfort level.
Thank you. Good point. Any other… Yes? Yeah.
That’s a good question. So, when we say we have to bear the discomfort, does that mean we should just bear the situation or change the situation? That depends on time, place, circumstance. All that I am saying is that the situation is not so desperate that we need an escape way at all costs.
Generally, when we go towards destructive behaviour, we just don’t think about the costs. This is so unbearable. And one simple level of discomfort could be boredom.
I’m feeling bored right now. And then, okay, because I’m bored, let me just surf on the net, let me read this, let me watch this. And you watch one YouTube video, and there are ten other suggestions.
And then you go click one more, click one more, and then I’ll go for five minutes, and it ends up five hours. So, yes, now I’m feeling bored. What do I do about it? I can’t just say, let me be bored.
I have to do something about it. But what we are saying is that there is a default behaviour towards which we gravitate. And that, that boredom is not like an unbearable problem in life.
It’s unpleasant, but it’s not unbearable. So, I don’t have to just impulsively rush towards some default behaviour. Now, we need to deal with it, and how to deal with it, I’ll talk in the fourth part.
But we just don’t have to gravitate towards a destructive behaviour. Sometimes you might just alter it, sometimes you might change it. We’ll discuss about that.
Thank you. Anything else? Yeah? Thank you. Thank you.
So, let’s move on to the second point now. So, first is that the world keeps making us uncomfortable. The second is, if you see, now I have put all these three in parallel, but they are not necessarily parallel.
The self is within us, the mind is the first layer around us, the world is the broad reality external to us, and within that, there are particular objects which we particularly attract. But what I am talking about is any of these can lead us to destructive behaviour. And sometimes, all three may lead together also.
But for analysis, we are understanding this way. So, the mind’s deception, what does it mean? That pleasure often has a paradoxical nature. Most pleasures in the world.
That the search for happiness is often the cause of the greatest unhappiness. The search for happiness is often the cause of the greatest unhappiness. We look at addiction as an extreme example.
And nobody is born from the mother’s womb with a cigarette in their mouth. Many people may die with a cigarette in their mouth. But nobody is born that way.
But what happens? Nobody even thinks, oh, I am going to become an addict. What they are looking for is pleasure. But there is nothing free in the world.
The mind’s deception is, it shows us only the pleasure, not the price of the pleasure. The Bhagavad Gita talks about this in a very interesting way. It says in 18.38 that there are certain pleasures which taste like nectar initially.
But they taste like poison afterwards. So, the mind’s deception is the pleasure is what comes before, that is the nectar. And then the poison is what comes afterwards.
But what we remember is the pleasure. We forget the price we have to pay for it. Oh, afterwards we feel so bad.
Just like, say, if somebody drinks a lot and they feel high. And after that, the next morning, such a painful hangover they have. But next time when the opportune drink comes, what do they remember? The high.
They don’t remember the hangover. So, the mind’s memory it has a memory. The mind does remember, but it’s deceptive.
It remembers only the pleasure, not the price of the pleasure. It remembers. So, continue the second point.
When the discomfort is there, from the discomfort we get some relief by doing the destructive activity. The mind remembers only the relief. But after that, whatever consequence is there, it doesn’t remember that.
Now, why is that? Because the mind is like a child. And a child is usually too much in the present. Now, there is a common saying, live in the present.
Be present. That’s a common mindfulness principle. That’s valid.
I have a whole presentation on this topic. Live in the present, but not for the present. Live in the present.
If you experience life right now, but don’t live for the present. You have to live for something bigger in life. Most of your students, they’re not living for the present.
You’re living for your future. You’re living for your career, for a bright life ahead. So, what happens? The mind just sees only what is the immediate thing.
Mind says, oh, this is uncomfortable. It’s unbearable. This is enjoyable.
Oh, let’s go towards it. So, the mind’s deception makes us more and more vulnerable to destructive behaviour. Because, in general, if we knew the cost of something, then we would be careful.
Do I really want this? So, suppose, there’s a big supermarket and they say, everything is on sale here. And the sale is 100% free. Really? You go and then grab as much as you want.
And then you come back. And then, the next day, you get a huge bill. But you say, it is free.
Yeah. You didn’t notice? It’s free of all taxes. And the price is still there.
There’s no taxes. So, what happens is, if something appears free, we might just grab it. But, this is the cost of this.
Okay. Do I really need it? Is it really worth it? If we could see the cost, then, that would act as a deterrent. But our mind doesn’t show us the cost.
It shows us only the product. It doesn’t show us the price. It shows only the pleasure.
And because of that, we tend to get greedy. And this happens with everything. Say, we wake up in the morning, and the alarm which is rung, and the alarm rings.
And then we wake up. And what happens? The alarm rings, and the mind says, go to sleep. Just 5 minutes more.
Maybe 10 minutes more. Probably, we have many buttons. We have our computers.
We have our phones. Probably, one of the buttons that we use the most is the snooze button. Snooze, snooze.
So, what happens there is that the mind says, come on. Just a little bit. At that time, we may have something very important to do.
But, what the mind does is it makes us forget that. Just sleep for some time. It’s so comfortable.
It’s so pleasant. And then, say, we have an important interview, we have an important assignment, and then we wake up. My God! This one hour I could have slept later also.
But now, how am I going to complete this work? So, at that time, the mind doesn’t show us the price. It shows us only the pleasure. But the mind’s reception is not just this much.
The mind’s reception is even worse. Why is that? Suppose, you are living a normal, law-abiding life. And a friend comes to you and says, I have a plan to make quick money.
Oh, really? What is that? Let’s rob a bank. What? No, no, no. I have a fool-proof plan.
We can rob the bank and nobody will catch us. And somehow, that person is a very expert persuader. And they persuade us.
They say, let’s go and rob the bank. And then, we go with them. And just as we are about to collect the money, suddenly, some alarm rings.
And this friend runs away. And then, we are caught by the police. And the police take us to the jail and bring us to the court.
And we are brought in front of the judge. And we look at the judge. And that same friend is the judge now.
How dare you? Our mind is like this friend. The mind, when we are about to wake up, the mind says, go to sleep. And we wake up after, instead of 5 minutes, after 1 hour.
You fool! How lazy you are! You are a hopeless, useless person. You will never improve. You are gone.
You are condemned. So the first, mind makes us do wrong and then beats us for doing wrong. And what happens? Because of this beating, we become discouraged.
So inside us, if you understand, this mind is there, which is by nature deceptive. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to be deceived. But the mind by nature is deceptive.
So, if we consciously remind ourselves of the price. What do I mean by consciously remind ourselves of the price? That, say, if we have something very important to do, then, maybe before sleeping, just remind ourselves, this is what I have to do. Or, the one time when we are fooled by the mind and we oversleep, then, what, when we are feeling very angry with ourselves, instead of that, just write down that experience and remind yourself of it.
That time I overslept and this was such a stupid thing that happened because of that. And then, if you read again, what will happen? That acts like a reminder for us. So, with our intelligence, we create reminders.
So whatever is the destructive behaviour, our mind props towards us. It comes up. Come on, do this.
Whatever is the destructive behaviour, the mind proposes showing us only the pleasure, not the price. We consciously write down the price of this. And then, the mind may say, just, you know, you get a notification in your phone, your friend has updated their Facebook profile picture.
Okay, let me see that. You go and look at one picture, or let me see what other pictures are there. Look at other pictures, other pictures, other pictures.
And then, what happens? It’s hours go away. I saw, you could say, a cartoon recently. It says that there’s a person is thinking, person is saying, yesterday the internet went away, the internet went down, so I spent some time with my family members.
They seem to be nice people. So, what happens is that, we may spend hours and hours like that. It starts with one thing.
So, when that has happened, instead of beating us, the mind says, fool you, fool. Okay, no. What happened? This happened, and then I wasted so much time.
So, let’s write it down. And if you write it down and keep it with us, what happens, Krishna says, use your intelligence to manage your mind. So, we create reminders for ourselves.
So, the mind will always show us the pleasure, but with our intelligence, if we write down the price of that pleasure, and we re-read that regularly, then we won’t get deceived. This was the second point I was going to make, that the mind deceives us by showing us only the pleasure, not the price. And the solution to that is, use our intelligence to create reminders of the price.
So, any reflections or questions about this? And if this struck any chord with you, any experience you’d like to share, that’s also fine. Yeah. Writing is very simple, and it’s very powerful.
Of course, the problem is that we, it has happened to me many times, I write it, and I forget to read it afterwards. So, we have to keep it somewhere where it can be easily accessible. And it’s good not to write too much.
Let’s say some succinct points, which can be elaborated later on. So, I’m an author, so I need to research to write, but there’s always a temptation that you can become an endless researcher and you don’t write anything. So, what I do is, to avoid that, I first get the skeleton.
First get the skeleton of what I’m going to write, and only after that do research. Sometimes we think, let me get the information first, then I’ll put it in a structure and then I’ll write. And that kind of writing, I found it doesn’t work at all.
It just takes an endless amount of time and nothing works. But instead, if you start it the other way, so what I do is that, I remember, okay, if I start surfing on the net, okay, this happens. I get, I waste my time, I lose my thread of thought, I get confused, and eventually I become unproductive.
So, just made some, these four points, and keep them as a, especially if you’re doing, on the computer, keep them as a sticky, maybe put a hyperlink to each of this, where, if you want to read more, what exactly happens, how do I waste my time? Put a hyperlink over there like that. But the idea is, we have to create reminders for ourselves. Thank you.
Anyone else? Any reflection or question? Yes, please. Okay. I’ll come to that.
I’ll come to that. See, none of these need necessarily be a complete solution. It’s, these are all a series of weapons that we are acquiring.
And it’s not that necessarily one weapon will be the decisive weapon. But we’re just understanding, okay, these are the options that I have. I’m not powerless.
Now, which weapon works where, it’s we don’t know. So, to some extent, you know, changing ourselves is like dealing with HIV. It mutates.
And that’s why you can only restrain it. It’s very difficult to cure it. So, it’s not easy.
I’m not saying that this is a formula that will, that, it’s not a pat formula. It’s a, but these are resources that we have. And that is the third point, the question that, third was what? The worldly sense objects.
Now, this is an important point to understand that that the objects, every object has a gravity pull. Say, if I have the phone over here. Now, if I drop this phone, obviously, I won’t drop it.
But if I drop it, what would happen? It would fall down. Now, if I were in outer space and I drop it, what would happen? It would not fall. Why is that? Because there’s a gravity pull over it.
And where there’s no gravity pull, there is no, the object won’t fall. So, similarly, between us and certain objects that we’re attracted to, there is a gravity pull. And this is the important point that this gravity pull is not the same for all people.
The more somebody has indulged in that object, the gravity pull becomes stronger. Say, for example, if there is a drug joint, somebody selling drugs. And this is the hostel of the student and this is the college.
And the two students are passing by that. Now, one of them has used drugs many times, has habituated to it. The other has never used drugs.
Then, both of them pass by this joint. What will happen? The first person, oh, let me take it. Let me buy.
No, no, no. It’s too expensive. So, those thoughts will keep coming in.
But the other person, they may not even notice there’s a drug joint over there. So, if one has not indulged in a particular object, there might be no pull toward it. And for somebody who’s indulged in it, the pull might seem irresistible.
There’s a British author, Oscar Wilde. He said that giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I have done it over a thousand times.
So, I gave it up, but it didn’t give me up. Because when I say I give it up, that means I decide I’m not going to do this. But I’m not taking into account the fact that there will be a gravity pull.
And when the gravity pull comes, it requires conscious effort to resist. So, in general, if somebody has become very strongly addicted to something, then in that case the gravity pull is so strong that it may seem almost impossible to resist it. So, first of all, we have to be understanding.
Understanding toward ourselves and understanding toward others. That the gravity pull is not the same for everyone. Somebody who has never taken drugs says, why do you take it? Just give it up.
And for you it’s easy to say, for them it is not that easy to do. Because the gravity pull is there. So, now, when the gravity pull comes, what do we do? First of all, we try as much as possible to keep, to not go within the gravity pull of those objects.
Do not go within the gravity pull. This is one practical solution. That means, say, if, as I said, this is the staying place, the hostel, this is the college.
There is a drug joint over there. Don’t go along this road. Even if it takes a little more time, go along some other road.
Now, this is not always possible, but in many cases, this is a good step forward. I just gave a talk in Google in Silicon Valley. And Google did this experiment.
They had a problem of employees taking a lot of candy and sweets and leading to obesity and a lot of associated problems. So, they wanted to deal with it. And they, based on some psychology suggestions, they adopted a simple strategy that in their cafeteria, all the candy that was there, they covered it with, or they put it in non-transparent containers.
Not with the containers having paper rolls advertising what is the content. No. Just that people couldn’t see it.
And they did this for about one year. And they found almost the consumption of candies decreased by 30%. So, of course, you could say their cafeteria lost the profit.
But in terms of the overall health insurance that they had to pay, they saved it. So, this is not the ultimate solution. But this is one step.
Generally, the gravity pull becomes stronger as we come closer. So, if we can create some distance, the gravity pull will be lesser. Now, distance can be, one is physical distance.
But distance can be of different kinds. So, for example, if we create an obstacle, that means, say, either between the object and me, I can create a lot of distance. Or, it may be close, but I create an obstacle.
And what does obstacle mean? Suppose somebody has an inclination to spend a lot of time surfing on the net. Then just have some filter. Now, of course, if somebody wants, they can crack the filter and they can do other things.
But usually what happens to us is that this gravity pull, although it is there, the two differences between this gravity pull and the Earth’s gravity pull. One is that the Earth’s gravity pull is same for all objects. If the mass is same, the pull will be the same.
But in the case of us, the gravity pull is different for each one of us depending on what kind of actions we have done in the past. But secondly, going back to the earlier point of this arm wrestling, the gravity pull also is not constant all the time. It rises up, it peaks, and then it comes down.
So, sometimes that surge will last for a short while. And if in that time there is some obstacle between us and that object, then we will be able to resist it. But if there is no obstacle, then we will immediately succumb to it.
So, we could see what obstacle we could create. That is one way to deal with it. And most important is that if we understand this, urge is there.
So, even if we can’t resist the urges, we can persist between the urges. Even if we can’t resist the urges, we can persist between the urges. Persist means okay, when that urge comes up, I can’t resist it.
I know everything, I can’t give it up. But okay, what am I doing in the remaining time? Am I simply beating myself up? Or am I doing something to strengthen myself? Am I doing something to nourish myself intellectually, spiritually, making myself stronger? Then, next time, when the urge is going to come, I’ll be better poised to resist it. So, even for addiction, it’s not that the craving is of the same intensity all the time.
So, we shouldn’t define ourselves by what we do when the surge comes. That is a very we have to be aware of what we may do at that time, but we don’t have to define ourselves by that. Our character will be formed a lot by what we do in between.
So, okay, in the time of the gravity pull, I’ll be overcome, but other times let me resist. Let me not just resist, let me work on myself. Let me make myself stronger.
Let me find out things I can absorb myself in. That way, we can be better equipped to resist the gravity pull when it comes. So, that is the third point.
Any reflections or questions about this? No, I don’t think that’s practical. Broadly, how do we deal with social media? Actually, I have a whole class on internet in the three modes. We can have internet in goodness also.
For example, if your phone is not working, you just Google default and there are so many help communities, which tell, okay, you type over there. People help also. Neighbours might help each other.
You ask some question, people answer. It’s not that everything is bad in social media. People can help also.
So, we don’t have to denigrate it all. We have to understand that the digital world is a reflection of the human world or extension of the human world. Just as in the human world, there are people in goodness, thoughtful.
There are people in passion who are just always running around. People who are in ignorance, who are just sort of lose themselves in illusion. So, similarly, there are people like that online also.
So, we, the big difference between the real world and the digital world is that switching from something in goodness to something in ignorance is super easy. If I’m in a library and I’m studying and I want to go to a bar, I have to cross a significant physical distance, get up and go. But I might be reading Wikipedia, maybe some serious article, or some encyclopaedia, I’m reading some serious article for my studies, and one switch and I can be watching all kinds of nonsense and draining my consciousness, drowning my consciousness in ignorance.
The switch is very easy. But broadly speaking, you can find all kinds, we have the same humanity reflected over there. So, I find three practises useful for myself as well as for others.
One is be purposeful. That means before you go itself on social media or online, have a plan, what am I going to do? Be purposeful. Don’t think that, okay, I’m bored, let me see if I find something interesting over there.
Okay, I have to answer these emails, I have to check this friends update. Be purposeful, be time bound. Now, I’m going to spend 15 minutes on this.
And sometimes something very interesting may come up. Let me read it more. But, the third principle I use over here is be willing to postpone.
Not postpone your real life work, postpone your online work. What happens when something comes up online, I want to read it right now. I want to respond to it right now.
Sometimes something might be very urgent and we have to do it. That we may do. But that is usually super urgent work, we don’t have to do.
We can just finish it in a few minutes. Bigger work, I want to read this, I want to watch this. Just defer it for sometime.
Be ready to defer. And what happens if you defer it, okay, this is interesting, but I’ll see this tomorrow. Don’t forget it, but don’t indulge in it right now.
So what happens if you just wait for one day, then, is it really that important? Because when we see something new, hey, this looks interesting, let me read it. But if you just save the link if I want, and then later. So then, we can evaluate better.
So broadly we do this, it will be purposeful. What am I going to do here? How long am I going to do this? And if something extra is coming, I’m not going to say no, but I’ll defer it. By that, we won’t get carried away.
And then after that we plan, okay, this is interesting, it’s like a, this is a one hour video. Okay, let me plan when I’ll see it. So, a lot of interesting things can also come up.
And if you just make it a rigid rule, it won’t work. But if there’s no rule, also that won’t work. So I think this framework helps.
So, any other points about this gravity pull? Yeah. Yes. Definitely.
Yeah, so the pull is like, say, for somebody who is from South India, masala dosa may have a lot of pull for them. For somebody from Punjab, paratha might have a lot of pull. For somebody else, it might be pizza or so many other items.
Based on our culture, our upbringing, certain objects will have a greater pull on us. So we have to be conscious of that, which objects pull me more. And then we can plan how to deal with it appropriately.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Sometimes, it’s good, there is a, what is it called? It’s a nice word for it. The digital detox. Digital detox means you plan in advance that for the next one day, for one day, I’m not going to go online.
And it’s not as easy as it seems. The urge comes up, something will come up. So we could just do that as a means to exercise our willpower.
Maybe not at a time when we are expecting some very important updates. Just plan it out. Maybe one week in a month or one week in a fortnight.
One day in a week, one day in a fortnight, one day in a month. Let me not abstain from it. So we can try that and see how much, how much, how it benefits us.
So we need to regulate it. I think eliminating it is quite difficult in today’s world. We, we cannot, we cannot change the way the world is around us.
But what we can do is that we don’t let the world determine who we are. We have to find a balance between the two. So let me move on to the last point now.
That is, you can see here there is the bar of Bhakti Yoga. It’s in between this. The self is here, the world is here, the objects are here and the mind is here.
But Bhakti Yoga can act as an inner buffer. Now what exactly is Bhakti Yoga? Bhakti means love, spiritual love, devotion. And Yoga is connection.
So you could say Bhakti Yoga is the devotion connection. The devotion connection with what? With the divine, with the supreme, with the all attractive source of everything. So Bhakti Yoga provides us practises by which we can connect with the divine.
Bhakti Yoga has its wisdom and what we are discussing today is the preliminary part of Bhakti Yoga, wisdom and other Bhakti Yoga practises. So what does Bhakti Yoga wisdom do for us? If we learn Bhakti Yoga, it can act as a buffer between us and all these three things. So these three are here.
The world, the mind and the objects. And we are here. So when Bhakti Yoga comes in between, what it means is if we habituate ourselves to some Bhakti practise such as meditation, kirtan or study of scripture, prayer, then by these practises we can gain inner shelter.
So earlier I talked about how the world will make us uncomfortable. Now when the world makes us uncomfortable, there is this question that should we just accept it? Should we try to change it? So we have to find out that what are the things that are constructive and enjoyable. In our life, there are some activities which are enjoyable and destructive.
But there are some activities which are constructive and enjoyable. Say for example, somebody likes music. And we have a lot of spiritual music available.
So whenever I feel bored, whenever I feel lonely, whenever I feel overworked, I tend to just watch TV or I tend to go on social media. Instead, let me keep some spiritual music readily accessible with me and let me go toward that. Some of us may like recitation of some prayers.
Or you might have some good wisdom quotes that you like. So keep those with you. So based on your own nature, find out, this is a list of constructive things and these are things which are enjoyable.
Find out where the two intersect. And make a list of at least one item, if possible three. And keep that with you.
Keep the resources for that with you. By that what will happen? You will be able to have a means to deal with the discomfort. So when somebody feels uncomfortable, they can just let me just watch some movies.
Is there something else I can do? Oh, I can hear some good music. Music not only provides, it also provides the relief. So we won’t escape, but we won’t have to escape toward the destructive object.
If we have thought beforehand and made this list and I kept it easily available, then it’s easier. So we have now come to the second part. Topic was that why changing ourselves is so difficult.
That’s because of these three things and how we can make it easier. So by making the resource of something which can be a healthy relief for us, easily accessible. So I think this is something which you can do yourself right now.
We’ll have two minutes. Take out your paper or phone or something and think of, try to think of three activities which are constructive and enjoyable. They’re constructive.
There are some constructive activities which require discipline, which require austerity, which require willpower. But there are some constructive activities which we like to do also. They’re enjoyable.
So as I said, it could be music, could be reading some quotes, reading a particular book which is attractive stories, whatever it is. So at least list one point like that, a possible right thing, something that is constructive and enjoyable. And if you write one, try to see how you could also make it more easily accessible.
If it’s a music, you can keep it in your phone, keep it in some other device, keep it, make a shortcut on your phone and keep it, keep a sticky reminder on your computer, put a sticky on your phone somewhere. Basically list the activity and list how you could make it more easily accessible to yourself. Okay.
Maybe half a minute more. Okay. Thank you.
So, see, if you next time have this resource available, you’ll find it easier to avoid going towards the destructive activity. The second point is that the mind is nature. So what the bhakti wisdom tells us is that we are different from our mind.
And our mind, it’s like a programmable device. And say, if you have a browser in your phone. Now, have most of you heard of Bollywood? Do you know also about Bollywood? Like India, we have Hollywood.
So India has its own big music industry, it’s called Bollywood. So say suppose, somebody has repeatedly visited Bollywood.com And then they come for a spiritual programme like this. And then they hear about a spiritual book, say Bhagavad Gita.
We have Bhagavad Gita’s over here. It’s an ancient yoga text several thousands of years old. So they hear about Bhagavad Gita and they want to go to their home and they would say, I want to know what is Bhagavad Gita.
And they go open their browser and they type B. And what happens? Bollywood.com comes. So they didn’t intend to go to Bollywood, but because they had chosen it in the past repeatedly, that came as an autocomplete. So similarly for us, our mind will give us certain autocompletes.
In fact, there are some autocompletes and in the browser there is also something which is a homepage. As soon as you click on the browser, that will open as a homepage. So, now to understand what is the homepage of our mind, the one way to know it is to ask ourselves, what do I think of when I have nothing to think of? When I have nothing specific to do, where do my thoughts go towards? That is the homepage.
So now, just because the homepage is a particular website, we don’t necessarily have to visit that site. So what we could do is, identify that. Give it a name.
Give it a name. So give it a name means that some of us may tend to worry too much. Now, just go to your, say suppose you are working in a company and you go to your office and then your boss gives you a strange look.
What happened? Why did I get that look? Is my boss going to fire me? Oh, if there is a retrenchment, if I am fired, what will happen? I have taken mortgage for my house. How will I pay for it? If I can’t pay for it, I’ll be kicked out of the house. I’ll be out in the cold and be unbearable.
Now, we might be in comfortable, cosy weather right now but we will start shivering, not because of the cold but because of the stress. So worry, what it does is, worry is like paying tax on loans you haven’t yet taken. So what we need to do is, if our mind has a tendency to start worrying, so what we do is, we identify it.
Oh, this is the worry page that is opened. You use the browser metaphor, this is the worry page that is opened. This is the worry movie that has started.
Or it could be, I was at a mental health conference in Connecticut last year and there was one girl speaking, she had or this woman, she was a suicide intervention counsellor. And he said that there was one girl who attempted suicide and then she called for help and they saved her and they asked her, why did you call? Why did you try to commit suicide? She was in a relationship with a boy and she called that boy and that boy didn’t pick up her phone. And because of that, she tried to kill herself.
This is ridiculous, how many times we call and people don’t pick up the phone. But what happened, she always had fear of loneliness and abandonment. So in her mind, immediately the movie started.
He didn’t pick up my phone, probably he doesn’t care for me. He doesn’t care for me, maybe he is with someone else already. Maybe he will abandon me.
Oh, if he abandons me, in future, if I form a relationship with someone else, they will also abandon me. I will be always lonely. All my friends will be in happy relationships and I will be lonely and they will have pity on me.
My whole life will be pitiable. What is the use of such a pitiable life? Better let me end my life. Now, if you look at this thread of thought, then you understand that it’s not as unrealistic.
It’s stupid still, but from the emotional perspective, it’s not stupid. It’s understandable. So if our mind tends to go off in a particular direction, we need to identify.
Hey, that’s the loneliness movie that has started. That is the loneliness programme that has started. This loneliness page has opened up.
So each of us, whatever the default ways in which the mind tricks us, we need to identify that. I have this, when I’m giving talks now, I give almost like 400 talks, 300-400 talks every year. I travel across the world.
So many times, if I find that the audience is not responsive, then my mind starts a programme. Nobody cares. And what happens? If I start feeling that nobody cares, then I also stop caring.
And if I stop caring, if I’m not thinking, if I’m not presenting carefully, then truly the audience stops caring. So it becomes a destructive loop. So many times what has happened, nobody cares.
People are not interested. Nobody is interested in spirituality. You’re wasting your time.
When the mind starts this programme, what has happened is sometimes I still persevere, and after that, all the audience doesn’t seem to be responsive during the talk. But afterwards, people come and ask questions or discuss. I see that many people really took some valuable points home.
So now, whenever that starts happening, I identify. This is the nobody cares programme starting. People don’t care programme.
People are not spiritually interested in programme starting. Well, yeah, not everybody is interested, but there are some people who are still very interested. So we need to identify those programmes.
So what happens if those programmes you can identify, then we won’t be carried away. And this understanding that we are different from our mind, it becomes easier if we try to practise meditation. We all do mantra meditation.
We did the kirtan beforehand. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Ram, Hare Ram, Ram Ram, Hare Hare. When we do this meditation, the purpose of meditation is, of course, to absorb ourselves in that spiritual sound.
But even if we can’t absorb ourselves in that sound, still that meditation is beneficial. Why? Because we try to focus on that mantra, but something within us takes our thoughts elsewhere. Hey, what about this assignment? Why did this person speak like this? Why is that I not got a reply to that message? What will I do if this happens? Hey, I don’t want to think about this.
Let me bring it back. So at the very least, meditation makes us aware that the mind is different from me. This is a very important point if we realise this.
That there is something within me that is different from me. So meditation, we want to focus, but something within us takes our thoughts everywhere else. And in a sense, we all know there is something distracting within me.
But our meditation practise, it can give us very strong reminders of that. And that is also very powerful awareness. Then, when some movie starts off, say the loneliness movie starts off, the boredom movie starts off.
The boredom movie can be very detrimental. Say you are sitting in a class and this class is boring. It starts off.
As soon as you start thinking the class is boring, you also become uninterested. And after that, some joke happens. Sometimes when a joke happens, people start looking, what is the joke? What happens is, when the class is going on, we go for a walk.
Not physically, but mentally we go for a walk. And then, when a joke happens, hey, I also want a joke. What is it? We ask each other.
So, it is said, he who laughs last, what is the saying? Does anyone know? He who laughs last, laughs the best. That is one way of saying it. Another way of saying it, he who laughs last, didn’t get the joke.
That is also possible. So, what happens is, that our mind, once it starts, oh, this class is boring, then we don’t even attempt to be interested. And naturally, it becomes boring.
So, if that is the programme, our class is boring. And as soon as the class is boring, this is that programme starting. It is like, okay, this, this is what the browser has opened up.
I don’t need to go on this page. I can open another tab. So, as soon as I identify that this is not my thought, this is a tab which is opened up within me, I can choose whether to stay on this tab or go some other tab.
So, that is how spiritual knowledge can help us to identify which tab has opened up in our browser. And by identifying it, we can choose whether I need to go in this direction or I don’t need to go in this direction. And, I will conclude the last point now.
So, the last point is that with respect to the gravity pull. Now, this is very interesting, that the gravity pull of the objects doesn’t always stay the same. I mentioned that earlier also.
But, apart from the graph, sometimes it is going high up. But, even that high also will not be permanent. Especially, if we start practising spirituality.
Say, if we start practising bhakti yoga, doing mantra meditation, learning the practises of bhakti, then, we start experiencing higher fulfilment. When we start experiencing higher fulfilment, then, the same objects which seemed irresistible earlier, we find that, okay, they are giving some pleasure but no big deal. I can live without it.
This is the biggest transformation that spirituality can do to us. That it can give us access to practises that will give us inner fulfilment. I will give two examples to conclude this point.
Say, suppose we are in dark. And, we have just one candle. And, that candle also gives very flickering light because the wind is there.
And, the candle is also very small. Now, we may say that, somebody says, just throw away that candle. What? What will I see? No, throw away the candle.
No, no, I can’t do that. But, suppose, the power comes back in the room. And, it’s fully lit.
Will we need the candle at that time? No. So, for us, the objects that seem very pleasurable, irresistibly pleasurable, they are like the candles. When we are in the dark, that candle is essential for us.
If I don’t have this, what pleasure do I have? I keep this. But, when we start practising spirituality, our consciousness becomes illuminated. We start getting higher fulfilment.
We start getting something, some inner sense of purpose. And, that is what makes the lure of the gravity pull lesser. Another point I’ll conclude, another example is that, life is meant for a purpose bigger than pleasure.
What do I mean by this? Life is meant for a purpose bigger than pleasure. If we consider that all of us, say, if there is a small child, now we have a child over here, sometimes relatives come or friends come, they may tickle the belly of the child. Now, when the child is tickled, what happens? They start laughing.
Now, is laughter enjoyable? Yeah, laughter is enjoyable. But then, if we all want to enjoy life, we could all buy our own perpetual tickling machines and be happy for the rest of our lives. Whenever we feel bored, tickle, tickle.
Now, or, we could watch comedy. For the rest of our life, we could watch comedy. Now, of course, we may say, I have to earn money, I have to… Suppose you are wealthy enough so that you don’t have to earn money.
You just say, rest of your life, watch comedy. Do you think it will be a very enjoyable life? Maybe for some few hours, but after we want to get our teeth into something, I want to do something. So, life is meant for something more than seeking pleasure.
What this Bhakti Yoga wisdom tells us is that happiness is best experienced as a by-product, not as a product. Happiness is best experienced not as a product. Okay, I do this activity and this activity will produce happiness.
Rather, I do something meaningful in my life. And when I do that meaningful thing, happiness comes as a by-product. So, all of us have been given certain abilities, certain gifts, certain interests, certain opportunities, certain responsibilities.
And all of these can help us to bring out our best. If we start thinking pleasure is the purpose of our life, soon we will be thwarted. Because there will be a lot of situations in our life when there will be no pleasure.
But that doesn’t mean that is the end of our life. If we look at our own lives, who are the people who inspire us the most? Not in a fan sense, who are the people who inspire us the most? They are people who are living for some purpose. And they live for that purpose, it means that they are not just seeking pleasure.
Of course, pleasure will come as a by-product. So, if you are pursuing a career right now, I just met one lady in Stanford. Her daughter was there.
She was saying that she has changed her major 13 times till now. One, one year. So, she is in the first year and she is 31 now.
Why? I don’t enjoy this, I don’t enjoy this, I don’t enjoy this. So, then I was sitting there. Do you think that education is only for enjoyment? Do you think all the people throughout history till now, they enjoyed the subjects that they taught? Sometimes, a sub-optimal purpose for life is better than no purpose.
Sometimes I feel, I want to find the perfect purpose for my life. Well, who knows what that perfect purpose is? Just, okay, what is the best purpose that I can work for in my situation right now? You feel sub-optimal. Okay, you get your major and you have your life to discover afterwards.
You don’t have to think that unless I find the best path in my life, I won’t move forward. Let me move forward with the best in my situation and I can do course correction. And this is where spirituality gives us understanding that there is a higher plan to our life.
There is a higher purpose to our life. That each one of us is a part of a whole. And what we are is a gift of the Divine to us.
And what we become is our gift to the Divine. What we are is the Divine’s gift to us. Whatever interests, whatever talents, whatever inclinations we have, this is what we have been gifted.
And we may have some other gifts also we don’t know about. Some people say, I have many hidden talents. The problem is they are hidden even from me.
Okay, they may be there. Let’s see what you have right now. What is your interest? What is your obligation? What is your situation right now? There is a plan for our lives.
So we start doing the best we can in our situation. And once we start doing that, we start doing our best in our situation with spiritual understanding. Understanding there is a higher purpose to life.
There is a plan. And to the extent we do the second thing, we practise our spirituality, we do some meditation, connect ourselves with bhakti wisdom, we will find that we will get more and more clarity. And as we start applying ourselves purposefully to create a meaningful life, to do something meaningful in our life, then the lure of the destructive behaviour will go down.
So we can’t say, don’t say, I’ll not do this, I’ll not do this, I’ll not do this, I’ll not do this. That is useless. What happens? I’ll not do this, I’ll not do this, I’ll not do this, we say that and the mind will come with an eraser and erase the not.
I’ll not do this, I’ll not do this, I’ll not do this, I’ll do this. It will come like that. So don’t focus on what you will not do.
Focus on what you will do. So look at the present situation you are in. See that, okay, for whatever way this present situation has come up, there is a higher plan to your life.
And if you spend some quality time connecting with the divine through devotional practises, that will give you the inner calm and clarity. And then instead of seeking pleasure, seek a purpose. Even if it is some optimal purpose, seek that purpose, work according to it.
And once you start working according, once we start seeing that I can do something constructive in my life, I can make a difference in my life, I can make a difference in someone else’s life, a positive difference, then the pull of the destructive behaviour will start going down. So ultimately, the way to give up destructive behaviour is to take up a constructive purpose with spiritual understanding. And once we start doing that, that will become the adventure of our life.
Sometimes we may feel that I am such a situation that I am powerless. I have no choices. Everything is forced for me.
I am completely helpless. There is nothing I can do in this situation. I am completely trapped.
Have any of you felt like this? Any time? I am trapped in this situation. Has any of you felt like that? Now, when you say that, okay, I am trapped, I am helpless in this situation, just ask yourself a simple question. Can I, this is a terrible situation, can I make it worse? What, what do you mean? Who wants to make it worse? No, no, you don’t have to make it, but I am simply asking, can I make it worse? No matter how bad a situation is, we can always make it worse.
I might have a fracture and I might be bedridden. But I can take a hammer and crack my other knee also. Isn’t it? So, no matter how bad a situation is, we can always make it worse.
And that means, we are not as powerless as we think. If we can make the situation worse, then we can make it better. So, we start with, what is the best I can do in this situation? If you start doing that one thing we fix, one thing we fix, one thing we fix, start doing one constructive thing in your life and you will find that will begin to change the action.
And more and more life will become filled with constructive actions multiplying in your life. And there is, sometimes we feel our destructive behaviour is a very great force which is pulling me down. That’s true.
But there is a higher power ready to help us. There is a divine who is ready to help us if we take up the responsibility to help ourselves. And the more we start doing constructive things in our life, there will be a cyclic effect and we will become filled with positive energy and the destructive behaviours will gradually fall away from us.
So, I will summarise. I spoke today on the topic of inner change. Why changing ourselves is so difficult and how we can make it easier.
I first talked about how all of us have a desire to change and become better human being, better student, better professional, better family member. But we make a resolve to change ourselves and we change ourselves. But while the new me is not looking, the old me seems to come back.
And we lose heart over a period of time. And we, instead of saying that this is simply, I don’t have will power or determination. Even addiction requires determination.
It’s just misdirect determination. We all have determination. We need to understand a little better.
So, I talked about three factors that make destructive behaviour so almost irresistible. The first was, what was it? The world’s discomfort. Whenever we feel uncomfortable because of loneliness, boredom, anxiety, overwork, stress, that time we gravitate towards some behaviour.
It is not because the behaviour is so attractive but because we need relief. So, at that time, instead of simply beating ourselves up, we try to see, okay, this is not going to be, this discomfort is not unnatural. And it’s not going to be permanent.
It’s like a wave which is rising, it will go down. It’s like an arm wrestling match. It’s a timed arm wrestling match.
The discomfort will stay for some time and go away. Next round will be from neutral ground. Not from that same point.
Then, the second point was what? The mind. Mind’s reception. What does the mind do? It shows us the pleasure but not the price.
Say, we drink and we get a hangover but next time, when a positive drink comes, you only remember the high, not the hangover. So, this way, the mind deceives us. And also, this is another way, it makes us do wrong and then it beats us up for doing wrong.
Like a friend who tempts us to rob a bank and then judges us for robbing the bank. So, what do we do for dealing with the mind? We learn to distance ourselves from the mind. We write down the prizes.
We create reminders of the prize so that the pleasure won’t deceive us. The third was what? Sense objects have a gravity pull. Depending on how much we have indulged in, the gravity pull becomes stronger and stronger.
So, somebody who has never taken drugs, they will pass by a joint without even noticing it. Somebody who has repeatedly taken, you pull forcefully. So, we need to be understanding, not think that we are simply weak-willed and beat ourselves up.
The gravity pull is very strong for me. So, what do I do? I create a distance. I talked about in Google how just by covering the lids of the candies, the sweet consumption decreased.
So, the distance can be either physical or it can be simply an obstacle between us and that object. And the urges come. The urges don’t last for very long.
So, if we have some obstacle, the urge will come and go and will not succumb. Then, I talked about the power of bhakti. The last part of the class.
What does the power of bhakti do? Firstly, with respect to the world’s discomfort, it gives us an inner buffer. It can provide us activities which are both comfortable, both constructive and enjoyable. So, often for enjoyable activities, we go to destructive activities.
So, we did a listing of constructive and enjoyable activities and see how we can make them more accessible to us. So, whenever I feel bored, I just want to waste time in social media. But let me see, I can hear some spiritual music.
Keep it ready with you. The second was with respect to the mind. Our meditation practise, even if we don’t get absorbed in meditation, meditation can make us aware that the mind is different from us.
Something within me keeps taking me away from where I want to go. And once we understand that this mind is different from me, then we can identify its typical programmes. The loneliness programme can make a person suicidal just because of one unanswered phone call.
The worry programme or the worry tab can show a movie that begins just because a strange glance, strange look from their boss, I’ll be out in the cold. So, we identify our typical programmes and then as soon as it starts up, okay, this is the tab that has opened up. This is the default tab, auto-completed tab or even the home tab that is there for me.
So, as we identify it, I don’t want to watch this. I can watch something else. And the third was that the gravity pull of the objects that they stay attractive as long as we don’t have some higher pleasure.
So, I said the bhakti yoga connects us with all attractive divine and gives us higher pleasure. And secondly, pleasure is too cheap a purpose for life. Life is meant for something bigger than pleasure.
Pleasure is best experienced not as a product but as a by-product. We can all get a perpetual tickling machine or get a perennial comedy show channel, but we won’t be happy watching that. We want something more in life.
So, what we want is a life of purpose, meaning, contribution. So, what we are is the divine’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to the divine.
If we turn, if we look at what my situation is and let me do the best that I can in this situation. Understand that there is a higher plan to my life. And let me do my best.
As we start adding constructive activities in our life, as we start making a difference in our lives and the lives of others, then the lure of destructive activities start automatically going away. And I concluded by talking that when we want to make this change, there is a higher power waiting to assist us. If we just start the change right now, we feel that I am completely helpless, I can do nothing, then we can ask ourselves a counterintuitive question, can I make things worse? If I can, that means I am not powerless, I can make things better also.
So if we start living a purposeful life in a mood of, with spiritual understanding, we can slowly move to, slowly but surely move towards a constructive life, free from destructive activities. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So any questions or comments? Thank you. What did you like, anything specific? Yeah. Obviously, I’ll judge myself for it, but like, once you create that, like, distinction, is it that you are not your boss? Yeah, there is a time to evaluate also, but our evaluation should encourage us, not discourage us.
So, let us say, I am here, the destructive behaviour is here. Sorry, I am here, the constructive behaviour is here, I am here, the destructive behaviour is here. So our evaluation should stop us from doing the destructive behaviour.
But sometimes our evaluation makes us so discouraged that we feel I can’t do the constructive behaviour. So then that is where the mind is, mind is cheating us. So there is conscience and there is pseudo-conscience.
The conscience stops us from doing wrong. But pseudo-conscience makes us feel so bad about ourselves, that we think I can never do anything good. And that’s why it’s bad.
So this is, if I say that I am here, then the mind, the conscience, the self-evaluation should come here where it stops me from destructive behaviour. But if it comes here, between me and constructive behaviour, then that is the mind’s judgmentality. It’s pseudo-conscience.
So we do need to evaluate and learn, but in a way that encourages us to do the right thing, not discourages us from doing the right thing, thinking I am hopeless. Any other questions, comments? Yes, yes, exactly. Yes, exactly.
Now many of you may have this experience also, thank you for sharing that quote from the Gita, Param Dhrishtani, that suppose if you tend to get distracted by social media or whatever, but if you are doing something important, like you said, when you have deadline, and you start doing the work, not only are you able to do it without distraction, without discouragement, without disheartenment, but also you feel satisfied by that. So now, what is important for us is that sometimes deadlines create that purpose for us, that urgency for us. But the challenge is there are certain activities which are important for us, but they don’t come with deadlines.
Relationships are like that. Our spirituality is like that. Our, say, taking care of our health, our self-development is like that.
So if we are only deadline driven, we will do the activities which we have to do, but the other activities we will never do. That’s why our deadline driven actions can convince us that we have the capacity to absorb ourselves, and then we can extend that using our intelligence to other activities which don’t come with inbuilt deadlines. Any other questions? Comments? Yes, please.
It’s an excellent question. How can we accept a suboptimal purpose while knowing that we are designed for a higher purpose? See, when we say we are designed for a higher purpose, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are like programmed machines. This is what we have to do.
Every one of us has free will. And free will means that it’s reciprocal. We make a choice and then there’s a reciprocation on that.
And rather than thinking of our higher purpose to be like one path, we can think of it as one direction. And in that direction, there can be many different paths. So, say, if now all of us can broadly understand the difference between a constructive activity and a destructive activity.
Now, we could have a difference between constructive activity, more constructive activity, and most constructive activity. That is the difference between, say, a suboptimal purpose and an optimal purpose. So, say, if we have come to a crossroad and should I go this way or this way or this way? I’m not sure.
If I stay over there itself, I’m not going to get anywhere. Generally, if we overthink things, we just make ourselves miserable. Like some people they say, I was confused earlier, now I’m not so sure.
What has happened? It’s the same thing. We overthink and we make ourselves miserable. So, even if this is not the right way, if I have these three paths, can I go along this way? Then, eventually, even if I find out it’s the wrong way, I can always do course correction.
If I’m here, I stay stuck. So, life never comes with the guarantee of right decisions. Sometimes we make the right decisions and sometimes we make the decisions right.
Okay, I made a decision, but how can I make the best out of it? If you start waiting for the right decision, how long will you keep waiting? How will we even know if the decision was right? What we can instead do is, try to develop the right decision making process. By right, I mean the best in our situation. Okay, with my knowledge, with my understanding, with my experience, this path seems to be the best.
And I move forward, sometimes life will show that it was the right path, sometimes it was not the right path. Okay, what went wrong? Okay, I didn’t think of this factor. I do course correction.
We do course correction. So, ultimately, all that we can do is refine our decision making process. And especially if we develop our spiritual compass, we could say.
We develop our spirituality, that will also give us an inner compass. It will help us to make the decision process better. But, ultimately, if we have made the best process, developed a good decision making process, if we make a wrong decision, we will realise it faster.
So, we could say that, I’ll conclude this answer with the example of Google Maps. That, suppose we take a wrong turn. Say, going along a road, Google says turn right.
And we turn left. Now, what does GPS do at that time? Sorry? It calibrates. Just GPS says, you didn’t obey me, get lost.
GPS never says that. Similarly, the higher plan that is there for our lives, it’s not that one mistake is going to disrupt that plan. You could say, that’s why I said it’s more like a direction with a network of paths.
So, if we broadly understand that this is a destructive activity and this is a constructive activity. Start doing that. And we spend some time for our spiritual growth and things will become clearer.
What happens is that, for all of us, we can say, if there are 15 activities I’m doing in my life, right now, there are 3 which are very bad, I should stop them. There are 3 which are very good, I should do them. The remaining 9, some of them are good, some of them are bad, some of them I don’t know if they are good or bad.
So, like that we could say, when we have to make a choice in our life, let’s focus right now on doing what we know is constructive and avoiding that which we know is destructive. And that which is in the grey zone, okay, we are not sure. So, do whatever makes sense at that time.
But what happens is, there is no need to think that because there is something in the grey zone, everything is grey. Is this difference? Am I making myself clear? There are surely for all of us, some activities which are white and some activities which are black. And there may be many grey.
But because of the grey, we shouldn’t have to put the green colour on everything and become indecisive about everything. That which is the white and that which is the black, let’s do and not do those things. And as we keep doing those things, we will also develop inner clarity.
We will also grow spiritually. And as we grow spiritually, the grey zone will start becoming lesser and lesser. Or, even if the grey zone remains, we will get a better sense of how to deal with that grey zone.
So, a sub-optimal purpose is better than a sub-optimal purpose can fit within a higher plan. Because the higher plan doesn’t treat us like a programmed device. The higher plan treats us like a conscious being who will also learn and go by experience.
Does it answer your question? Good question. Thank you. Okay, that’s a good point.
If it is a sub-optimal path or sub-optimal purpose, yeah, I think what you are saying is a valid point. I am talking more about sub-optimal path. Okay.
The way I was using it is that there is something which we need to do right now. Is that the best thing that I can do right now? It may not be the absolute best, but this is the best I can do in this situation. What I am doing right now may not be the absolute best, but it is the best I can do in this situation.
So, yeah, I agree with your point that if I am going to use the word purpose, we could say purpose will remain the same. But what if I don’t know the purpose right now? Then, let me take the path which I am following right now and gradually my purpose will be revealed to me. So, my point is just don’t wait.
Just do what we can in our situation and that will help us grow. Thank you. Good question.
Yeah. Any other questions or comments?