Art of Becoming Happy – Seminar given at Tech Mahindra

Look at any mountain taking from a town to a city and when they stay in a hotel which is a skyscraper they got a room on the 100th story and Vant kept their luggage came down and went around to see the city when they came back in the evening they were aghast to find that the power had gone off that meant they had to climb up 100 floors so, one of them got an idea let us entertain each other by telling stories and let me take our mind off the order of the climb they all agreed and the first person started his story went on till the 10th floor second person 20th floor third person 30th floor some of them told little long stories so, by the time the 10th person turned 18 they were almost on the 19th floor and they said please, tell your story he said no, I can’t tell my story all of you told, why will you not tell my story is a tragedy I have read it if I tell you the story your heart will break into pieces by this time the suspense had increased and they had gone almost beyond the 99th floor finally they came to the door of their room they said now I have to tell you the story I have forgotten the key downstairs so, from the point of Vedic wisdom this can also be the story of the lives of many people we climbed up the educational ladder we climbed up the corporate ladder and we do, after great struggle continue achieving success but, if we forget the key the key which is the art of happiness then, we will also be in the same situation as we sentient beings so, happiness is not just a result of physical acquisition or social prestige it is a state of mind and a state of being so, we will discuss this question in two parts the first part we will discuss about how we can prevent our mind from cheating us of our rightful habits actually we are such cheat anani, we are eternal full of knowledge and full of bliss so, it is our natural right to be happy but, if our mind is contaminated by undesirable habits they prevent us from experiencing our natural happiness so, the first part we will discuss how we can deal with our mind so that by interacting with the world we don’t become unduly disturbed we don’t lose sight of our inner happiness and the second part we will discuss how we can deepen our connection with the inner happiness of the mind so, these two types of happiness in Vedic terminology are called as abhyudaya and nishreyas abhyudaya means achievement the fame and glory that the world gives us and nishreyas is fulfilment the satisfaction that we feel even when nobody is there to praise us in our glories so, achievement and fulfilment are the two parts of a successful life filled with happiness so, first we will start by discussing one formula the escape formula to escape from the anxieties, the miseries, the worries that our mind continuously subjects us to so, escape is an acronym comprising of six elements so, we will discuss them one by one so, the first one is give up unreadable expectations and then S-E-A-P-E and go over these one by one so, give up unreadable expectations the Vedic approach to life and the modern approach to life are based on two fundamentally different worldviews in practical terms they can be called as the hotel worldview and the hospital worldview the western way of life treats this world like a hotel when we go to a hotel we command we choose and we decide so, similarly the western way of life teaches us that we are the controllers, we are the enjoyers and we should make everything work the way we want it to whereas the Vedic worldview says that this world is like a hospital when we go to a hospital often things don’t work according to our plan like we may want some palatable dishes to eat and the doctor may prescribe some soup so, things may not go according to our plan but still, things are not going periodically they are going according to the plan of the doctor so, sometimes the Vedic worldview is thought of as lacking in ambition, as pessimistic but it is not actually, unreasonable, unrealistic expectations create unsolvable, insurmountable problems in fact, the problem is defined as the gap between expectation and reality so, greater the gap, greater is the problem and when the greater is the problem we also experience stress and fear now, some practical benefits of not having unimaginable expectations not expecting the world to go the way we want it to we are conducting seminars here some of our faculty members also conduct seminars in America so, they have gone to Microsoft in Silicon Valley so, there we found after the seminar, we were talking with the HR manager and they said that in Microsoft the maximum number of employees from any one nation is from India number 2 is from China and number 3 is America so, we have learned that and they said, in America because the technology is so good since their birth and early childhood Americans are habituated to technological wizardry they push a button and the fan starts they push another button and the car starts they push another button and the water comes for bathing so, everything works so smoothly according to their desires, just by a push button when they get used to it and when they have to write computer programmes and the computer programmes don’t work they just can’t take it they get frustrated very easily whereas, Indians since their childhood are used to things not working their way so, suppose we are going in a train and the overhead fan doesn’t work every Indian knows what to do you take out a comb and hit it and it will start working or if you are going in a bike or a scooter and it doesn’t work Indians know what to do, tilt it around it starts working so, because Indians are used to things not going their way so, when they write programmes and the programmes don’t work they can still go along they can tolerate it, it is not the end of the world for them so, there is a problem now, we may not consciously know this but this comes from our culture which was originally based on the understanding that this world is like a hospital so, in a sense, sometimes things go our way and sometimes things teach us on their way they don’t go our way, but there is some lesson to be learned by the way things are evolving and the hospital world has two consequences when things don’t go according to my way what do I do? if the person is aggressive then he turns violent if I can’t enjoy, let nobody enjoy people may turn to violence in the form they might smash their computer screen or they might even go into more dangerous things like killing those who fear of obstructing their enjoyment most of you are aware of the Virginia Tech tragedy when a student from Korea just went mad and shot several people there was an Indian girl and an Indian professor also among those now, after that there was a lot of school searching in the American media and in teaching here but why this sort of event can happen immediately the first school massacre occurred in Britain around 10 years ago and there has been a sequence and this was the latest so, America is among the few countries in the world where possessing guns is considered a fundamental civil right and they say that the way Hitler subjected the youth to torture nobody will be able to do that to Americans because we have our guns but then sadly enough America has one of the highest domestic violence rates in the world and of course, this Korean war had begun because there was a law that you can have guns so, the solution that many American intellectuals came up with was that let more people have guns so, why is that? in case somebody becomes mad they say that if more people have guns they can shoot him before he shoots you is that really a solution? so, this is when things don’t go our way which is based on the hotel world view we turn to violence or the other thing that may happen is if a person doesn’t become violent he becomes depressed I cannot do anything, I am worthless and millions of people all over are suffering from chronic depression today now, we go to a farmer in some remote part of India now, how many of them suffer from depression? relatively speaking, very few because they have that implicit understanding that I am not the controller it is not that everybody has to like and love me everything has to work according to my plan that I should never commit a mistake they understand that in one sense when we expect everything to work according to our way and we expect ourselves to be perfect then it’s like expecting or claiming to be God which we are not so, this hotel world view leads to a lot of problems and the hospital world view enables us to deal with things when they don’t go according to our way this is the first point give up unreasonable expectations so, I have a right definition of success success is not only in the trophy but it is also in the race run so now the current idea of success is that in a competitive exam there are thousands, lakhs of students who are poor for a catch and most of them end up becoming rats they fail to pass now, is that to be considered failure? once when a person was going through a jungle he heard a divine voice push this boulder up the hill he means boulder he looked around disembodied voice, this is God speaking push this boulder up the hill he started pushing and he struggled and combed and fumed and panted but he couldn’t budge it at all he wanted to use the machine he wanted it he saw himself better in it two days, one week, one month six months he was pushing the boulder but he couldn’t budge it an inch so finally God, you knew I couldn’t do it, why did you hesitate to ask, why did you put me into this situation God, again the same voice, what happened? why did you tell me to do such a task which I could do it to? God, what did I tell you to do? you told me to push this he means, when did I tell you to move it? what is the use of pushing if you don’t move it? what is the use? look at your muscles you look down and here be a skinny fellow and now he has become strong, muscular with powerful biceps so in every activity that we do there is an internal success and there is an external success the external success is the result that we achieve and this is what the world sees in front of you but the internal success is the culture of discipline, hard work and dedication that we have developed in ourselves if we have developed that culture sooner or later we will succeed externally also again, if you look at the hotel and hostel world view the Vedic view sees this world like a hundred kilometre marathon whereas the modern western world view sees the life like a hundred metre sprint a hundred metre sprint means if you do it, that’s over but there are so many times in our life when we have succeeded but still, life goes on in fact, when Henry Ford was asked now what? you are master of so many new things what is the lesson that you have learned? the lesson that I have learned can be summarised in three words life goes on life goes on no matter how great the success we achieve the next day still we have to do our daily work we still have to deal with our mind we still have to deal with the people around us we still have to deal with the weather, with the floods with the power breakages life goes on so neither successes nor failures should be taken very seriously because life is not a product, it’s a process it’s an ongoing evolution so if we are developing a proper culture of diligence and discipline then the results will come sooner or later and this is where the spiritual worldview uses the long term view that we are souls and we will be going through more lives so this life is just one clutch and we need not take the failures and successes very seriously once there was a king who made a proclamation if anybody can give me a gift which will make me happy when I am sad and which will make me sad when I am happy then I will give you great reward all over the world people were perplexed how can you say a gift to make a person happy as he was sad finally a wise old sage came to the king and offered him a ring what is this? read what is written in the ring and there was a small jewel small point this too shall pass you can look at it and ponder I am happy this too shall pass oh when I become sad there is nothing to be so elated about and if I am sad look at it this too shall pass you will be happy so this is having the right definition of success success is not just in getting the best but also in giving the best in every activity that we do we have given our best we have grown into we have succeeded into and external success will follow sooner or later so this leads us to the next point give up unhealthy comparison once a person decided he found that everybody is in some way better than me he said what do you mean with my life he said I am going to the jungle and I will end my life before that I will reveal my heart to god and he responds well I might consider not taking my life when he went to the jungle he gets called out oh god can you tell me one reason why I should continue living one way I am good and pointed to some trees that were there in the middle and he said do you see these trees there was a fern and there was a bamboo tree he said god when I planted these trees put the seeds in the ground and I arranged to water them within a few months the fern started growing and in one year it had already blossomed and the bamboo had nothing to be seen in the second year the fern had spread its verdant greenery over a large part of the clearing in the forest but there was no sign of the bamboo the third year the fern was known to every traveller in the forest but nobody knew that the bamboo even existed because I didn’t stop watering the bamboo the fourth year the bamboo had just come out and nothing could be seen something which nobody knew and the fern was famous among everyone and in the fifth year the bamboo grew to an amazing 25 feet height and for all the previous four years the bamboo was growing in its roots if the root grew in its roots for 20 years it would not have been able to sustain the height and the weight of its 25 feet stem God said I have a plan by which everything will grow why are you complaining? so all of us are individuals not only are we unique in our looks but we also look unique in our thoughts, in our personality, in our natures if we compare we just treat ourselves as different now of course we live in a competitive society where comparison is limited in a classroom it will always be seen who is first who is second but we all have to find out our unique potential and focus on that even while comparing it is said compare with yourself and take inspiration from others that means when athletes practise for their strengths, they don’t compare with other athletes, they compare with the clock in fact maybe around 10-15 years ago it was thought that the 4 second barrier for the 100 metre sprint was really impossible to break nobody could travel 4 seconds 100 metres, 11 4 cities and that’s why nobody would try also so the athlete who broke this, how did he break it? he did not compare with anything, he just competed with the clock so similarly compare with ourselves if I have a work capacity of 6 hours if I am increasing to 6 and a half, I am improving if I see somebody who has a work capacity of 16 hours, I feel I am useless there is no benefit from which I compare similarly in every aspect of our life, we can compare with ourselves, we see the dedication we see the hard work, the diligence of others the good qualities in others and we can see what we will have moving forward and the qualities that we have they will also manifest over time, just like the bamboo will also grow, so give up unnecessary unhealthy comparisons next to be able to give up unhealthy comparisons we have to appreciate the blessings of God in our own life so this slideshow that we follow that gives us some statistics that gives us some food for thought if you woke up today with no pain you are luckier than most people we see only the people who are young and active in their dreams or elderly people who have chronic pain and every morning when they wake up, the first sensation when they get the pain we are more fortunate than most people for help, if you have never known the dangers of war, loneliness of prison or hunger you are better off than 500 million people of the government if your basic needs are covered you are richer than 75% of the rest of the world 75% we have worries about their well-being if you have some savings you are part of the 10% of the most prosperous people in the world this is in America if you saw your parents grow old together you are almost unique unfortunately earlier we had joint families where several relatives would stay together and we had nuclear families where only the husband, wife and their children would stay nowadays even the nucleus has been split and there are electrons and protons and neutrons orbiting around painlessly in the vastness of the concrete jungles of today this is something which we all take almost for granted the upbringing when we see our both mother and father they all offer love in an individual indivisible way this is not available to most American youths and that’s why the generation of youth that is growing up now is emotionally very unbalanced and immature this is in the rest of the world almost unique smile and appreciate life if you are lucky because lots of people can but they don’t yeah there is someone whose hand can hold or can hug or even just a shoulder to touch it happens they will never be lonely when people travel in the buses or in the locals in metropolitan cities sometimes there are 500 people in one body they are all crowded together but everyone of them is lonely but the family structure that we have in India is something that offers a lot of support if you can read this you are blessed because more than 2 million people in this world cannot read they don’t have the eyes so all of us have problems in our life and all of us have blessings it’s our choice if we count our problems we will be miserable if we count our blessings we will be happy one who is not grateful is a great fool why is it that we are not able to appreciate the blessings that we have some of you may be parents and you may know how sometimes the children develop some passionate attachment to some toy when they are going to the supermarket I want this toy and then the parents say no then child starts crying in the middle of the supermarket lovely mommy papa don’t love me now the parents are providing food, clothing, shelter medication, education but we don’t see anything just because we didn’t get that one toy so God is like our father and he has provided us many things but we all have our toys that may be a promotion that may be a new car that may be a better flat and just because that toy we are not getting then we all are unable to see all the gifts that God is showing in our life and we just don’t feel grateful or satisfied so we blame our children for being spoilt but then we are also spoiled children from God’s point of view one more reason why we don’t feel grateful is courtesy of the advertising industry advertising industry the whole advertising industry is based on creating wants where there are none so the advertising industry specialises in showing us all the things that we don’t have so if we just are the little recipients of the messages sent by the advertising industry we can never be grateful so we should recognise that there is much that we have and the advertisements are generally for luxuries which are mostly not official till date I have never seen any advertisement of rice, dal, sabji, chapati all of them are for luxuries so if we give up our passion attachment to our own toys and if we don’t let our films be watched to some extent by the advertising industry then we can also learn to count our blessings and be grateful the next one is the principle neglect worldly opinions and worldly passions one more problem is that we cannot satisfy everyone so we have a circle of people who are very close and important to us maybe our boss in office maybe our spouse at home, our children and we try to satisfy them but if we try to satisfy everyone if we try to take everyone’s opinion very seriously then we will just torture ourselves once a person went to a market to get a horse with his son and when they were coming back both of them sat on the horse and they were riding around majestically and the passers by said see what is this the poor horse will be crushed under the weight of both of you do you have any mercy and the father heard this and got very disturbed he said son you get down, you walk alone the son started walking and then some passers by commented what is this now where is parental love gone now the father is riding on the horse and he is making young tender body son walk father heard this, son you walk you ride and I will walk the son started walking and some passers by said what has happened to culture young son is riding and making old father walk and the father got disturbed can you get down, and both started walking and the passers by said where has their intelligence gone what is a horse meant for except for riding so in this way if we try to satisfy everyone we will not be satisfied we have a closed circle of well wishers and their opinions we can take seriously and ultimately we should live a life of principles by which we are satisfying all go ahead yeah yes people are often illogical, unreasonable, self centred if you are kind people may accuse you of selfishness and ulterior motives be kind anyway if you are successful you will make some false friends and some will succeed anyway if you are honest and frank people may call you naïve or may cheat you be honest and frank anyway when this what you spend years building someone could destroy overnight, build anyway if you find eternity and happiness then you will be jealous be happy anyway the good you do today people will forget tomorrow do good anyway give the world the best you have and it may never be enough give the world the best you have anyway even in the final analysis it is between me and God it was never between you and them anyway so live on the principles the principles that are taught in our Vedic scriptures and science they are meant for individual benefit and for social benefit so why should this be our life story? when I was a child I was dying to go to college and be free when I was in college I was dying to stand on my own feet and start earning when I was earning I was dying to get married and enjoy when I was married I was dying to have kids and become a parent when I had kids I was dying to get them educated and make them the pride of our generation when they were educated I was dying to get them married now I am dying and I realised I forgot to live so this is the state in which most people spend their lives in perpetual hunkering for some future goal and they don’t see what it is so this is worldly passion the first was worldly opinion then worldly passions so the world creates so many future goals we are like a mirage once we reach there, there is something else that is going to come if we live a life of integrity, dignity and principles then we will have real satisfaction and God will watch it, He will reward so we all have defences that are uncontrolled and they make us sitting ducks for the worldly passions so if we don’t learn to neglect worldly passions we will end up ruining ourselves so the Bhagavad Gita describes that there are three primary worldly passions lust, anger and greed so most of you know about the unfortunate fate of the former president of America he was the most powerful person in the most powerful country in the world and he was overpowered by lust a stupid indulgence, a moment of indulgence a lifetime of repentance it is greed the American nation it is greed itself and it costs the American exchequer millions of dollars to prove his guilt that is lust, now obviously he was very intelligent and talented to achieve a position, but because he could not neglect worldly passions he ruined himself so according to our researches our existence is three dimensional just like when you work on a computer there are three dimensions, there is the hardware there is the software and there is the user similarly we have a body and we have a mind and we ourselves are the soul, the body is the hardware the mind is the software and the soul is the user the operator now, one of the great dangers when we are working on computers, especially nowadays there is not much danger that some goondas will break in and destroy the hardware but there are some software goondas that will come in what are they? viruses now the hardware may be perfectly functioning but if there is a virus that has corrupted the software the whole system becomes useless similarly our mind can become contaminated by worldly passions which are like viruses so lust, anger and greed are like viruses and if they contaminate our minds with respect to all the other talents that we have we will become dysfunctional in fact we may face this graceful failure with respect to anger almost all of us still remember that fateful night of the soccer finals when there was the French captain Pizan leading his team to glory in the final match of his career and then Materazzi spoke something to him, also he is allergist and he head-butted him and he was shown the red card Benjamin Franklin said decades ago what begins in anger ends in shame this anger it is graceful and it is a wonderful career and all of us can think of times when anger contaminated us and also made us behave in those graceful ways and then there is greed so a few years ago South Africa was on the top of the cricketing world and that time the captain was Henry Crony and his strategies were being studied and emulated by coaches and captains all over the world and that time he got implicated in match fixing he was banned from international cricket and then during his confession speech he told I am sorry I have to admit to my fans that the unfortunate affection for greed that I have noticed so he lost everything although he had so much little greed so again lust, anger, greed are viruses which are very much prevailed in the society around us and we need to protect ourselves from them if we don’t, there is a little pleasure a sense of control in all these things for example when we get angry, we shout at someone we hit something it seems to be aggressive, it appears that we are in control but then the end result is something which we regret so there are four activities that increase these viruses in our life and if we abstain from these four activities then we can find that the level of these viruses will decrease tremendously just like we don’t know where it has come from or where it has come from it is unsafe, we don’t connect to our computers, you see these four activities are UTT, intoxication gambling and incident sex UTT is a product of violence the poor animals, they scream when they die, so it’s violence in fear and that violence comes in our consciousness also I think it was said almost 3000 years ago that those who sow the seeds of pain and hate cannot expect to reap these fruits of love and joy, as long as we slaughter animals we will be slaughtered in the war fields Albert Einstein said, I feel that purely from the physical effect on human temperament the humanity will be much better off by shifting to vegetarian diet the thinkers throughout history have noted this similarly there is intoxication when we get intoxicated by drugs or by liquor then we lose track of reality then we indulge in some destructive activity similarly gambling in the hope of getting quick money, we get addicted and we end up losing more money than what we get and of course this is a directly increasing the lust so when we can avoid these worldly passions we find our mental ease will increase tremendously go ahead please and the last point in this section is endure difficulties through faith so now this is a prayer which some of you may have heard Oh God please give me the strength to change the thing that I can’t change the endurance to accept the thing that I cannot and please resume to know the difference so there are things which we can and cannot change can I come now it takes a few minutes so just as so just as many young people nowadays love a body building so that they can have strong muscles until somebody attacks we should be able to face but in our society more on the physical danger than the mental danger there are things going wrong in our life by which we may have internal over reactions so faith constitutes our physical muscles just as when things go wrong in our life it’s not the wealth, it’s not the position it’s not the power, it’s not the prestige that we have as a human being in spite of all these things will go wrong when Rockefeller’s son who was a zoologist went to one of the Native American islands to do research, the Native Americans over there caught him and ate him up alive and then Rockefeller was shown in American television he said all my wealth cannot bring me proper happiness from this day till the end of my life, I just have been having crippling pain in my heart so happiness does not depend on how much wealth we have irrespective of how much wealth we have, things will go wrong and at that time it is only the faith that we have that will help us to deal with the situations so this is a more management principle which I also talked about in the Bhagavad Gita there are certain things in our life which we have control over for example, right now we are working on a project deadline, now what the deadline is, we don’t have control over that comes, but till the deadline comes how we utilise our time that’s something which we have control over so the things which we have control over are in the circle of influence there are many things which we don’t have control over which matter to us, they fall in the circle of concern so if we focus our energy in the circle of concern, just worrying about what will happen in the future then we will waste our time and energy and then, if we focus in the circle of concern the circle of influence becomes smaller and smaller and then eventually we have no time to do the work so this ability to focus in the circle of influence requires that we have faith that there is a God who is looking after things that I am concerned about when we have that faith, then it is very easy to focus on the energy so Vahini, psychologists have found 15 minutes of Vahini brain has had more than 16 minutes of Vahini that’s how much it has changed so if we develop our faith in God that will be a very worthwhile investment because that will save us from worry so let’s increase the volume you can read this, I won’t speak today so God often breaks things to make them better He breaks clouds to give rain He breaks the soil to give grains He breaks the grains to give food similarly, sometimes God breaks our plans for short term literal enjoyment to give us long term spiritual fulfilment if we don’t have a spiritual side to our life, we will not be able to understand what God is doing in our lives so we need to see not just a one to one by one event that is happening but the complete plan that God is unfolding once a mother told her daughter would you like to have a cake? oh sure take some maida take some oil take some cooking powder mother smiled and said now all of these come together they make the delicious cake but individually they don’t look at the effect similarly, God is actually preparing our heart in our consciousness to take us back to Him where we will be eternally happy so one by one the events that come in our life may not appear very palatable but if we let God enact His plan in the long run you will see that God is always acting for our good those who leave the choices to Him so now this is one very important quote of Albert Einstein problems cannot be solved without the same level of awareness that is created within that means just like when we go to a doctor the doctor gives a diagnosis this is what is wrong but that is not enough we want to understand what is wrong but ultimately what we act on is a prescription take this diet take these medicines so if we actually want to empower ourselves to apply this escape formula we need to rise to a higher level of awareness we need to bring spirituality into our life and find inner happiness by which the external ups and downs will not disturb us so this is the last short part this is the ABC formula for finding inner happiness internal body building I will tell you how do we do that? A. Associating spirituality B. Chanting in Italian proverb it says tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are so if we are surrounded by people who are giving us negative inputs who are comparing us unnecessarily with others who are discouraging us who are disturbing our faith then that is what we need to do so if we associate spirituality with people this is one great advantage of being born in India we have this association available very profusely so then we can also develop the positive faithful attitude which will help us to go through the ups and downs of life and of course Bhagavad Gita many of the principles which we are discussing are universal irrespective of religion or culture they are a part of the Hindu tradition that is the inheritance of humanity coming from God in the same way in Italian proverb Bhagavad Gita according to association Ralph Waldo Emerson he was fascinated by the Bhagavad Gita and he said I owe a magnificent grace to the Bhagavad Gita it was the first of books not to be small or unworthy but the voice of an old intelligence that in another age could answer the same questions that exercise us today so once when Albert Einstein was living I had a very few Indian students who went to do a doctorate thesis under him at that time he found he went and called and Albert Einstein said please come up he climbed up the stairs and he is anticipating what will he ask you about the thesis knock on the door, come in the same photo that he had seen in science magazine in text books and newspapers was there in the chair in front of him have a seat after initial courtesies Albert Einstein took out a book from the locker behind his shelf and showed it to him can you explain to me the meaning of these words Gute and Gute means of so in science book it was the Bhagavad Gita and it was a story to be emberacted and I am sorry I know the Bhagavad Gita is a very great book but I am not ready Albert Einstein turned to me shocked he said the whole world over intellectuals know India for the Bhagavad Gita and you are an intellectual from India and you are not ready for the Bhagavad Gita I said sorry it is unfortunate that our education system in the name of secularism deprives us of the universal non sectarian vision that is there in the books like the Bhagavad Gita but if we learn these principles and we find we are better equipped to face the ups and downs of life now see this chanting of mantras so the word mantra is a sound vibration what he sang just now it has a very special sound vibration it is called that sound vibration which has the capacity to deliver the mind from anxiety is called mantra the power of mantras we all recognise the power of sound itself and its effects which can be quite dramatic here a high pitched frequency a drinking glass so we can easily understand that loud sounds can produce substantial reactions it is commonly believed that mantras can carry hidden power which can in turn produce profound effects the ancient Vedic literatures are full of descriptions of weapons being called by mantra for example many weapons were invoked by mantra during the epic Kurukshetra war wherein the Bhagavad Gita itself was spoken an ancient deployment of Brahmastra weapons equivalent to modern day nuclear weapons are described throughout the Vedic literatures additionally mantras carry hidden spiritual power which can produce significant benefits when chanted properly indeed the Vedas themselves are sound like so mantras also discovered the extraordinary power of sound in fact as human being is better adapted to sound than to sight the visual range covers only one octave from the infrared to the ultraviolet whereas the audio range covers more than 8 octaves and this is can be easily observed that if you put a small cardboard in front of us our sight gets obstructed but to obstruct sound we need a thick wall where sound percolates through so the human body is very much adapted to receive sounds and sound when it is specifically designed in a way to stimulate the inner awareness of the person in the field of music therapy where people’s diseases are cured, those are incurable by conventional allopathic methods are cured by alternative therapies like something useful so what the session that we had at the beginning was in one sense a music therapy which helps us to calm our minds and connect with the inner joy that is vibrations can literally form and carry a sound message spiritual disciplines recommend meditational practises such as silent meditation silent recitation of mantras and also the verbal repetition of specific mantras out loud a clinical test of the benefits of mantra chanting was performed on 3 groups of 62 subjects, males and females of average age 25 they chanted the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra 25 minutes each day under strict clinical supervision, results showed that regular chanting of the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra reduces stress and depression and helps reduce bad habits and addictions these results formed a Ph.D. thesis at Florida State University so even modern science is discovering the power of mantra and that is a part of our culture so this mantra can be chanted in two ways one is individual meditation that will be what they were doing, the others chant Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Hare Ram Ram Ram Ram and the other is in the form of three things which we did at the start of our sessions so if you do these you will be seeing, you will find that you will be able to apply the escape formula more effectively and deal with our minds so I will summarise we started first with E do you remember what is E yeah, give up unreasonable expectations as success. So if you saw the hotel world view, the hospital world view.
People sometimes go our way, sometimes teachers go their way. We discussed about Indian software engineers in Texas. And also we discussed how the ability to face things when they do wrong, it is not there that leads to violence or depression.
It is as success. Life is not a 100-metre sprint, not a 100-metre sprint but a 100-kilometre marathon. So this too shall pass.
We discussed the story as well as internal external success. God telling the person to push. If you have developed a culture of discipline and hard work, you have succeeded in this.
C works? View of unhealthy comparison. Discussed the story of coupon and the bamboo. So every one of us unique.
Compare with others? No. Compare with yourself and take inspiration from others. And A was? Do you remember A? Appreciate the blessings of God in our life.
We discussed how we are unable to appreciate because of the advertising intensity and because of these spoiled children with our toys. P was? Be principled. Avoid worldly passions and opinions.
The story of Buddha. Or from the film Father and Son. As well as the example of the virus of last time.
Corrupting many people in our contemporary world. And last was P? Endure difficulties. You saw the story of butterfly and the flower.
And also see the holistic picture. You will see one more event. Cooking, individual ingredients are not equal but whole item is wonderful.
Like that God is preparing our hearts. And then we saw this is the diagnosis in the prescription very deeply. Associate with spiritualist, associate with other people.
Read books on Bhagavad Gita. And chant different names. And this will enable us to experience inner happiness.
And become experts in the art of happiness. So now we have 5 minutes. We have 3 options.
If you have questions, you can have questions. Or you can have a short question like we had. Or we can do the same chanting in the form of a meditation.
We can do mantra meditation individually. So that will be 3 minutes. Which would you like to have? Mantra meditation? Can you explain to me? So this mantra meditation is a technique by which one can gain control over one’s mind.
Manas prayate iti mantra. Pra means to protect. Or to commit.
Or to deliver. So that which delivers our mind. Manah prayate iti.
It’s called a mantra. So mantra meditation is typically done on a chanting bead. And so most of us may have it in our own places.
Sometimes in our main bead called Krishna. Which we leave. And the first one we hold in between middle finger and thumb.
And with each bead, on each bead we chant one complete mantra. And thus we proceed to the next one. So I’ll just give a demo.
Then we’ll chant later on together. So on this side,