Mind management IISc Bangalore

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
the mind in broadly three ways. Rather, I will talk about three things. What is the mind and what is being mindful? How it works? That’s where we will talk about why sometimes it makes a fool out of us and then how to get it to work for us and not against us.
This is the part of the mind. Get it to work for us. So, the word mind has different meanings in different contexts.
In our normal language itself, if you use the word mind, have you lost your mind? There, we use it to refer to our intelligence, to our thinking capacity. Why are you asking? Where is your mind today? That’s where we use it to refer to attention. Isn’t it? So, there is this common phrase, mind over matter.
There, we use it to refer to some kind of a non-material reality. Non-material aspect, isn’t it? So, when we say mind your mind, there, the second mind refers to that something inside us. The thing which we are all discussing what it is.
But the first mind refers to pay attention. Here, it is the verb attention. Then, the noun attention is pay attention.
So, be mindful means be attentive. Mind your mind. Sometimes, at the next ceiling, we say mind your head.
Now, that means pay attention to where your head is going. So, the word mind, we use it in many different senses at different times. So, I will talk about the mind as it is explained in the Bhagavad Gita.
As a part of the understanding of the self. So, my exploration of the inner world or my attempts to understand the mind began about 25-30 years ago when I was a little bit above your age. I was studying engineering and I was doing an experiment in a lab.
And at that time, suddenly I heard a voice from here. Hey, there is wildlife on your body. And even without thinking, the first words that came from my mouth were Don’t hurt it.
And I looked around and I saw there was some small insect crawling on my shirt. And my friend who had called out to me raised his hand to squash the insect. And I said, Don’t hurt it.
He stopped. And then I looked at the insect. Then I walked to a nearby window.
Put my finger near where the insect was. The insect crawled onto my finger. And I let it out of the window.
And then I looked back at my friend. And he was looking at me with large, bemused eyes. Somehow, those eyes, the memory of those eyes just stayed with me.
In that evening, we were in our mess together, having a meal and making a mess. But at that time, he told me, He said, I have something to tell you. Okay.
A few weeks ago, we had been doing a project together. And some huge mistake had happened. And he had led me to believe that I had made the mistake.
And I had taken the blame for it. And now he told me, Actually, you had not made the mistake. I had made the mistake.
When I just heard it, I just rose from the… I just raised my fist. I will kill you. I felt not just anger, but bitterly divided.
But as I raised my fist and raised my voice, his eyes went wild. And somehow, those wild open eyes reminded me of his eyes a few hours ago. And I almost froze.
And I felt as if I had some kind of out-of-body experience. So like I was looking at myself from above. And one part of me was looking here, and one part of me was looking at the me a few hours ago.
And the link for me was the memory of the eyes. Similar large eyes. So, I froze thinking just a few hours ago, I was not ready to hurt a small insect.
And now, I am ready to smash the face of my friend. So, which is the real me? Is it the gentle one? The cruel one? Or is the real me something else completely? Are there multiple me’s? So, to be frank, we are sometimes wise, and we are sometimes otherwise. Laughter Laughter So, that moment began my introspection.
I was always an avid reader. But then I started reading more books about the inner world. I read some books on psychology, on philosophy, on spirituality.
And then finally, I stumbled across the Bhagavad Gita. And that’s where I got the best working model of the self. That could help me to understand what was happening inside me and how it was affecting me externally.
So, that’s what I will try to share today. So, the Bhagavad Gita explains that the self is three level. There is our physical side, which is the body.
That’s what we see from each other. Then, we have our mind. And then, there is the spiritual core of who we are, the soul.
And all these three together, they are they are the self. So, we are, our existence is three level. connecting with the metaphors that all of you used, the body is like the hardware.
The mind is like the software. The soul is like the user. Now, within the body is the brain.
And this brain is like the CPU. It’s a physical hardware. But the software is different.
The software is subtle. The modern science, especially what we call the hard science, soft sciences, they can’t really keep the mind inside the brain. But we all understand there is something inside us that affects us.
So, the way this model works is that from the soul comes its energy. And this is called consciousness. The Sanskrit word for this is Chetana.
For the soul, the Sanskrit word is in your nose, Atma. So, Chetana is the energy of the Atma. So, for example, if I consider the soul, now, if I turn on the flashlight, so there is a light source over here.
And from that light source, a beam of light is coming out. So, that light source is like the Atma, the soul. And the beam of light that is coming out is consciousness.
Now, if I hold my hand like this, is the beam of light still there? Yeah, it is there. Is it visible? No. So, what happens is the mind can act or is meant to act as a transmitter of consciousness.
Now, but the mind can sometimes become an obstructer of consciousness. So, I’ll come to that. But before that, let’s explore this one more.
Now, consciousness is the energy that enables us to broadly do two things. The first is awareness and the second is action. So, for example, if you suddenly hear a loud sound in your head and you look there and you see maybe some tiger has come over there.
Hey, very tiger comes over here. Jump over the window. What are you going to do now? So, when there is awareness, after that there is some action.
So, associated if I elaborate on this mind a little bit more. So, the mind gets input from our various senses and then it sends out signals to the limbs. We act accordingly.
So, we have five senses. Which are those? Eyes. Ears.
Sorry. Sorry. Nose.
Yeah, we smell by that. Skin. Tongue.
We taste. So, we could envision that these, each of these, if we consider this to be like an inner screen, then associated with each of these there is a window. So, in one sense, we could envision the mind to be like a huge monitor.
Sometimes in high security buildings. There is the central office where the security in-charge sits and there is a big monitor on which the inputs from various places are coming in. All the entry, exit points, all the crucial points, each of them is one-one window.
And depending on where something suspicious or something significant is happening, that is where that window the security in-charge will maximise. And when that window gets maximised, a full attention goes over there. So, for all of us, inputs are coming in from the various windows.
So, the mind, in one sense, is meant to serve two functions. The first is, it is a transmitter. The consciousness goes out, seeks information and it comes in.
Transmission happens. But it is not just a transmitter. It is also a transformer.
Transformer means that, now imagine if this monitor has some programming in it. And some automatic programming is there by which, see, anybody comes in with a gun, then automatically as soon as the sensor in the camera sees something looks like a gun on the monitor, then a signal comes over there and that window automatically gets maximised. So, the security in-charge does not necessarily have to press it.
So, it is like a monitor with some programming in it. So, for all of us, the mind is a transmitter. But the mind is not just a transmitter.
The mind has already some programming in it. As I said, the mind is like a software. The software on one side integrates the inputs.
But as soon as it integrates, it also highlights certain inputs. Now, this programming is what we call as impressions. These impressions are there within us.
And these impressions can be of two kinds. There are constructive impressions and there are destructive impressions. Now, the words may be different, but we will use some words over here.
There are instincts and there are impulses. So, instincts means that, say, if someone is very good at language, then what happens? As soon as they read a passage, if somebody is composing, we use this word to make a sample shot. And immediately, it sounds so much better and clearer.
Somebody has an instinct for music. They just pick up an instrument and they pick it up. They physically pick it up and they pick up the skill.
They are just so good at it. When they start playing some musical instrument, when they have an instinct, they play it and everybody is amazed. Sometimes there are talent shows, India has got talent, Mumbai has got talent, Lebanon has got talent.
The small kids are amazing at music. So, this is called instinct. Instinct is almost like programmed intelligence.
It’s automatically, we know the right thing to do. So, these are the positive impressions. Once we get some inputs, which to maximise, which to minimise, all that happens right.
Now, impulses, on the other hand, are often anti-intelligent. So, impulses could be, like you mentioned in the introduction, you may eat too much, you may sleep too much, you may spend too much time on social media or gossiping or this or that. So, these are impulses.
Now, both of these are impressions that are there inside us. Now, essentially, these impressions are meant to help us. So, like right now I am speaking, so all of you have the impressions of the English language.
We all share a particular level of familiarity of language and concepts and cultural context because of which what I am speaking makes sense to me. Otherwise, it is just some vibration in space. So, the impressions are meant to work for us.
However, there are unhealthy impressions in the mind. And while it is meant to be a transmitter and distractor, so I said first, how the mind works or is meant to work. I explained that till now.
Then I will talk about how the mind starts malfunctioning. And then we will talk about how we can get it to function. So, before that, let’s try to do a thought exercise where we try to get a more visual or imaginative understanding of what we are discussing.
So, once again, you can close your eyes and take three deep breaths. 1 2 3 Now, I will do a guided meditation. Continue your deep breathing and with your eyes closed, try to look straight ahead in front of you.
Because your eyes are closed, you cannot see what is physically in front of your eyes. Yet, you will find that there is some kind of screen inside you. And on that screen, you may see various things.
You may see a replica of this room. You may see the homepage of your laptop. You may see the face of your favourite person.
You may see your room or home. Or you may see a variety of images coming and going. Or you might see a dull haze of colours.
Whatever it is specifically that you see, you see it on something like a screen inside you. Now, while you are looking at that screen, try to take a step back and catch sight of who is it that is looking at the screen. I repeat, there is an inner screen and there is a seer of that screen.
So try to step back and catch sight of that inner seer of the inner screen. Try again. You will notice that no matter how much you step back, that seer steps back with you.
What you are looking for is what you are looking with. That inner screen is your mind. And you are the inner seer, the spiritual essence of who you are.
Take one deep breath and slowly open your eyes. So, this whole idea that there are two things inside us. There is a screen and there is someone who is observing the screen.
Understanding this can actually be a game changer in yourself. Because many times this we and this screen if they are too close to each other then this is a state of attachment. What happens at this stage is some idea, some desire, some feeling pops up inside and immediately we accept it as our own.
Let’s go and watch a movie. That pop-up comes inside and I go to it. But I am studying, I have this meeting, I have this assignment, I have this exam.
All those other pop-ups, other windows which you can open they just get sidelined. This window becomes big. But if there is some distance between us and our mind then what happens? We can evaluate.
What is actually happening over there? If someone else came to us and said let’s watch a movie. Do I really want to watch it now? Maybe I can watch it later also. So just as if someone outside told us something or suggested something to us we would scrutinise, we would evaluate.
So like that if we can create this distance between us and our mind, we will also be able to evaluate. That’s why understanding this idea that the inner screen and the inner sphere are two different things. This is an extremely valuable insight for us to get.
So now I’ll give further explanation of how this attachment or this very closeness between the mind and us happens. The mind as I said is meant to be a transmitter and a transformer. But the mind can malfunction in two ways.
One is we are here, our physical reality, our body is here but the mind goes off here. So when it goes off somewhere here this is where instead of being a transmitter the mind becomes a distractor. So the consciousness gets split.
A little bit of the consciousness comes here, most of the consciousness goes there. This is when we become absent-minded. As a question, where is your mind today? If we are giving a long talk our mind goes for a walk.
And if there is some humour the mind is observing, what was the joke? I also want to laugh. So the mind often wanders off. So this is when we become in this distraction.
And another thing that the mind does is it can be a distractor, it can also be a distortor. So transformer means it makes some windows big, some small. It transforms.
But when it acts as a distortor it makes the unwanted windows big. And the wanted windows it makes small. Suppose somebody else has got into a habit of alcoholism and they go to some important conference and while they are passing they see there are some drinks over here.
And then they see the image that goes in and that window becomes huge. And then after that they might be meeting the professor or some important person. They are talking with that person and that person’s body changes into a bottle of alcohol.
Inside their body. So what has happened is that one image that came in and became huge. So distortor.
So in general this distortion when the mind acts as a distractor, it is a problem. But when it is a distortor it is a bigger problem. Now these two are not entirely separate.
In one sense when we are distracted that means what happens something which somebody has said earlier we are caught in that. And that becomes so important that if somebody is right now talking with us we don’t even listen to that. It isn’t registered inside us.
So when this distraction happens the Sanskrit word for these inner impressions is samskara. Now the word samskara has two distinct meanings. One is as I said the impressions.
But it also has this connotation of the ceremony to create impressions. So for example there is janma samskara, there is vivaha samskara. Somebody gets married, a child is born.
So these are very significant occasions and some impressions need to be created. So that the significance of that occasion gets registered in the mind. So impressions are things inside us but there are also certain practises that can create those impressions.
So I will focus on the first meaning of impressions. Now sometimes this is also used in somewhat negative context. When we have some bad impressions.
So in that context the word samskara can also be spelled as some scar. You know we all have some scar or the other inside us. Say somebody who was bitten by a dog.
Just couple of days ago there was this whole news of a former premier of Germany Angela Merkel, she was very afraid of dogs and then she met Putin, Russian premier, he had a dog with him. And she was very alarmed by it. She writes in her biography and then Putin said, I am apologising for this.
I didn’t know that you are afraid of dogs. I thought you would be comfortable with a dog. I only wanted to make you comfortable.
So the idea is now for somebody who has been bitten by a dog, then what happens is that samskara is there. And because of that impression, whenever they see a dog even if the dog is a small gentle cuddly little poodle, that dog just becomes the sharp teeth. And seeing that immediately fear comes up.
So the one indication of the presence of samskara is that there is a small stimulus and there is a huge response. Say for example somebody is behind me and that person wants to attack me. So they tap me on my shoulder.
And they tap me. I scream. What happened? I say gently tap me.
Actually I have a shoulder sprain. Oh okay. Then it makes sense.
So samskara is just like a physical injury that is like a mental injury. And in a physical injury, a small impression leads to a huge input leads to a huge output. A disproportionate output.
So going back to the earlier example alcoholism, which is the sight of a bottle. A huge reaction. So in general if we are surrounded by people one general correlator of mental health problems is loneliness.
What happens is when we are alone we don’t even realise that our mind is distorting our perceptions. But when we are with people say for example we are sitting here right now and we just remember something that someone had done to us long ago and maybe they had disrespected us insulted us and suddenly we scream like banging our face against the table or uttering a swear word or screaming. Why? There are people around us.
What happened? What are you doing? So to some extent the disproportionate reaction that might come from this impression on the mind are regulated by the people around us. So when we are alone then the minds are distorting things and there is no external check. So the samskaras can also work the opposite way.
Sometimes there can be a large stimulus and a tiny response. So for example if I have got an injury because of which this part of the skin has become desensitised or dented. So I keep tapping, keep tapping, keep tapping and I may not even notice they will get angry.
Why are you responding? So like that some people may be very desensitised. That means we try to convey some point to them and they just don’t seem to get it. Isn’t it? It’s we are trying to explain and we will be little subtle and little more blunt, little more blunt but they just don’t get it.
Like one person might be very cleanliness conscious and the other person has it seems like that person doesn’t have a cleanliness gene within them. Another person has a cleanliness gene. But they are unclean and they are not even conscious that they are unclean.
So now the stimulus, the disorder around doesn’t register also in them. So we all have these impressions inside us. If somebody is habituated, somebody is a butcher they are habituated to killing.
Normally if anybody takes a living thing and kills it she can. But somebody who is a kid, who is born in a butcher’s family they might take a chicken and when they start chatting with someone, start cutting off its neck. The way we might cut vegetables, we might just cut off necks.
So what has happened is a deep sense of desensitisation some big stimulus, tiny response. So the thing is these samskaras they cause distortion and this distortion is often happening at a subtle level where we are not even aware of it. Unless we consciously strive to be aware.
At an extreme level I earlier said about how the if this is the soul and this is the body then I earlier said the distraction means the mind goes in another direction. The mind goes here, this is a distraction. But sometimes the mind can go in the opposite direction.
So the consciousness gets completely split. Should it go to the body or should it go to the mind? So when the mental perception is not just different from the physical reality but the mental perception is opposite to the physical reality this is the stage where a person becomes very close to insanity. Let’s suppose someone is having hallucinations maybe a friend is coming to help them and they think oh some ghost is coming.
So this is the stage where a person can become dysfunctional. And all of us have a certain level of distraction and distortion happening due to the mind. Now some of us it may be more and sometimes some of us it may be less.
So when the distraction and distortion starts becoming either too frequent or too forceful or it goes too far away then it becomes a problem. So three things, either it’s frequent all of us get absent minded. We are reading a book and sometimes it happens we keep reading the book or we think we are reading the book but the page is there our eyes are there but we are not there.
So it all happens sometimes. But if it starts happening too frequently it can be a problem. Or it can be forceful.
Forceful means I am trying to focus but it’s almost like something inside is dragging me away. So forceful means normally it happens unconsciously, not even aware of it. Sometimes we are aware we want to do one thing but there seems to be something which is dragging us away.
Or it just takes us far away. So these are all examples of or indicators of some serious sanskaras. We all have some sanskaras but the seriously problematic sanskaras can be seen by this.
So now, what can we do about this? How do we deal with this? So the Bhagavad Gita explains, this is the last part of our talk we are talking about the solution now. It talks about 6.35 and it says that Abhyasindhukamteyam Vairagyam Chaturangyateyam So it talks about two things Abhyas and Vairagyam So these words can be understood in our contemporary context in different ways. I’ll explain two ways to understand One is Abhyas is practise or persistence Vairagyam is abstinence Persistence is to keep doing something Abstinence is to avoid doing something So often when we look at the mind’s behaviour we can look at it from two perspectives One is the moral perspective Moral perspective means that you are such a short tempered person and that makes you a bad person You sleep too much You talk too much We all have our weaknesses and deficiencies and when we look at it from a moral perspective we say this is bad and doing this makes us bad and there is a place to look at it from that perspective Especially when somebody is desensitised When somebody is so desensitised that they don’t even sense other’s pain They cause other’s pain but they don’t sense the pain That can make them psychopaths or sociopaths It’s a terrible thing to do So sometimes it can be a serious problem So there is a place for a moral perspective We may feel that I am a terrible person because I try to do this I just can’t do this I just fail to do it So there is a validity for that but we will focus more on a clinical perspective Clinical means more objective Just observe and try to understand Don’t put moral labels on this Yes, we may be short tempered We may be greedy We may have alcohol issues But right now we are just trying to understand how the mind functions So from a clinical perspective the mind is something like a machine or more like a software So let’s try to understand how these two principles of persistence and abstinence can help us manage our mind can help us become more mindful Now becoming more mindful means becoming aware when the mind is distracting us when the mind is distorting things and preventing that from happening So when we get distracted when the mind distracts or distorts that’s when we may end up acting like a fool Let’s start the example Ok, my friend let me take the phone That is annoying thing That is a hurtful thing But that doesn’t mean I should be hidden So that’s where the distortion happens I had a right to be concerned I had a right even to be angry But distortion means that particular window can become huge So how do we avoid this? So let’s try to look from a clinical perspective Now I am based in Mumbai So there is a small thing in Mumbai Have any of you heard of it? So suppose somebody has visited a website called www.Bollywood.com And they visit many times 10 times, 50 times, 100 times, 1000 times And then they come for a spiritual talk like this And they hear about the Bhagavad Gita And they want to know What is a Bhagavad Gita? So they open their browser and they decide to go to www.BhagavadGita.com And what happens? What do you think happens? Yes www.Bollywood.com comes as a autocomplete Now They didn’t want to go to www.Bollywood.com But it came as autocomplete Is the browser their enemy? And why did that come? Sorry? Yes Based on our past history the browser is giving them You visited there earlier You can visit now also Now right now You do not want to visit there Now if you want to go somewhere else Then What do we have to do? We have to do Abhyasa and Vairagya So first instance that www.Bollywood.com comes as autocomplete He said no That Vairagya I won’t go there And then at that time persistence You have to type on 11 letters It can seem like lifting 100 kg weight or something like that But we do that We say yes If we do it once If we do it once If we do it 5 times Then After that, next time you type B Even now www.Bollywood.com might come as the first autocomplete But www.Bhagavadgita.com will come at least as the second autocomplete Now if we persistently keep visiting www.Bhagavadgita.com And we abstain from going to www.Bollywood.com Then maybe 10 visits 20 visits, 50 visits Then when you type B what will happen? www.Bhagavadgita.com will come as the first autocomplete So the mind is also a mechanism or software like that Say maybe in the past whenever we feel bored, when we feel a little down our tendency was Ok I just pick up my phone, look at Facebook look at Instagram, look at this look for some watch some videos Now we may say Ok, I have learnt some breathing exercises and I am quite relaxed And that actually pacifies me, uplifts me Maybe I could hear some soothing music instead maybe some nature sounds maybe some spiritual music So we may want, we may want to do something which is healthier for us Maybe I can read some inspiring books on this context So there is a previous behaviour towards which we will be prompted by our sanskars The impressions will prompt us So But just because the prompt is there does not mean we have to go there So, Abhyas and Pranayama The urge comes, come on, when I feel a little down Ok, let’s do something Ok Let me do some deep breathing Let me take this smoke, let me chant some So we can choose a healthier response It will take time but persistence just keep doing it again and again and abstain from the unwanted response By this gradually the mind’s impressions can be changed The mind is programmed but it is also programmable It is not just programmed The programming can be rewritten We can change the programming, how? By these two things Abhyas and Vairagya Persistence and Abstinence Now how do we do this persistence and abstinence? That’s where we can be helped in this by forming bonds and boundaries So boundaries means sometimes when we are trying to balance our mind or discipline ourselves we over rely on willpower Now willpower is definitely important but if we take this clinical perspective then what happens is we understand that willpower is not the only thing Say for example somebody has got a cough and they say ok, feel the urge to cough and use your willpower How long? How long can we use the willpower? Yes, we can to some extent That is not the solution Now if I have got cough I still need to use my willpower but my use of willpower is not to just suppress my cough The willpower is to take the medicine even if it is bitter to avoid foods that aggravate my throat or even if I enjoy those foods So again persistence, abstinence So willpower is not just like a raw willpower it is more refined willpower Now we might use some willpower with respect to cough but suppose somebody has a senility we can’t really use willpower at that point So that’s how when I use the word clinical perspective over here we could also use more like a medicinal perspective or a medical perspective Then the mind is not so much bad as it is sick If it is sick it needs to be treated and the treatment also requires willpower but it is a different way of willpower It is more of refined willpower and one way is to help ourselves by bonds and boundaries So for example somebody is trying to recover from alcoholism and they are staying at a place which is right next to a bar We all have our weaknesses See we can’t change the pop-ups that come inside us Sometimes because of the impressions the pop-ups might just come These pop-ups inside us some windows get maximised Sometimes they happen because of something we see externally but sometimes it seems to happen automatically we remember something and suddenly the craving starts coming within us So when those pop-ups come we may try to alert and avoid but it is not that easy So if the person is staying right next to a bar then there will be no bar for them to go to the bar The pop-up comes and next thing they know they are in the bar and they break in Now some people have their home next to a bar and some people have a bar in their home And then they say this is not for me this is for my guests Ya there is a guest that will come up then there is a mental pop-up So if somebody is serious about recovering from alcoholism they need to create something like this They may have to relocate that I can’t stay right so close to a bar So if we can just spend too much time on certain certain devices Now we can’t really live without devices but say we spend too much time on certain apps Then we may decide I won’t keep those apps on my phone maybe I will keep them only on my computer Then when I am sitting there physically only then I will visit the apps So we create a bond We can use technology also to create bond We can have some digital apps which help us do digital detox or get into the condition say I will visit this for half an hour one hour everyday and then when the apps goes off there are various ways in which you can create bond So the refined willpower the raw willpower is I won’t do this That’s like saying I won’t cough The refined willpower is I won’t eat the foods that lack a little bit of cough I will create a bond free from that So we need to use willpower but the willpower is not so much direct as it’s not so much raw The raw willpower is what we are trying to do is we are just trying to fight the impulses the popups that are coming inside but the refined willpower is more at one level to set bonds Now building the bond trees establishing the bond trees enforcing the bond trees also requires willpower but it relatively gives us some time, some space If the person’s urge for drinking is very very strong they might go 10 miles to get a drink So bond trees are not the final solution but they are definitely a vital even indispensable first step So each of us we can think what is it that is like bollywood.com which I don’t want to be the autocomplete one and then how can I set bond trees for that Now the second thing is bonds Bonds means we create say a, there is no bhagwaja.com to visit I just want to visit bollywood.com but then that comes as autocomplete and for some people bollywood.com might be the autocomplete when they type B for some people it might just be a home page they don’t have to type anything else So that is the state of addiction where there is attachment at least there is some stimulus and then we get reminded of that Addiction means no stimulus is needed also Like some people they sleep with the bottle on their mouth after they wake up the hand goes first to the bottle I will drink So now if there is no alternative available then we can’t just say no to the impression that popping up inside So we have to override them and that’s why the bonds help us to create new impressions Now one way to form bonds that is there in the tradition is rituals Now the word rituals sometimes has a negative connotation It especially has a negative connotation when it is used with the word adjective, ritualistic Ritualistic means doing something just for the sake of doing it without much attention without much comprehension without much interest So doing things ritualistically is not very helpful But rituals are basically these are time-honoured means For what? To tap the power of repetition Repetition Abhyas, persistence is what will change the impressions in the mind So if we have certain rituals for ourselves There are many self-help books, CEOs free morning rituals or say many people talk about their morning rituals or daily rituals So ritual means it is something that we do regularly So in almost all traditions across the world there are certain rituals Now not all rituals are necessarily good but the principle behind the rituals is good and if we keep doing something repeatedly that creates impressions The more repeatedly we do it the more impressions are created So the key is there is a difference between say rituals and routines The difference is in terms of our consciousness Routines are things which we have to do Say everyday we may have to do our laundry we may have to do our dishes When we are doing those we don’t necessarily have to pay full attention to what we are doing The point is to get the thing done That is the point of the routines In contrast the purpose of rituals is to get the experience It is not just to get the thing done Say for example if somebody is a bit shocked and they have no habit of deep breathing Take 3 deep breaths That is Kapalbhati That is not really very helpful The point of deep breathing is not just to get it done The point is to slow our breath, slow our mind Just get answers and get relaxed The point is to get the experience Similarly when we are chanting Om The point is to get the experience So if we do rituals If we create some rituals in our life and do them a ting ting Then we find that they will create fresh impressions inside us The previous impressions will get over with So we want to create boundaries for what we don’t want to do Equally if not more important is to provide ourselves alternatives and we create some bonds Bonds and some kind of fixed connection So we make a commitment In a month we make some resolutions I want to do this And generally if we try to make a resolution for the rest of my life If I say I will do this for the rest of my life The mind says you have the rest of your life to do it So It’s better to set something for a finite time Let me do this for one month See we are always weighing the cost benefit of everything And if you decide I want to do this for the rest of my life What happens for us is that no matter how long we do something There is no success in it I did something for 30 days But a 31st day I don’t do it I don’t feel the success of having done it for 30 days I feel the failure that I didn’t do it I couldn’t continue So that’s why There are many things we need to do lifelong But when we are making a resolution When we are forming a bond At that time We need to be convinced through our own experience that this is good for me So I will talk about bonds and that will be the last point When we want to develop bonds There are three steps First is our own intelligence We need to be convinced that this is a healthier alternative and I want to do this But after the intelligence is experience It is I need to experience the benefit for myself and I need to take stock I did this and this worked for me So when we get the experience the intelligence becomes strengthened by the experience and the intelligence helps us to do the thing by which we get the experience So these two go together And at one level this applies to any good habit that we can try to use to replace or override an unhealthy habit But the third factor that is transcendence Now transcend means to go beyond So transcendence refers to the reality beyond our daily reality There is the physical reality around us, the material reality and the spiritual reality So this is where transcendence ultimately refers to the divinity The divinity that is within us, the divinity that is around us The divinity that oversees the world So while there are many ways in which we can transform the impressions within us If we can connect with the divine then it’s not just our own power working to change the impressions We get access to divine power That divine power can override our impressions much faster So that’s why somebody, ok I have a habit of doing x I do y, it’s a good thing But if we incorporate a little bit of spiritual practises Some mantra chanting Some prayer Some devotional meditation Then we find that the impressions will change much faster Why does this happen? Because here If I consider This is the mind This is the body And this is the soul So normally when we are trying to abhyasa and vairagya What are we trying to do? See, we are trying to do some action that will create an impression inside us Now if I keep doing the action again then what will happen is the impression will become rapid And like that the impression will keep increasing We repeat the action and that’s good But when if this activity is a spiritual activity with something connected with the divine Then what happens is it’s not just changing the mind from above It actually goes below It goes to the soul and awakens the soul And there can be positive or negative impressions inside us at the level of the mind But the soul is pure positivity The soul At the level of the soul So each one of us is a part of the divine And when the pure positivity of the soul is awakened Then the mind’s impressions have changed from inside out much much faster So that’s the Oxford Handbook of Science of Religion and Health So they compiled around 300 published studies of the relationship between some kind of religious practise Now religion and spirituality they in that context use it interchangeably or there is some difference But basically the idea of having some kind of connection with some higher reality And they looked at the effect on physical health and mental health So they found that people who get a heart attack or stroke or a surgery they recover faster if they have not just a vague spiritual belief but some kind of tangible practise Similarly those who have some tangible practise that connects them with some higher reality as they may conceive it For them mental health problems are relatively less severe They get less depressed When they get depressed they spring back faster So now the exact mechanism by which this happens that science has not yet understood Because within science which is largely studying material domain, the idea of a spiritual domain that’s beyond the study of science, but its effects are perceivable When I travel across the world, many top companies they encourage their employees to do meditation and mindfulness and the same sports in Silicon Valley I have been there almost half a dozen times in talks There they have an entire space just for mindfulness So during the working hours many times a person wants to employ a few steps, they can go there they can do some mindfulness exercises, they can do some meditation according to their own personal orientation they can do it These companies themselves, I am not really interested in spirituality.
Of course, the founder of Salesforce had a spiritual experience, went on a spiritual journey But their primary concern is the bottom line. They want to be prosperous. But they have found that spiritual practise helps their employees to be more productive They found that it increases the health bills and the health insurance they have to pay for their employees That’s the fact So even from a pragmatic perspective this benefit is percolating So when we incorporate some spiritual practises then we will find that we can change the impressions inside us much faster So we are here and there is some divinity about us So meditation is basically when we try to listen to the divine and prayer is when we try to speak to the divine These two are related at the same time they focus on the divine But both of them they can direct our consciousness upward and they can give us a higher anchor that can awaken our souls along with it the pure positivity of the soul can become an enormous accelerator in changing our mind and enabling us to make it our friend It will work for us instead of against us To summarise what I discussed broadly, I discussed three points First we discussed what is the mind So the mind is like the intermediate the software between the body and the soul So the mind is the link and consciousness comes out from the soul through the mind to the body The mind is meant to be a transmitter and a transformer It’s like a the main window the the main monitor in a high security building from where the inputs from the various security cameras are coming like that from the senses the inputs come and the mind is having also impressions inside So because of it certain inputs become bigger, some become smaller So we discussed how it malfunctions is that it can become a distractor or a distorter So distractor means that I am here but the mind goes I am here but the mind goes somewhere else and then we can’t pay attention and distorter means some small input comes in but when it comes out that input becomes huge and it takes over our consciousness Now this happens because of the samskaras inside us The samskara is basically some scar something which leads to a disproportionate reaction and because of this we tend to malfunction in various ways In the most extreme cases we are here, the mind is in the opposite direction and the physical reality is in the opposite direction then that time we just can’t function So to deal with the mind to get it to restore its functionality we talked about three things, the first was we can look at the mind not so much from the moral perspective but from the medical or clinical perspective that see it as a mechanical device see it as a software and the medical, what does it mean? We want to use willpower but it is not raw willpower I just not do this it is refined willpower so refined willpower means we discussed two practises one is persistence and the other is abstinence abhyas and vairag what we do, I discussed the example of from bollywood.com to bhagavad gita.com so what the habit that we don’t want to do we try to abstain from it by creating boundaries and the habit that we want to do we create bonds so we all can think about what boundaries we can create to protect ourselves and then lastly I talked about bonds to develop bonds we need firstly intelligence that we need to be convinced this is what I am going to do and its best when we start to form bonds, make resolutions make them time bound so that we can get the experience ourselves and once with intelligence we practise and get the experience and the experience will strengthen our intelligence further and that will enable us to do it more persistently and then finally talked about transcendence so transcendence is where we awaken the soul it is not just both of these are changing the mind but when through transcendence when we connect to the divine reality we awaken the soul through because the soul is pure positive the soul is a part of the divine so when we link the soul with the divine we are here and this transcendence can be accessed in two broad ways one is meditation and the other is prayer so by these we will awaken the spiritual side within us and that will enable us to get transformed much faster and with respect to bonds within the spiritual traditions I mentioned that there are rituals rituals tap the power of repetition and rituals are different from routines routines are ok we need to do them but rituals are where we need to give our attention the point is not just to get the thing done but it is to get the experience so we all can incorporate certain spiritual rituals in our life and we find that making our mind our friend will become much easier thank you very much thanks to all of you and thanks to sir for giving us a very enlightening and in-depth understanding of the topic of mind, soul and body I think this will be really helpful for all of us in our real life so now I just want to ask can we take some questions so now the floor will open for questions and you can raise the hand and we will give the microphone to you hi sir thanks for the very interesting talk on mindfulness I want to ask about how important is compassion in mindfulness like compassion to oneself and compassion to others and where to set the boundary and compassion because what I feel is if we are not compassionate to others it is like a part of us that is trying to hurt ourselves instead it is reflecting outside so where do we drop the boundary good question see compassion becomes more difficult if we take the moral perspective without doing this you are irresponsible you are error it becomes easier when we take the clinical or the ethical perspective what does this mean say for example two people may try to do the same thing two people decide ok I will wake up in the morning so I can have a good start to my day now one person succeeds with a little effort the other person struggles and fails after much effort now you might conclude this person is a good person the other person is not serious is not earnest, is not sincere may be but may be not say going back to the example of Bollywood and Bhagavad Gita now one person, both of them may visit bhagavad gita.com 15 times and after that for one person bhagavad gita.com becomes the first autocom for the other person it does not that may be because the first person had visited bollywood.com only 15-20 times but the second person had visited bollywood.com 500 times so 15 times may not make much of a difference visiting 15 times is not valuable, it’s just that their conditioning, their impressions are far more, it’s going to take more time so this is where you may compare in the outer world how much somebody achieves but you may compare in terms of discipline also and that may not be very healthy especially in terms of self transformation we take inspiration from others if you want to compare, it’s best to compare with ourselves I tried this much yesterday I am going to at least try that much maybe a little more so how much we succeed that’s not necessarily in our control at this point so compassion would mean that if we are trying to do something and we are not succeeding or somebody else is trying to do something and they are not succeeding we don’t immediately jump to the moral perspective and label them negative and we don’t label ourselves also negative so we try to help them in whatever we can and we try to help ourselves sometimes we believe in more effective bondage sometimes we create bonds which are more workable for us not just I will plan to do it maybe I will tell someone if I want to develop a habit of reading some wisdom text or I want to do meditation then maybe find out somebody else who is doing meditation and do it together or tell them you help me you ask me to do a meditation and then we create help for ourselves so that’s why compassion means that we understand that we always require different amounts of time to get it now when can compassion become excessive that happens when compassion becomes the justification for stagnation this is just the way I am and this is just the way I will be so if somebody doesn’t even try to change then at that time compassion may not work at that time some amount of candour, some amount of pushing, some amount of chocolate milk may be required sometimes we have to be hard in ourselves sometimes we have to be hard in ourselves but the key is that that shouldn’t be the default response we need to give the other person or even ourselves the benefit of the doubt and then over a period of time then we evaluate and decide I just wanted to ask how do you choose the right sanskaras or choosing certain sanskaras or rituals there are a lot of options so how what does Bhagavad Gita say about choosing the right sanskara for yourself generally there are when we talk about right there are certain things which are universal and certain things that are contextual what do I mean by that say for example prayer or meditation or exercise or regulation in eating these are the essential they are good for everyone so there are certain habits, behaviours which we all can practise so they will benefit us all at the same time there are some things which are contextual they may vary from person to person so waking up early in the morning is a good habit but if somebody had that habit for a long time to say sleep at 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock 4 o’clock, please wake up at 9 o’clock and rush to work then maybe that habit will be very difficult for them to change so then they will say which is a battle that is winnable for me right now we don’t just need to change, we need to have the confidence that we can change we need to be very in our journey to change so sometimes something may be good but that may not be good for us right now, because that’s not a winnable battle so we need to choose which battle is winnable for me and do that so with respect to mantras, in our tradition chant the Hare Krishna mantra and there are many sacred texts which especially say that this mantra is very potent so that’s something which is now the Bhagavad Gita mentions Bhagavad Gita talks about so the Bhagavad Gita does not go into specifics, it focusses on universals because each person is in a different situation that’s why having spiritual association, having good friends maybe having some spiritual guides or mentors that can help us customise those practises for ourselves now what can I do? how can I do it? but basically the good in ABC A is association we try to change or choose association that will help us to create good sanskaras, B is books we try to read wisdom texts like the Bhagavad Gita C is chanting sound has great power and if we chant some mantra that attunes us to higher realities and D is diet, the food that we eat is not just what happens by not just the health perspective but the kind of food that we eat also affects our mind so if we can regulate these kind of things then that can be positive in our self transformation journey yes how can we stay motivated for a long time like if we take a decision then how to stay content for a long time like motivated yes see the difficulty is that when we start doing something our play takes off like say a plane takes off from Bangalore it’s supposed to go to Mumbai but if we make a resolution the plane takes off but in the middle it loses speed and then it crashes so for us you know commitment is actually the essence of commitment is recommitment that it is very difficult for us this is what I am going to do and as I said I will do it for the rest of my life so the key is recommitment recommitment means do it for a fixed amount of time I am going to do this for the next one week and after you complete it for the next one week look back at your experience first of all appreciate us not as egoistically but encouraging good job you did this for one week you did this it was some lapses but I continued it and then after we appreciate and encourage ourselves then we ourselves evaluate what are the values that I got and what are the challenges I faced how can I deal with the challenges how can I maximise the benefits so then that will give us a boost again so basically we will talk about recommitment recommitment is basically first we look back look back and we learn and then we look ahead and we plan so when we are consciously recommitting ourselves we will find that the motivation is still there so if you start noticing my motivation is going up then you may decide maybe I need to read something about this subject maybe I need to talk with someone who has done something similar see in general for all of us whenever we try to do something good say if I am trying to develop a healthy habit there are things that give strength that means say we hear an inspiring talk I want to do this but there are many things that require strength that means say hey I want to meditate and at the time say everybody is going to a party at the time a movie is there now we may decide to meditate but it will require a lot of power it will require strength you will get exhausted if you want to meditate everybody is doing something else then do not go along that request so for us the activities that require strength these are going to come automatically in our life they will deplete our strength many things any kind of discipline that I will follow they will be distractions and they will deplete our strength things that give us strength these have to be done consciously and conscientiously so if I decide let’s say I want to wake up in the morning then maybe I need to have some thoughts written down why is it important for me write it down in our own words maybe find some quotes about it and then revisit it so we have to find out what gives us strength and try to do that regularly and what takes away our strength or requires strength we try to minimise it suppose somebody is an alcoholic maybe they have a friend who drinks their friend tells them now they may not want to break the friendship they may have to say I will meet you but not in the bar and then you come to me to talk with the bottle it requires strength so we need to find out so the commitment involves these two things commitment first is periodically commitment and there is also like we take inventory of our own situation what gives us strength and what takes our strength and based on that we will get the first result hello sir my question is you said your mind works morally or objectively I didn’t say mind works I said you can look at the mind from two perspectives usually my understanding is how we judge other people from the moral perspective or from the objective from people’s morals are based on their biggest impressions we can look from the objective perspective but people who are around us they have their own morals and there is some kind of fight their morals are different than my morals and my objective is different and there is a clash how to decide what to do in that case is my question clear so the point is that each one of us has our own experience in that shape how we look at things so if somebody is not punctual we may think of it as a big plot by not being punctual you are showing that you don’t respect you don’t respect my time and that shows you are business special you are not trustworthy now that may be one person looking at other person might have grown up in a culture where nobody is punctual so it’s not a pleasant thing but it’s not outrageous it’s not a feeling so this is not listening on morality but it involves value judgement so how much from a certain set of incidents how much of a value judgement do we make that may vary from person to person so we can’t really control others if we want to have a relationship with others the Bhagavad Gita states that the typical situation is that I do something that disturbs you and you do something that disturbs me and then together we create a disturbed world a disturbed home a disturbed family a disturbed world so what the Gita says is that we try to function in a way that I don’t disturb you and I don’t get disturbed by you now how do we do this there are many aspects of it but I’ll just focus on one aspect what it was each one of us in our relationship there are many issues many areas over which we may interact so now there may be some things that are non-negotiable for me now I can’t accept it I just come here and there may be some things so these may be non-negotiable for me and there may be some things that are non-negotiable for you and in between are those which are negotiable so if two people have a functional relationship at least a functional relationship then actually there is a clarity from both sides what is non-negotiable for you and what is non-negotiable now each person can try to give some explanation why is this so important for me why is it non-negotiable and other person may be convinced but they have to get a clear understanding so if I respect what is non-negotiable for you then what will happen is my actions won’t disturb you so much and if you respect what is non-negotiable for me then your actions won’t disturb and then within that we can negotiate and if we look at each other not everybody has a list of 100 non-negotiable things when people have too many non-negotiables then they won’t be able to negotiate like itself we can’t be so inflexible but sometimes what happens is when we don’t respect people’s non-negotiables then they become hurt they become angry they become inflexible and even the negotiables they start taking as non-negotiables because they feel that otherwise we will walk over them so generally people have 1 or 2 or 3 non-negotiables and we also think these are non-negotiables so that to me without getting into this debate of what is moral and what is chemical let’s look at it in terms of negotiable or non-negotiable and based on that we try to form a relationship not something which somebody else considers non-negotiable and we feel it has to be negotiable then there has to be a serious hard discussion and either we can confirm each other’s strategy or if we don’t then maybe that relationship cannot be at a very deep level it will have to become a functional level from my perspective if I take one decision right then I decide to do that thing at that time but if I say time arrives I got nervous and then I resist to do that thing so how do we conjugate in the first time journey ok decision making is a big subject but I will focus on that confidence in decision making see there are no there are not really many ways by which we can completely predict or control our fate there is some aspect of it which should be unpredictable which should be uncontrollable sometimes we have moods and we have mood swings now we can’t really control them completely but we all have certain boundaries that ok if I don’t feel the mood I may say I won’t go for class ok that’s ok what if if I don’t have the mood I will drop out of college no that’s too much so we all based on our culture and our training we have certain boundaries so the boundaries itself creates some frameworks of what we will do and what we will not do now with respect to confidence it’s impossible to have total control over our mind I decided to do it I am going to do it very rarely it happens like that we don’t want to be a slave of our mind whatever impulse comes in so total control the opposite is no control no control means we become a slave of our desires our impulses basically a slave of our mind we don’t want that but on the other hand we don’t want to make our mind our slave the mind can also be created the mind has its own so we need the Gita says we have to make our mind our friend not our slave and what that means is we will need inner negotiation so for example if I feel confident right now and then maybe I don’t feel confident rather than simply saying I don’t feel confident ok what exactly is the cause of the confidence sometimes we can do this inner discussion ourselves sometimes you need to do something like journaling sometimes you need to talk with a friend ok what happened exactly what was the basis of my confidence I was thinking like this but now I am thinking like this so rather than just seeing our inner world as completely unpredictable or totally controllable we see that there are changes that happen so if I am confident right now let me write down the reasons for my confidence afterward if I feel my confidence is getting lost let me try to write down the reasons and then see how can I address those reasons ok so take a rational approach to it rationality cannot completely control the mind but we take a rational approach as much as possible and slowly through this inner negotiation we may decide that in these areas when I make a commitment I can stick to it I am confident now I will be confident in the future also in some areas may be my confidence is over confidence may be the impressions are too strong over here like earlier I said that some matters may not be winnable for us right now say somebody visits bollywood.com 1000 times then you just say within one day bollywood.com 24 chau so by experience we learn how to negotiate with ourselves this I am going to do no matter how I am this ok I don’t feel so doing it right now it’s important but it’s not that important so when we negotiate like that we are going to find that we can move forward so generally confidence can go to this point when we use the word confidence or we use the word self esteem now confidence can come from external sources external means somebody encouraging us we feel something inspirational, motivational external is good but it is highly inconsistent it may come it may not come now the internal confidence or the intrinsic self worth there are only two steps for this basically set a meaningful goal set a goal about something that matters for us and take tangible steps towards that goal we don’t have to achieve that goal but take tangible steps that’s when we will internally start feeling good about ourselves ok this is important for me and these are the steps that I have taken in that direction if I don’t even know what is important for me I am not convinced that this is what I think is important, I don’t take any steps then the confidence or the positive view of ourselves will not come and when it comes from external sources it won’t last then find out what are the level battles, start taking steps in that direction and slowly our confidence will build thank you very much so much of what I spoke today is from this book Mind It and there are two books on the mind which I have written so Mind It has 64 reflections on the mind each of them are based on the Bhagavad Gita there are articles in the centre you are not your mind this has something similar to the kind of diagrams and illustrations such as drawing many common questions are there in this book what is the difference between the mind and the brain why does the mind remember negative things much faster than positive things why does the mind act as an enemy so often you know many of the questions asked are why does our motivation get lost so questions like this are answered if somebody has mental health problems is it an issue of willpower how much is it a medical issue so questions like this are answered over here and there are few other books also if you are interested in leadership and satisfaction of the Bhagavad Gita there is 10 Leadership Tutors on the Bhagavad Gita so all these books are available behind and also we have some time in case you would like to have any further questions or you would like to have the book signed thank you so much for your participation and all the best to you in your future journeys yes sir