Appreciating life’s ARC – Achievements, Relationships, Consciousness

[Talk at Intel, Phoenix, USA] PPT: Video:

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Good morning everyone, grateful to be here amongst all of you today. It's a privilege to be with you and I'll be speaking on this topic of how the arc of our life can lead us to satisfaction and success. I'll start with the anecdote, once a group of 10 friends came from a village to a city and in that city they wanted to see the skyscrapers.

So they found a hotel which had 100 levels and they got a room on the 100th level. They went and kept their stuff, came down, went around, saw the sights in the city and came back and they found to their dismay and the elevator was not working. Now they had to climb up.

So it was a huge task. So one of them got an idea, let's all tell stories to each other and by the stories we will entertain each other and take our mind of the order of the climb. The first person started, he told a story which went on for about 10 levels.

Second person, some of them told little longer stories. So by the time they're at the 96th level, it was the turn of the 10th person and the 10th person said, I can't tell you my story. He says, come on, we all told.

He says, no, my story is a tragedy. I tell you, it will break your hearts. He says, no, no, please tell us and they're climbing up all along.

He says, no, no, I can't please tell us. And as this yes, no, yes, no was going on, it finally came near the 100th level. And then he said, I have to tell you the story now.

I have forgotten the key downstairs. So sometimes, in our life, we may climb up the ladder of success. And usually, if we look at our lives, what we seek most, we usually work in these priorities.

We all want some achievements, some things which we can show to the world, some trophies, some medals, some positions. And this is what drives us often the most. If we look at the way we work in our lives, if we look at our dreams, the foremost passion that is induced in our dreams is the vision of some achievement that we want.

And of course, we know that achievements alone are not enough. We also want someone with whom to share the joy of those achievements. And that's where relationships come into the picture.

We want friends, loved ones with whom we can share our achievements. And then beyond that, we think of our consciousness. What are the kind of thoughts I have? What is the way I wish to live in my life? So about 25 years ago, I was an engineering student in one of the premier colleges in India.

And at that time, I was living more or less according to this trajectory. My dream at that time was to come as a topper, as number one in my class. I was always among the good students.

And I would be among the top, second, third, sometimes joint first, but I was never the first. So that was a big disappointment for me. And in the third year of my engineering in electronics and telecom, I gave GRE for coming here to America from India.

And at that time, it was out of 2400, I got 2350. So I was first, not just in my college, but in the history of my college, not just in the history of my college, I was the first in the whole state of Maharashtra, which has several million people population. And I thought this is the success of my life.

I was jubilant. I got the achievements, achievement, but after some time, it struck me that just looking at the mark sheet, doesn't give much pleasure. So it's only when some friends, loud ones come and congratulate and appreciate, that's when is the real joy.

And somehow it happened that three of my close friends, one after another, forgot to congratulate me. When the first did congratulate, I was a little annoyed. And neither of them had any bad intention.

They just thought everyone knows about it. What's the big deal? So the second person didn't congratulate, I was irritated. The third person didn't congratulate, I was infuriated.

And at that time, as I was trying to make some small talk with that friend, it struck me as if I look at myself from above. I thought, hey, wait a minute. You thought this will make you happy in life.

You got this, but instead of making you happy, it's only made you more dependent for your happiness on others. In the past, you could just interact with people and go on with the normal conversation. Now, when you come into a conversation, you are so needy.

What is going on over here? That was the time when I started self-exploration. That is when I started exploring about consciousness. I started reading various wisdom texts to understand what is there inside us and how that matters.

So if we look at our life, what matters most for our well-being, for our happiness is the opposite hierarchy. It is our consciousness first and foremost that determines our well-being. It is our consciousness that determines our happiness.

And of course, our consciousness is shaped by our relationships and it is also shaped by our achievements. But in the hierarchy of what matters most to us, the sequence is opposite often to what we spend our time most on. Now, I'll explore these three topics and we'll look at how we can get the hierarchy in such a way in our lives by which we can find fulfillment internally while also seeking achievements externally.

So if you look at, I talked about going up the skyscraper, climbing up. But for many of us, we climb up the skyscraper. At least at that time, 25 years ago, I felt as if my success had only raised me to a height from which I was falling, I was collapsing.

When we get success, most of us struggle to achieve the goals that we set for our lives. And some of us succeed in achieving those goals. To be unable to achieve our goals is frustrating.

It is disappointing. But to find after achieving our goals that they don't bring much fulfillment, that is actually even more disoriented. So we simply increase the height from which we fall down, from which we collapse.

That is how our life trajectory goes. If we focus more on achievements than on the relationships, and we focus more on relationships and less on consciousness. I was just a month ago, I was speaking at Stanford and was talking with the professor there.

And I have spoken at, in India, we have Institute, Indian Institute of Technology, you know, top colleges over there. So when I talk about mindfulness and mental health, basically, in this premier institutes, in general, those are top achievers. They basically alternate between two broad emotional states.

We're talking about achievers who succeed. They either have feelings of grandiosity. See how great I am.

Or the other emotional state is this depression. So we feel grandiose, we have illusions of grandeur when we look at others, and think how much better than others I am. And if that's how we look at people, if we can find the people as compared to whom we can feel ourselves better, that makes us feel grandiose.

But we find that the people around us are better than us. That causes us depression. So achievements don't necessarily lead to a stable emotional state.

They keep our emotions on a wild roller coaster. And as the achievements, they themselves may give us a sense of gratification for the ego, but they do not lead to any steady fulfillment. If we consider relationships, when the hierarchy is that achievements are the most important, then we use people to get things rather than using things to get people.

And the result of that is our heart becomes like a congested desert. It's congested with desires and schemes. I want to do this.

I want to do that. I want to do that. But it does not find any fulfillment.

We may work very hard to get a huge house. But in trying to get that huge house, if we alienate the people around us, then the big house only gives us the privilege of a lot of space in which to feel lonely and unhappy. So relationships are the, if I talk about the foundation, the skyscraper, we are moving, the achievements are like the towering tops of the skyscraper.

And we are moving from the skyscraper, what can be seen visibly towards the foundation. So our relationships are what give us stability. And beyond that, if we look at consciousness, our emotions and experiences are determined not by the event that we go through, but by our consciousness by which we go through those events.

Generally, we think of happiness and distress as just a one-step experience. This happened, that's why I'm happy. This happened, that's why I'm unhappy.

But if we consider here a few examples, if we lose someone, and if we donate someone, from the external point of view, from our bank accounts point of view, some money has gone out. But the money is lost, we feel irritated. If the money is donated, we feel satisfied, we feel contented, I have done something good.

So it's not just the event, but it is the conception that we bring into the event, the conception by which we see the event. So if we've done something, we've written up, we've made a proposal, prepared a project, and an enemy or rival criticizes us, that will hurt us. But if a mentor critiques us, that may also hurt, but we also feel grateful.

We also feel, yes, I can improve, we feel encouraged. The criticism is the same, but it is the context that determines how we process the event. Actually, this point that happiness or distress is not a one-step experience.

Let's take one more example to illustrate this. Suppose we are going to a party, and say, in that party, there is some dessert, which we love. Would any of you like to share a dessert that you like? Anyone? Jalebi.

Okay, thank you. Jalebi is an Indian dessert. It's made in sugary syrup, and it's extremely delicious.

So suppose somebody has heard, there's going to be this dessert in the feast, and go there, and then we see the menu, and there's no jalebi there. What happened? And we are told that there's a cook over there, the cook made a mess of the cooking, and that's why they couldn't have any jalebi. Now, we will feel annoyed, disappointed.

On the other hand, say somebody else also loves jalebis, but just a few days before, they have been diagnosed with diabetes, and they know that seeing everybody eating jalebis and not being able to eat them is going to be agony. And then they come to the event, and they say there are no jalebis. And what do they feel? Relief.

So the event is the same, but the experience is very different. So the experience is shaped by our consciousness. So whatever experiences we have in our lives, we seek achievements, and they're important.

We seek relationships, and they're important. But it is our consciousness that determines whether those achievements and those relationships will give us satisfaction or will cause us agitation. So what is this consciousness? And if the consciousness is what shapes our experience so much, then how do we enrich this consciousness? How can we make the consciousness more positive? So I would like to talk about a model of the self that is given in the wisdom texts from the East.

So this model talks about the self as a three-level entity. The body, the mind, and the soul or the consciousness, the higher self. So this is compared to the hardware, software, and the user in a computer system.

The hardware is like the body, the software is the mind, and the user is the consciousness. Now with our phenomenal technological advancement, today we have as commonplace luxuries and comforts which were unimaginable even for royalty a few hundred years ago. We have air conditioning, we have air travel, we have telecommunications.

So although we are, that hardware has been improved enormously, the physical reality has been improved enormously, but it is the software of the mind that seems to be corrupted. That is why we have an enormous incidence of mental health problems. In fact, there are 1 million people who commit suicide every year, which amounts to one suicide every 40 seconds.

That means the time since I had started speaking, 25 people have committed suicide. And this figure of 1 million is actually more than the number of people who are killed in wars, murders, and terrorist attacks combined together. So more the number of people who are being killed by others are the number of people who are killing themselves.

So there is something seriously wrong inside us. When somebody commits suicide, basically something inside them tells them that life is not worth living. Yes, something terrible may have happened externally to them, and that is tragic if it has happened.

But there are other people who may go through the same tragedy, and they may not become suicidal. So again, our experience of life is a two-step event. It is not a two-step process, not just the event that happens, but it is the way we process that event.

So when the software of the mind is corrupted by negativity, then our sense of self-worth is tied to externals. If I am better than my competitors, I feel great. If I am worse than my competitors, then I feel worthless.

That kind of self-conception is the corruption of the software of the mind, and then that can backfire on us. Now beyond this mind is the observer, the self, that is the consciousness. So I would like now to do a thought experiment to illustrate what I mean by this consciousness.

So wherever you are seated, you can sit comfortably, and you can close your eyes. With your eyes closed, you can take three deep breaths. One, two, three.

Now while continuing with your deep breath, you can notice which part of your body feels the most tense. It may be your foot, it may be your hand, it may be your forehead. Continue the deep breathing and try to relax that part of the body.

One way to relax the body is to consciously do the opposite first. So you can focus your attention now on your right hand and tighten your hand into a fist. Tighten it as strongly as you can.

Take a deep breath, and when you release the breath, release the fist. As the air goes out of the body, feel the stress going out of your body. Do this once again.

Tighten your fist, take a deep breath, release the breath, release the fist. Now look in front of you with your eyes closed and try to see what you see in front of you. Because your eyes are closed, you can't see physically what is there, but you can see some kind of inner screen on which various images may come.

Now again repeat the clenching of your fist, but now try to see your fist on that inner screen in front of you, and as you tighten the fist and then you release it. Observe the muscles of your hand relaxing. Try one more time.

Tighten your fist. Observe your fist on your inner screen. Tighten it, release it.

As you see the fist relaxing on the inner screen, you can feel your body relaxing. You are the feeler of the relaxed body, and you are the seer of the hand, of the fist on the inner screen. So you who's the experiencer of the body is different from the body, and the inner screen on which you felt your saw your fist, that inner screen is your mind.

So you the seer of the inner screen is different from the mind. You are the inner seer. You are the consciousness.

Take a deep breath, and you can open your eyes. The purpose of this thought experiment is of course at one level to relax ourselves, and another level it is to recognize that we are the observers of our body. We are different from our body.

In the physical level of reality, there are situations and whatever. So that's what we observe. The physical reality is like the outer scene.

The inner screen on which the physical reality gets imprinted, that is like the mind, and we are the seers of that physical reality. We are the inner seer, that is the consciousness. So when we are not mindful, when we become stressful, what happens is this inner screen which is meant to be like a window.

Right now you're looking at me, I'm looking at you. This inner screen which is meant to be like a window can become instead like a TV screen. And when it becomes a TV screen, it just goes off in some unwanted direction.

So right now if you suddenly think, where did I keep my phone? You touch it, you find in your pocket there's no phone. Where did I keep it? Maybe I kept it in my counter, maybe I kept it in my car. And as you start thinking about it, a movie sort of starts in your inner screen.

And although you are here, you can't hear what is going on. So the inner screen has to be functional. If the inner screen goes off in an unwanted direction, we become distracted.

The two major mental health problems in today's world are depression and anxiety. In terms of this model, when we get depressed, the inner screen becomes like a TV screen and starts replaying all the bad things that have happened in our life. This person did like this, that happened over there.

Life always treats me badly. And as we keep replaying all the bad things that have happened, we start feeling that the future is going to be more of the same. And thus, although physically everything may be alright, we end up depressed.

In contrast, when we feel anxiety, at that time this inner screen goes off in the future and starts showing us a horror movie about the future. This may go wrong, that may go wrong, that may go wrong. And when that happens, we become overwhelmed by worry.

Worry, fear, anxiety, tension, all of these result when we start fantasizing in a dystopian way of all the things that may go wrong in the future. It said that worry is like the interest we pay on loans that we haven't yet taken. There is no problem right now, but we get overwhelmed by it.

So now for us to get the inner screen back on track is vital. And for that, we have to recognize that we are different from that inner screen. So becoming mindful is not just of becoming aware of our situations, we become observers of our situations, we are different from our situations.

And also it means becoming aware of our emotions, becoming aware of what is appearing on our inner screen and whether what is appearing there reflects reality or not. Last year I was in California, I had gone to meet a friend and he had a big house and we were sitting in the house, there was a big window and from the window there was beautiful greenery and there's a mountain in the background. As we were chatting, suddenly I noticed through that window a giant ape marching in, the kind of apes you might see in Planet of the Apes, just charging in and he kept charging in and I'd raise his fist to crash on the glass of the window.

I was a little concerned, I looked at my friend and he was grinning. I looked at him again, I noticed he had some kind of button, some kind of remote and he pressed the switch on the remote and as soon as he pressed it, the ape disappeared. What happened I asked? He said that he had designed that window in such a way that by pressing a remote that window would change into a TV screen and just to have fun, he had made a video montage with the same background as what was seen through the window but with the ape superimposed on it.

So, now he knew that this is simply a window which is now changing into a TV screen. So, he was just enjoying it but I did not know, I was concerned. Similarly, for us at any moment, our inner screen can change from a window to a TV and it can cause agitation to us.

So, we need to situate ourselves in our understanding that we are the consciousness, we are the inner seers. So, now if we, with this background, let's revisit the three things I talked about, consciousness, achievement and relationships. When we are doing something, whatever we are doing, we have a purpose.

Problems don't trouble us so much if they are purposeful. Say, if you are driving to a particular important destination, maybe to meet a friend or someone, then we need fuel along the way. And if we don't get the fuel, we can't move forward.

But getting fuel is not the purpose. Getting fuel is necessary to serve the purpose. Similarly, for us, making money, having achievements, that's important.

But making something worthwhile with money is even more important. How is this related with a point about the inner screen? On the inner screen, what will appear is sometimes not controllable. When the inner screen will change into a TV and start displaying something, we can't control that.

But if our purpose is well defined, then we won't get carried away by whatever appears on the inner screen. But if our purpose is to have an enjoyable scene on the inner screen, and then something terrible starts appearing over there, we won't be able to keep our perspective. Our mind functions like a mechanical device, like a programmed software.

In India, there's a well-known Bollywood movie industry, it's called Bollywood. And if we consider that somebody has visited that particular website called Bollywood.com repeatedly, and then whenever they type B on their browser, immediately that comes as an autocomplete. So then after some time, they come to know about spirituality, they come to know about some spiritual texts.

So when they hear about the spiritual texts, let me go and explore some spirituality. So if somebody starts exploring, say if somebody's in Bollywood.com or sports.com or some website like that, so they're repeatedly with sports.com and now they want to know about spirituality. And they type spirituality in their browser and they begin with SP.

What will happen? It'll give sports.com. They wanted to go to spirituality, but it'll give sports.com. That's because that is the default, which has already been set over. So for all of us, our mind also has certain default thought patterns. And those default thought patterns will determine what appears on our inner screen.

So now when sports.com comes, or if somebody wants to visit spirituality.com, they need to consciously change it. That browser screen is like our inner screen. So if we have a habit of thinking negative, of self-esteem issues, of insecurity, then that kind of thought will naturally come to this.

But just because those thoughts have come, doesn't mean that we have to dwell on them. We understand this is just a thought which has come from the past. It'll be there for some time, but only if I give it my attention, it will grow.

But if, and in this point what I'm saying is, if our whole purpose is that everything should be wonderful on this inner screen, then if something unpalatable comes over there, it'll be unbearable. So now life's biggest challenge is to keep the biggest challenge, the biggest challenge. Though most often we get lost, we get diverted, not by a sudden U-turn.

If we are planning a particular trajectory in our life, we get diverted by small, small deviations. We all, when I talk about how our consciousness is important, relationships are important, achievements are also important, but there's a hierarchy. Now, in a sense, I'm not telling you anything new.

We know it. But the nature of our culture is such that achievements are glamorized far more than relationships. And consciousness, it's not talked about much.

So whatever is externally glamorized, we start pursuing that more and more. And we end up losing track of what is most important. So to think straight means to keep what is most important, most important in our lives.

For consciousness, now how do we take care of our consciousness? We need meditation. Meditation is not just sitting in some posture or doing some breathing exercises that's useful. But the essence of meditation is me time.

Me time means that I spend time with myself, not with my mind, but with myself. Means I become aware that I am different from this inner screen. There are times when we just get carried away by our thoughts.

But there are times when we become aware of our thoughts. Say meditation is the time when we turn inwards. And by turning inwards, we become aware of the reality that we are different from our mind with its thoughts and emotions.

Initially, I talked about this model as horizontally three level, that is outer scene, inner screen, and then the inner seal. We could take this as a three level reality. So a three level structure.

So the process of meditation essentially means to raise our consciousness from physical reality, be to mental reality and beyond mental reality to self-awareness, to reality of ourselves as observers, as seers, as spiritual beings. So when we do that, there are different traditions, different paths for raising our consciousness upwards. But to the extent we anchor ourselves in self-awareness, in the security of who we are, to that extent, our situations and our emotions will not disturb us that much.

If we compare our situation with the ocean, in the ocean, waves will keep coming and going and we will be tossed by the waves. But if there's a helicopter above and from the helicopter, somebody drops a rescue rope. And even if we don't get out of the ocean, if we still hold on to that rope, then the waves won't shake us so much.

They may hit us, but they won't toss us around. So for us, meditation is what lifts us above our situations and above our emotions. And so that now your me time is meant to discover our deepest self.

We all have a surface self. Surface self means, okay, how do I look? All the things which we use to project an image of ourselves, they are important because we live in an image-driven society. But they're not so important that we lose our core of that.

So there is a time when we have to address our surface self, but there is a time needed to address our core self. Then further part of consciousness is that this inner seer is a part of something bigger than itself. We need to connect with the source to find inner stability.

Now our very existence depends on things beyond our existence. Every day when we eat food, we are aware that I'm working hard, I'm earning money and I'm getting this food. Yes, that is true.

But what happens after we eat food? The process of digesting the food so that it gets converted into working energy is a complex process. Scientists who try to create an artificial digestive machine, they find that actually we need not a machine but a factory. So it's a very complicated process.

We just eat the food and we forget it. But digestion, if it doesn't work, then we can't work. And usually the only time we think of our digestion is when it doesn't work.

So actually our existence depends on something beyond ourselves. And when we try to think that we are the whole, so basically the inner seer, the soul, the consciousness is a part of something bigger than itself. But when we forget that, then we think that we need to control everything.

We are parts but we try to play the role of the whole. And that causes enormous agitation. So if you have to catch a flight, now we have to concern ourselves with reaching on time, having our boarding pass, having our ID proof.

But if we start worrying, is there enough fuel in the plane? Has the pilot drunk too much? If we start worrying about things that are not in our control, then we will overwhelm ourselves. So in a plane, we are a part and we just need to play the part of the part. And it's the whole system that will take care of the whole.

So similarly for us, spirituality helps us become aware that we are parts. We have an important role, but it's a role. And that brings a sense of stability because we are no longer trying to control everything.

And that brings us to relationships. Now with a spiritual self-understanding, our relationships, we approach them from a different perspective. Broadly, relationships can be based on three paradigms, dependence, independence, and interdependence.

Dependence means that our sense of self-worth comes from someone else. We are dependent on that person's appreciation. Psychologists call this the approval addiction.

Sometimes some people, maybe they had a sibling who was better than them, and the parents always unfavorably contrasted them with their sibling. And they grew up throughout life trying to get the approval of someone. So these dependent relationships are damaging.

And they come because we feel our sense of self-worth depends on this person appreciating. Now independence is often what is glamorized in today's world. But independence alone leads to loneliness.

In the past, we had joint families, then we had nuclear families. Now today we are experiencing nuclear fission. And then we have protons, neutrons orbiting about.

So independence alone is not enough. We need to move towards interdependence. Interdependence is possible only when first we are independent.

So our spirituality helps us base our self-identity and our self-worth in inner security. I am spiritual. I'm above these situations.

I'm above the emotions that arise in these situations. I am secure. And as a secure individual, when we enter into relationships, those relationships can be much more stabler than what they would be.

If we are dependent, we will try to get too close to the person and that will cause repulsion. If we are independent, we will just not care for the other person and we will stay away equally. But we are interdependent and we can have fulfilling relationships.

And the principle of interdependent relationship is don't see through others, see others through. We all have faults. We all have limitations.

We start looking at each other's faults. Then we will never be able to sustain any relationship. We are here to help each other along our life journey.

And achievements, achievements are important. But with what purpose are we pursuing that achievement? If we're pursuing an achievement to cover our inner insecurity, oh, I think I'm not good enough. And if I get this, get this certificate, get this degree, get this medal, get this award, then I am someone worth it.

Then that is an endless process. But instead, if you understand, we all have been given some interest, some talents, some gifts, and we want to do justice to those talents. So rather than thinking of achievements as a process of becoming someone, we see achievement as a process of bringing out what we have.

So realizing who we are, not becoming someone else. I'll conclude with one metaphor. With this inside out paradigm, when we pursue achievements, at that time, we start from a platform of security.

All of us have different interests, different talents, different aptitudes. And quite often, in society, when we live certain certain abilities, and the achievements corresponding to those abilities get glamorized. And we start craving for them.

Suppose we go for a feast, we've over a program where there's a feast. And there's a special kind of menu over there. Everybody is going to get a different desert.

As many participants are there that many deserts are there. Now we have got a nice desert in our plate. But we are looking, what does that person have? What does that person have? And the more we see the deserts in everybody else's plates, the more we start feeling dissatisfied.

But we turn to our plate and look at the desert that is there. And we savor that. It tastes great.

But it won't taste great if our mind is filled with thoughts about what else has got. So when we have spiritual understanding, then we don't let our eyes go to what who has. Yes, we are aware of that.

But that doesn't consume our consciousness. We focus on what we have. We focus on bringing out what we have to make a contribution in our own way.

With spiritual understanding, we see that it's not that we have to fight to achieve something. Rather, there is a space for each one of us. And we just have to find that space.

So if we turn inwards and bring out our best, we will gravitate, we'll go towards that place. And that's how what we do is, when we pursue achievements, we focus on our mission, our contribution. Seek not to get the world to look up to you.

Seek to look up at something bigger than the world. Bigger than the world means not just we look not just for the world's glamour, the world's glorification. See, what can I bring to the world? What can I contribute? So when we have that vision, then we will have drive, we will achieve, but we won't become dependent on the laurels from the world.

And with this inside out paradigm, when we work, the basic function is be not apart, be apart. Be apart means, as I said, we are a part of something bigger than ourselves. And instead of trying to be a whole in our own right, we contribute in our own way.

And we'll find that we will each one of us carve out our destiny and bring our own contribution and fulfill the potential that we all have been given. I'll summarize what I spoke. I started by speaking about the arc of life, the story of how this 10 group, 10 people went to the skyscraper top but forgot to take the key.

Something similar happens in our lives if we pursue achievements at the cost of relationship and we completely neglect our consciousness. What matters most for our well-being is our consciousness first. When I got the achievement of coming first in my history of my college, I realized that I had no fulfillment without people appreciating.

And even if people appreciating, somebody doesn't appreciate, I felt dissatisfied. So what matters most to us is first our consciousness, then our relationships, then our achievements. And for this paradigm, I talked about what is the role of consciousness.

We did the thought experiment of how we are the inner seals. So the body is like the hardware, the mind, the software, the soul, the user. Through technological progress, we have improved the hardware, improved the physical reality.

But unfortunately, the mental reality that is become corrupted. So that's why what is the corruption of the mental reality mean? That our self-conception, our self-worth gets wedded to externals. So if we see ourselves only as achievers, then as long as we see ourselves better than others, we feel great about ourselves.

And if we see others are better than me, we feel worthless. So this kind of shaky self-conception is the corruption of the software. And to counter that, talked about how we are, we can by meditation, realize that we are the seers of not just the outer sea, but also the inner screen.

So we exist beyond our situations and beyond our emotions. It is when this inner screen starts going to the past and talking about all the bad things happened there, we get depression. When it goes to the future and starts depicting all the bad things that may happen there, we start getting worried, anxiety.

So if we become aware that this inner screen is different from who I am, then rather than getting carried away by whatever appears in the inner screen, we will process it. And our purpose will enable us to choose what we focus on that inner screen. So if we make achievements our purpose, if we make money our purpose, that's like making, getting fuel for the car the purpose of driving.

Making money is important, but what we make with money is even more important. And with this inside out paradigm, we situate ourselves using me time, we rise from the physical scene from the mental screen to the level of the inner seer. So various process of meditation are meant to make us realize our inner spirituality and provide us inner security.

And then we can, with that inside out paradigm, when we enter into relationships, we come with inner security. We do not have the clinginess of dependence, nor do we have the loneliness of independence. We can have the connectivity that comes from interdependence.

And then when we pursue achievements, we pursue them not to cover up our inner insecurity with external awards, but to bring about, bring out our inner talents, our inner interests. And with this paradigm, we don't compete to create some space for ourselves, but we find our space. And thus we, rather than becoming someone, we realize who we are.

And the spiritual paradigm helps us to become, see that we are a part. We don't have to become apart from everything. We are a part of something bigger than ourselves.

And by focusing on the things which are in our control, we can create a brighter destiny for ourselves. Thank you very much. How did I start this journey? As I mentioned that at that time when I was doing my GRE and I felt a lack of fulfillment.

So I started exploring some wisdom texts at that time. Along with that, I was also involved in social work. I had, since my childhood, a very strong faith in the power of education.

I felt that education would open doors for people. So I used to go to slums near my college in Pune, India. And I used to offer free tuitions in English, math, history, the slum kids.

And at that time, I found that most of these kids were from dysfunctional families. The fathers were alcoholics, it was domestic violence. And I felt that just teaching them these subjects, how much of a difference was it going to make? So then, as a part of the social welfare organization, we decided to go into helping people come off alcohol.

So one of my friends adopted a small village. I took that small slum. And then, over a period of months, we got many people to give up alcohol.

In fact, the small village which was there, became almost completely free, at least from alcoholism. So, but one evening, my friend came back. He looked shattered.

I asked him what had happened. He said there had been the local political elections, and all the candidates, in order to woo the voters, had brought four truckloads of free liquor for everyone. And not only the fathers, but even their kids had got drunk.

So at that time, it struck me that education may open doors, exterminate. But there is something inside us, which can stop us from walking through those doors. And it was not just in those people I saw that.

When I was in engineering college, one of the professors was brilliant, and I admired him quite a lot. He committed suicide. That jolted me.

And then I myself, at that time, was quite short tempered. So I could see that there is something inside us, which works against us. And that's when I started trying to understand what is there in the inner world.

So I encountered the yoga text, Bhagavad Gita at that time. I read that, and therein, I understood this concept of the mind as the inner software that's getting corrupted. And after I finished my engineering, I worked in a software company for some time.

But I was also sharing spirituality. And I was getting a lot of positive results from the sharing of spiritual wisdom through the informal talks that I was doing. So I felt that at that time, I could contribute more to society by sharing spiritual knowledge.

So I see scientific knowledge like one huge mountain. And the knowledge of spirituality from the wisdom traditions of the world, that's like another mountain. But there's a big valley that separates the two.

So I felt that I could become like one brick on the bridge that brings together these two mountains of knowledge. So that's what I've been doing for the last two decades. So when we are an image driven society, how can we focus on something deeper, because achievements also are important.

So growth is a natural state of the living being. All of us were just unicellular organisms at one time. Now, fully grown humans, millions of cells in our body.

So growth is natural. If we consider cancer, that is also growth. But that growth is destructive.

Because it is disproportionate. One set of cells start growing so much that they start damaging and destroying the body around it. Similarly, for us, achievements are a natural part of the growth of our life.

As we grow in life, we want to rise in the corporate ladder, we want to rise in various aspects of life. But if one thing becomes everything, then that obsession becomes like cancer. So if now there are times in our professional life when certain project deadlines are there, certain priorities are there, and that time, we may have to focus on the pursuit of the achievements.

But if that is the only thing in our life, if we lose a sense of perspective, if we start neglecting other important things, just for one thing, then that's where it becomes a problem. So that sense of perspective comes by recognizing that, yes, achievement is important for me. But this is one part of my life, a very important part, but still this is one part.

So when we make the part into a whole, then we lose perspective. So best would be as a practical analysis, practical guideline is that if in our week or in our month, we chart out some time for ourselves to be with ourselves. So it could be to meditate to read some wisdom literature, something which helps us to go and to go inwards to think of deeper things.

Usually, we are very much affected by our externals. So if we could have some forums where we can be prompted to go inwards. So in a sense, the external prompt to go inwards and the external prompt will normally push us outwards.

Get this, get this, get this. But if we have some external forum, which also remind us to go inwards, and if we can periodically connect with those kind of forums, then that will ensure that we don't become obsessed with what we are doing. So the broad sense of balance comes when we can pause and look at ourselves.

But there are times when you have to completely get involved in things and you have to be engaged wholeheartedly. But there needs to be time when you need to withdraw and observe ourselves. So whatever can help us in withdrawing ourselves from our roles and observing ourselves more holistically, that will help us to keep a sense of balance.

How would we define a world where there is no competition and everybody is acting ideally? I don't think it's possible to have a world without competition. It is whether the competition is constructive or it is destructive. Say, if there's a tennis tournament, then all the tennis players are competing to get the number one prize.

But now, if for that purpose, each tennis player starts practicing more and playing better, then the overall level of their performance increases. And in tennis, now we have the big three. So Djokovic, in a recent, after recent victory, said that actually Nadal and Federer have helped me to become a better player.

So that is an example of constructive competition. But if in order to achieve success, instead of trying to rise ourselves higher, we start pulling others down, then that is destructive competition. So if now an ideal society doesn't necessarily have to be a utopia, if we consider ideal society means everybody will behave in an ideal way, that is a utopia.

But an ideal society is where everybody accepts their limitations and focuses on their strengths and moves on. So we can begin that ourselves. It is when there is darkness, it's very easy to curse the darkness.

But it's much more fruitful to turn on one candle. So if we try to play our part and being the best we can be, not the best in the sense of standing on the throats of others, but best in the sense of trying to bring out our best in a mood of contribution, then that can become a candle which lights and others may light. Others may light their candle also.

So basically, the reference point is what is important. If my reference point is bringing out my best or my reference point is becoming better than the other person. If my reference point is becoming better than the other person, then I may start cutting corners.

Instead of trying to become better than the other person, I'll try to pull the other person down. But if I try to be the best that I can be, then competition can act as a spur for us to bring out our best. Thank you so much for coming today.