Awareness, Aspiration, Action – From standard of living to standard of loving

[Talk to doctors at KLE Hospital, Belgaum, India]

Video:

Am I audible behind? Thank you. So, I am grateful to be here amongst all of you today. And thank you for coming.
As I mentioned, I will speak on the topic of from the standard of living to the standard of life. I will take this in three parts. I will talk first about the difference between the two.
Then I will focus on what are the problems when we focus only on the standard of living. And then I will move forward to talk about what contributes to a high standard of life itself. The word standard of living is used to refer to the financial level and the comfort level in our life, broadly speaking.
And like most of you, I was born and brought up in India. Last five, six years, I have been travelling extensively across the world. And when I went to America, Australia, especially America, at first glance, the comfort, the prosperity, the luxury over there is extraordinary.
But as a spiritual teacher, when I give talks and then I talk with people, time and time again, I notice that people have a profound level of loneliness. People are enormously distressed. Mental health problems are so high in the western world that one out of every five persons during the course of their life will contemplate suicide at some time or the other.
One out of every three persons, at least at some phase in their life, takes serious mental health treatment. The single big, most sold over-the-counter medicine is mental health medicine, antidepressants and tranquillizers. These medicines were not even known 40-50 years ago.
It is not that people in the past never had anxiety. Life always has its insecurities. But the sheer amount of mental health problems are such that people call it, the World Health Organisation has called it as an epidemic.
So, from the standard of living perspective, all the needs that we sometimes struggle to get, they are comfortably available. In fact, today we have so much luxury that even royalty a few hundred years ago would have considered such luxury unimaginable. And all of us are in, we often are in air-conditioned rooms.
Air-conditioning was unimaginable even for royalty 500 years ago. Telephones, aeroplanes, so many amenities we have far, far better than what people in the past had. So, the standard of living has gone up for many people in the western world and in India also, as people are progressing, it is going up.
And certainly, there is no intrinsic virtue in living in discomfort. Comforts are a part of life. But when comforts become the purpose of life, when comforts become what we seek for in our life and getting them is considered to be success and failing to get them is considered to be failure, then we are missing out on something very important in life.
I just, I came from America a couple of months ago, a month ago in fact. So, I spoke at Stanford University. I spoke there on the topic of the missing self in the selfie.
The missing self in the selfie. So, the theme was that selfies represent one of the most popular technological products that people use. Click photos and share photos.
In fact, I am based in Mumbai. There are several parts in Mumbai where the government has officially banned taking selfies because many people take dangerous selfies. So, now the missing self in the selfie means that we are so fascinated with trying to look good and trying to share our images with others.
But who is the actual person who we are, who is trying to look good? Who is it that we are trying to make happy? So, the understanding of the self which is actually the source of happiness is quite elusive. Why is it elusive? Because we often identify, not only identify, but invest ourselves in things that are external to us. One of my friends in America is a suicide helpline counsellor.
What that means is, if some people are on the verge of committing suicide, they call this number and say, I am planning to commit suicide. And it is his responsibility, he among many people like that, so that he has to talk in such a pacifying, uplifting, inspiring way that the person gets deterred from suicide. So, he was telling me one incident, there was a girl who committed suicide and then called him.
Not that her ghost called, but rather she took the poison pill and then she had a second thought, no, I don’t want to commit suicide, so she called. And then fortunately, there was an ambulance nearby, she was not able to give the address because all of the poison pills were having the effect, but from the phone call, they could locate where the phone call was coming from and they sent the ambulance there and she survived. Then after that, he was counselling her and he asked, what made you commit suicide? So, this girl had been in a relationship with a boy and that boy, she had called that boy and that boy didn’t pick up her phone.
And just because of that, she committed suicide. I wonder, what is that? So many times we call someone and people don’t pick up phones. But for her, inside us, inside all of us is our mind.
And our mind keeps interpreting events and telling stories associated with those events. So, her mind told her a story. Oh, you know, he didn’t pick up your phone, that means he doesn’t care for you.
He has left you. Maybe he is with someone else. Maybe he will leave you.
And in the past also, people have left you. In the future also, you form relationships, people will leave you. You will always be alone.
All your friends will be in happy relationships and you will be all alone. They will all have pity on you. And what is the use of such a pitiable life? Better end your life.
From one unanswered call to attempting suicide. Now, for us, when we observe as third persons, it may appear to be absurd that somebody would do like this. But for those who are going through that, all of us, we are invested in certain things.
We are emotionally, relationally, psychologically invested in certain things. And what we are invested in, we experience a lot of emotions in connection with that. I was talking with one boy a few months ago.
He is an avid cricket fan. And I think 6-7 months ago, there was a Champions Trophy in which India and Pakistan met in the finals. And India was expected to win, but India lost and lost quite badly.
So, he told me, after that match, I couldn’t sleep for three nights. So, I told him, the cricketers probably went to sleep. Why couldn’t you sleep? So, that’s because he was so emotionally invested.
He was in India, the match happened in England, but he was emotionally invested in that. And because he was emotionally invested in that, he experienced a lot of agitation in the relationship with that. So, basically, whatever we are invested in, that becomes our conception of the self.
That is what we get very emotionally obsessed with. So, to understand this concept, I’ll talk about, I’ll move it to the standard of life. I’ll talk about what is the self.
The Bhagavad Gita is an ancient yoga text. And it explains our existence in three levels. So, there is the body, the mind and the soul.
So, to understand these three levels, let’s consider a metaphor. I was at one person’s house when I was in California. So, I was staying at their house and they had a big window.
And outside the window, there was a nice greenery behind it. I was looking at the greenery and suddenly, I saw a huge gorilla, just outside the window, about to smash the window. I was alarmed and I look at that person and he was just suppressing a smile.
What happened? And then I noticed that he had a remote on his hand. And then he pressed the button and the gorilla disappeared. So, what it was, was that that particular window doubled as a TV screen.
So, he had the technology in such a way that that could sometimes function as a window which showed you what is outside. And sometimes, if the settings are changed, it can function as a TV screen which can show whatever you want. So, he had created everything in such a way that on the TV screen, he had a brief movie clipping with the same background as outside.
So, at one level, at one moment you see nice greenery, at another moment, you see a gorilla striking you, about to strike the window and come inside and they attack you. So, this screen is like our mind. Our mind is meant to act like a window to the outer world.
Right now, I am looking at you, you are looking at me. So, you are taking in inputs from the outer world. You are hearing what I am saying, observing my gestures.
So, you are taking this in. So, this is the mind acting as a window, taking in input from outside. But the mind can at any moment change from a window to a TV screen.
So, at one moment, some thought may come in your mind, oh, you know, this person said like this, how dare they say like this. No, next time when I meet, I am going to show this person and give them a piece of my mind. And our mind just goes off into a revenge fantasy.
And one moment, we might be peaceful and the next moment, we are breathing heavily, we will find our fists are clenched. And what happened? Actually, the inner screen, which is meant to be like a TV, which is meant to be like a window, shows the outer world. Suddenly, it changed to a TV.
To get a better understanding of this, let us all do a simple thought exercise. So, wherever you are, you can sit comfortably and close your eyes with me. So, after closing your eyes, you can take three deep breaths.
One, two. Now, with your eyes closed, try to see what is in front of you. As your eyes are closed, you cannot see what is physically in front of you.
But it is as if there is some kind of screen inside you. And on that screen, you may see various images. You might see a representation of this room.
You might see your home. You might see your loved one. You might see your phone.
You might see your table. Or you might just see these various images like this coming and going. Or you may just see a dull haze of colours.
Whatever it is, you see that on something like an inner screen. Now, as you are observing this inner screen, try to take a step back and look at who it is that is observing that inner screen. You can see the inner screen.
Just take a step back to see the inner seer. Try once again. While looking at the inner screen, move back and try to see who it is that is looking at that inner screen.
No matter how many steps you take back, the inner seer steps back with you. What you are looking for is what you are looking with. That inner seer is you, the soul.
And that inner screen is your mind. You can take one deep breath and then you can open your eyes. You can gently open your eyes now.
Thank you. So, this simple thought experiment can give us a better understanding of what the Gita talks about. When normal perception takes place, at that time, there is the inner seer, there is the inner screen, and then there is the outer scene.
All these three come together in one line. To the extent the three come together in one line, to that extent, proper perception happens. And normally, because the inner screen and the inner seer, both are inside us, we don’t notice their difference.
As the Gita says in 15th chapter, 9th verse, that from all the senses, the input comes to the mind. And it is the soul who observes that input. So, the inner screen and the inner seer are two different things.
But when we don’t realise this difference, we identify with whatever appears on the inner screen. And as soon as we identify with whatever appears on the inner screen, we experience emotions associated with that. And those emotions can toss us up, down, left, right, everywhere.
To give a further example of what I am saying, that suppose, say you have a child who likes to watch horror movies. And the child is sitting at home and is watching the horror movie. And some very ghastly scene is there.
And the child is trembling, maybe crying, screaming. Now, as far as the reality is concerned, the child is perfectly safe at home. You are nearby, the home is safe, nothing is happening to the child.
But for the child, there is fear, there is horror, there is terror. Why? Because the child’s eyes are fixed on that screen. The child’s consciousness is caught in that screen.
And on that screen, whatever is happening, that is what the child is experiencing. Now, you as a separate person can observe both the seer and the screen. But for the seer, you are completely absorbed in the screen.
So, similarly, for us, actually the screen and the seer, the two are different things. There are certain emotions that come on our screen, but we can choose whether to focus on them or not. Just like the child who is watching that horror movie, if the child is not, oh, my mother is here.
The mother gently touches the shoulder. Oh, you are here. The child catches hold of the mother.
And on the screen, the horror movie is going on, but the child will no longer experience fear. Because the consciousness is no longer caught in that. So, similarly for us, if you consider the inner screen to be like the mind, on that inner screen, lot of images will keep coming.
It is, if to the extent we don’t understand the difference between that inner screen and the inner seer, whatever emotions come, whatever perceptions, whatever images, whatever stimuli come over there, we start experiencing emotions in relationship with that. But, if we understand that this is a screen and I am different from the screen, I am a seer. Yes, this image has come over here.
The stimulus has come over here, but I am safe and secure, separate from this. To that extent, we can respond maturely to that image. So, when we crave, now with this understanding of the mind, the soul and the body, let’s look at standard of living and standard of life.
In standard of living, we decide, I want to get this new phone. I want to get this new car. I want to get this new house.
And that is what keeps driving us all the time. And that image keeps playing and replaying again and again on our inner screen. When will you get it? When will you get it? When will you get it? Until we don’t get it, we just don’t know any satisfaction.
And ironically, even after we get it, we don’t know satisfaction for very long. Because after we get whatever it is that we crave for, oh, I want this phone, I want this car, the happiness always seems to be just one increment away, one purchase away, one relationship away. And that is how it stays always.
Because what happens is that this inner screen, we could say it’s like a programme by which something appears on it. And as long as we don’t have a proper holistic understanding of life, even if we get a particular thing that we are craving for, even if we succeed in getting it on that inner screen, then something which we have not got starts playing out. And then when we get that, again what we don’t have starts playing out.
In today’s world, there is a rat race. Everybody is rushing like a rat to get this, get that, get that. Now, the problem with the rat race is that even if we win the rat race, we still remain rats.
We still remain rats. What does that mean? It essentially means that actually the dissatisfaction just goes on and on and on. Dissatisfaction is not caused by the possessions that we don’t have.
It is caused by the disposition that we do have. It is caused by our own disposition. And that disposition of the inner screen is to keep showing us what we don’t have.
Suppose we have a TV on which a particular programme goes on, which a lot of commercials keep coming. Now, even if we buy one, two, three, four products which are advertising the commercials, no matter how many things we buy, they’ll always, commercials will keep coming. The commercials are not going to end.
And as long as we keep watching the commercials, we will stay dissatisfied. Similarly for us, we could say our mind is like a TV on which many commercials keep coming. Buy this, get this, go there, do that.
And as we keep craving for these things, now if we change the metaphor from TV to a computer, and the computer often, if we visit a particular site, Google has its sponsored ads coming up. And if we click on one ad, then Google remembers that and Google will give many more ads related with that. And the ads will never end.
So like that, our mind keeps showing things, oh buy this, do this, do that. And thus, no matter how much we have, we stay dissatisfied. So the standard of living may improve the outer scene.
We might get a better car, we might get a bigger house, we might get a smarter phone. But no matter how many things improve in the outer scene, the inner screen will always keep playing and replaying the things which we don’t have. And that’s how it will keep us dissatisfied.
So if you want to find satisfaction, then we have to understand the difference between this inner screen and the inner seer. So I’ll talk about three steps for doing this. And then we can have some discussions and question answers.
I’ll speak about awareness, aspiration, and action. Three A’s. Three A’s for improving the standard of our life.
Standard of our life means that we understand what is truly important for us. Awareness is what differentiates us from the insentient world. This table exists right now, but it doesn’t know it exists.
We all exist and we know that we exist. Now awareness, you all of us have awareness, but most of the times our awareness is caught in externals. Like this girl, her awareness was caught in, does this boy love me or not? And when that boy did not respond to a phone call, she just became suicidal.
Or that cricket and a cricket fan, the awareness was caught in the cricket match. And sometimes people commit suicide if their favourite team loses. Because their awareness is caught.
So for all of us, if we understand that our awareness is separate from whatever phenomena that we are aware of, that itself is very uplifting and even liberating. When I was in Canada, I spoke at the Toronto Public University and there they had a group of students who were coming off drugs. They were part of a drug de-addiction group and they had also come for that seminar.
So after that I was talking with them and these people who were into drugs, actually these kids were very intelligent. But somehow they had got caught into drugs. So as I was talking with them after my talk, they told me that it was at a particular time, they just, it was at least one of them told me that at a particular time, that awareness came, that I am bound.
This boy told me a story that one night he was sleeping, it was Canada, winter is extremely cold. So he was sleeping and suddenly at night he got an urge to get a drug. Now he had nothing with him.
So he called up a peddler and the peddler told, come to this particular place. And as he went at night, once the craving catches a person, he just drags, drags and people just forget everything else. So in India also, I think a couple, a year or so ago, there’s a movie Urta Punjab which talked about how the drug menace is so big and people can even kill and murder just because of that madness for drugs.
So anyway, he went at night and he was so frenzied by that desire for drugs that he forgot to wear any warm clothes, just ran into his car and then he went into the car and he drove through the car and finally got to the particular point where the peddler had told him to come. And he came there and the peddler gave him the drug, he paid the money and then he wanted to take a puff. He said, no, let me wait.
I want to take this peacefully and enjoy it. So he went back and as he was walking back, there’s snow all around and suddenly he slipped and fell. And he slipped and fell and all that drug which he had got just spilled all over.
He was lying in the snow, his body cold because of that. He had no warm clothes. He was looking up, all around him there were buildings, all of them lights were closed.
That time it struck him, what am I doing? I could have been sleeping comfortably in bed, here I am lying in the cold trembling. So that time I became aware that I am bound. Since always he was bound, he was addicted.
But that moment of awareness was a moment of awakening. So it was almost like he saw himself from an outside perspective. He saw himself, oh I am lying in the snow, what am I doing? So similarly, now most of us may not be addicted to anything as dangerous as that.
But whenever our minds, whenever we start getting carried away by emotions, if we can just make this habit of cultivating awareness. So for example, I am sitting here right now, I am speaking to you. I can by a thought exercise visualise that I am in your place, I am looking at myself.
We human beings have this capacity. So if we can understand, we can become aware of our awareness, we can become conscious of our consciousness, then we can understand that this awareness is unnecessarily caught in certain things which are causing me distress. Just like this child who is watching the horror movie, as soon as the child understands it’s just a horror movie, there is no reality to it.
Immediately there is a relief. So for us, our inner screen can at any moment start showing a movie. And as soon as it starts showing a movie, we come to office and our boss gives a strange look to us.
And immediately a movie starts. Why did he look at me like that? Is he going to fire me? Oh, if he fires me, then what will happen to me? How will I get a job? How will I pay the mortgage for my house? If I can’t pay mortgage for my house, then I’ll be fired. Then I’ll be evicted.
If I’m evicted, then where will I stay? I’ll be homeless. Oh, in winter it becomes so cold and I’ll be shivering in the cold. Right now we may be trembling because of the AC.
But the horror movie in the mind has started and we are trembling because of that. So as this starts getting us carried away, check it. I earlier talked about mental health problems being a major issue.
There are two major mental health problems. One is anxiety and the other is depression. And these two are caused if we consider this model of analysis.
Basically, when the inner screen starts showing a tragedy movie. And what is a tragedy movie? A tragedy that has happened to us in the past. Oh, you know, this went wrong.
Oh, you made a mistake in this. Oh, this person betrayed you. As it starts showing us all the things that have gone wrong in the past, we start getting depression.
Depression basically results when we start replaying all the bad things that have happened to us. Now those bad things have happened. There is no denying that.
But we don’t have to keep dwelling on it. When the mind’s movie starts showing us that and we start watching it, we become depressed. And conversely, sometimes this movie goes into the future and starts showing this may go wrong, that may go wrong, that may go wrong.
When this inner screen starts showing a movie, which is a horror story of the future, then that causes anxiety. So anxiety and depression, the two major mental health problems, are primarily caused because the inner seer gets carried away by what the inner screen is showing. So awareness is what we cultivate with spiritual knowledge.
The Bhagavad Gita gives us the spiritual knowledge by which we can understand that we are different. The Bhagavad Gita says in 14.22-23 that प्रकाशं च प्रवत्तिम्च मोहमेव च पाण्डव नद्वेष्टी संप्रवृत्तानी ननिवृत्तानी कांशती उदासीन वदासीनम् गुणैर्यो नविचाल्यते गुणावर्तन्तित्येव योवतिष्ठतिनेङ्गते It says that प्रकाशं च प्रवत्तिम्च मोहमेव च पाण्डव नद्वेष्थी संप्रवृत्तानी ननिवृत्तानी कांशती Various kinds of emotions will keep coming into you. But उदासीन वदासीनम् Just be an inner observer.
Don’t get carried away by them. They will come, they will stay, they will go. Don’t get carried away.
उदासीन वदि Be situated as if detached. To explain this, I’ll talk about Awareness is the first step. Second is aspiration.
Aspiration means what is it that we long for in life. For most of us, the aspirations that we have are actually not big enough. We think, oh I want to become wealthy, I want to become powerful, I want to become popular, I want to get this, I want to get that.
These are all ambitions. But they are not big enough to be worthy of us. We are eternal beings.
We are indestructible. We are immortal. And the aspiration that is truly worthy of us is the aspiration for that which is eternal.
Success is more a direction than a destination. Success is more a direction than a destination. To understand this, let’s compare, let’s simple example.
Say, a parent is taking two of the children to a circus. And the circus is about two hours drive away. And one of the children is sitting near the window and constantly asking the mother, Oh, are we there? Are we there? Are we there? Are we there? It’s constantly craving for, when will we get to the circus? The other child is sitting near the other window and is enjoying the scenery.
Oh, look at this river, look at this mountain, look at this sky. That child is also eager to get to the destination, to enjoy the circus. But that child also wants to enjoy the journey.
When the child who simply thinks the purpose of the journey is to get to the destination. Suppose they go one and a half hours and then a storm comes and they’re not able to get to the circus. Then for that first child, the whole journey was a waste.
But for the second child, they enjoyed the journey. And if they get to the destination, that’s wonderful. If they don’t, still that child enjoyed the journey.
So for us, when we define our success only in terms of getting certain goals. Till we get it, we are dissatisfied. If we don’t get it, we are frustrated.
And if we get it, if we enjoy it for some time, but then another goal comes up. And again, till we get it, we are dissatisfied. But if you understand what is it that I’m truly worth living for? What is the aspiration that is truly worthy of me? All of us have certain values.
All of our values doesn’t refer to anything abstract. Values simply refers to that which we value deeply. So when we live according to our values, that itself gives us satisfaction.
If somebody loves painting, then yes, they would love to have their paintings win awards, be displayed in exhibits. But just painting itself gives them joy. Somebody likes to do research.
Naturally, they would like to win awards for their research. They would like their research to be published in papers, respected papers. But just doing the research itself gives them joy.
So the aspiration refers to, if we are to live in life, we can live life either looking with expectation. When will I get this? When will I get this? When will I make a contribution? What can I offer? What can I bring to the table? What can I give to the world? What are the talents that I have? How can I make a contribution using those abilities, using those talents? If this is our motive, yes, we want to study, we want to succeed, we want to go to the top. That’s fine.
But that is the destination. By going along in the direction also, we can get happiness. If our focus is not so much on expectation, but on contribution.
What can I contribute? The Bhagavad Gita talks about this mood when it says, It says, by your work, worship the Lord. It says we can do our work in a mood of service, of contribution. What we are is God’s gift to us.
And what we become is our gift to God. What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.
So if we have this mood, let me contribute in whatever I am doing, we will get a sublime satisfaction. As long as we have expectation, if we are like that kid who is watching, when will the circus come? When will the circus come? When will the circus come? But when our mood is to make a contribution, okay, what can I do? How can I contribute? How can I serve? How can I help? We will be moving towards our destination. Whatever you want to achieve in life, we will move towards that.
But along the journey also we will be satisfied. And the last step is action. For us, action, we can’t always control how we feel.
But we can control how we act. Sometimes we just feel angry. Sometimes we feel depressed.
Sometimes we feel worried. Sometimes we feel nervous. These feelings will keep coming.
We can’t stop those feelings from coming. But we can choose how we act. I’ll conclude with this example.
Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, be situated as if detached. So what does, in English there are two words, there is uninterested and there is disinterested. Uninterested means one who has no interest in something.
Disinterested means one who is impartial, one who has no vested interests. So consider a cricket match in which there is an umpire. Now should the umpire be uninterested or disinterested? Disinterested, isn’t it? Suppose the baller bowls and there is an appeal, how’s that? And the umpire says, I wasn’t watching the match.
What are you doing then? You are meant to watch the match if you are an umpire. You are meant to watch. You cannot be uninterested.
But the umpire also has to be disinterested. It is not that the umpire wants this particular team to win. So whenever their team appeals, how’s that? Out.
How’s that? Out. How’s that? Out. Or it is not that the umpire wants the batting team to win.
How’s that? Not out. Not out. Not out.
No, the umpire evaluates each case on merit. The umpire evaluates each case on merit and then appropriately acts. Sometimes out, sometimes not out.
So like that, action means now the umpire cannot control when the players are going to appeal. The players may appeal each time. But the umpire chooses which appeals to listen to, which appeals to not listen to.
Similarly, we can’t control what emotions arise within us. Sometimes we feel angry. Sometimes we feel worried.
Sometimes we feel depressed. These emotions are like players appealing within us. If we understand that I am the seer, I am the soul, the atma, then we can observe these emotions without getting carried away by them.
We can identify the emotions instead of identifying with the emotions. And that itself can give us distance, can give us perspective. So after this talk, I would request you whenever you have time in the evening or night, you look back at your own inner world and think of some emotion which comes suddenly.
And you know, maybe somebody did something and you shouted at them. And then afterwards you regret, why did I shout at them? And you think, okay, at that particular time, that anger came. And when that anger came, there was a moment and you could recognise, oh, this is anger.
This is like, oh, this player always keeps appealing. But even though he is not out, this player keeps appealing. Sometimes umpires understand that, you know, they will not take that player’s appeal very seriously.
So like that, oh, this emotion, this anger has come. If you could just identify that, oh, this anger has come now, I don’t have to listen to it. Not that I have to always neglect it, but I have to evaluate based on merit.
So if we take our actions based on our principles, not on our impulses, not on the emotions that come and go, then we will be able to move forward and improve the standard of our life. No matter what happens in the outer screen, on the outer scene, no matter what appears on the inner screen, we as the inner seer will be happy. We as the inner seer will be situated in security and in serenity.
I will summarise what I spoke today. I spoke on the topic of from the standard of living to the standard of life. I talked about how in the western world, the standard of living has improved enormously, but that has also caused a high level of standard of suffering, especially at the mental level.
Mental health problems are alarming. And what is the reason for that? To understand that, I talked about the Bhagavad Gita’s model of the self, that is the body, the mind and the soul. So to understand this metaphor, I talked about how the inner screen, we did the thought exercise that there is the outer scene, the world that we see, and the world gets imprinted on us in the inner screen.
That is the mind. And then there is the seer of that screen, which is the soul. So if we don’t understand the difference between the inner screen and the inner seer, then we become slave to our emotions.
And because in today’s world, a lot of unwanted images are coming on the inner screen, and because people are identifying with it, that’s why there is so much mental health problems. We talked about how a child watching a horror movie will become fearful, although the child is completely safe at home, because the child is identifying with the horror movie. So for us, when this inner screen, which is meant to act like a window to show the outer world, it can become a TV.
And if we are attached to something, we think I have to improve my standard of living, then we always feel happiness is one increment, one relationship, one purchase away. And even if we get that increment, that relationship, that purchase, but still, that’s like a commercial keeps coming on TV, new commercials keep coming, and we stay dissatisfied. And this inner screen goes into the past and shows us all the things that have gone wrong, then we become depressed.
When it goes in the future and shows us all the things that may go wrong, we become anxiety ridden. The solution is to understand that we are different from the inner screen. I talked about three steps for that.
Three A’s. Does anyone remember those three A’s? Awareness, aspiration, and action. So awareness means that I talked about this drug addict who became aware, oh, I’m caught, I’m addicted.
So if we can learn to observe ourselves from a perspective outside of ourselves, and we become conscious of our consciousness, then we will see when our awareness gets caught in unwanted or unhealthy things, and we can distance ourselves from that. So spiritual knowledge, knowledge of understanding how we are a soul helps us to become aware. And then I talked about aspiration.
Success is not just a destination, but also direction. Instead of just a child who thinks I want to get to the circus and enjoy, a child who wants to enjoy the journey also, a child will be much happier. So wanting to get to the destination means living life in the mode of expectation.
When will I get this? When will I get this? When will I get this? Like living like the child who wants to enjoy the journey means living in the mode of contribution. What can I contribute? So we can work in a mode of worship. What we are is God’s gift to us.
What we become is our gift to God. And if we live in every situation, what can I contribute? Then we will get a sense of self-worth and contentment along the journey itself, not just only after we get to the destination. And lastly, talk about actions, that we can’t control what appears on the inner screen.
We can’t even control sometimes what happens on the outer scene. But we can control our responses. It’s like we are meant to be like umpire in a match.
As if detached, Krishna says. That means we be disinterested, not uninterested. So we can’t stop the players from appealing, but we can evaluate each appeal on merit.
So instead of trying to control the emotions, the emotions will come, they will go. We be an observer. And we act based on our principles.
And we act based on our values, on our principles, on our higher purpose. Whatever situation we may go through, we will find ourselves peaceful and we will move towards becoming joyful. Thank you very much.
Are there any questions or comments? If some of you would like to share, want to do anything that you felt was something you would carry with you? Any point that you found striking? Anything which you would carry with you? I think awareness is a very good thing to get to a point. But most of the time, what happens is we don’t come to the point of awareness. So only when we come to the point of awareness, then we can evaluate ourselves and what we are doing.
Unfortunately, what happens is we are not aware. We are not aware that this is something we need to be aware of. That’s true, yeah.
So how do we cultivate this awareness by which we can understand we are getting caught in things? Yes, awareness is difficult, but we can develop it by introspection and retrospection. Introspection means to look within, retrospection means to look behind. Suppose we are going first time on a road and suddenly there is a bump on the road, we are jolted.
Now next time when we go on the road, we know there is a bump over there. Either we slow down or we steer our vehicle by the side. So what has happened over here? Remembering that past experience has made us prepared.
So there are times when we will get caught by the emotions. And at that time, under the force of emotions, we will act. But afterwards, we look back.
Oh, what happened? What happened? Okay, you know, this person said this. And after that, it was almost like, I don’t know what came over me, I shouted. So basically, there is a stimulus that comes from within, and there is a response that happens from within.
There is stimulus that comes from outside, and there is a response that happens from within. So free will, or willpower, willpower is actually the distance between stimulus and response. The distance between stimulus and response is called the sense of willpower.
I was, as I mentioned, a few months ago, I spoke at Google in Silicon Valley. So there, I quoted an experiment which was done in Google itself a few months before that, that they found that a lot of employees in Google suffered from obesity, because it’s a sitting job. And so they wanted to counter it.
So they decided, they consulted some psychologists, and psychologists suggested that in your cafeteria, they had desserts, they had chocolates and various sweets. They said, just cover them with non-transparent paper, not paper which promotes the content, but just paper which is of no colour at all. Paper which does not show what is inside, just coloured paper.
So they did that, and they did it for six months. And in the six months, they found almost 35% consumption of chocolates and other sweet items went down. They didn’t make any campaign, tell people don’t eat it.
They didn’t stop providing it, just didn’t show it. So what happens is that this is an example where when something comes in the awareness, then we desire to eat it. But if that thing doesn’t come in the awareness itself, then there are some desires which are very strong.
The desire comes, we’ll go and find that object and get it. But many desires are circumstantial. I just want it, I’ll take it.
So here what has happened through external support, the distance was created between the stimulus and the response. The stimulus was made not so easily visible, and therefore the response that came was coming, that became less frequent. So similarly for us, when there are certain stimuli which trigger almost automatic responses for us, so then we have to find out first of all what is the stimuli that triggers that response.
At that time it’s going to be very difficult. At that time it might we get carried away. But if we understand this is the stimulus that triggers this response, then we try to create some kind of obstacle.
That means when I talk to this person, this person just makes me angry. It said there are some people who bring happiness wherever they go. And some people bring happiness whenever they go.
So we will find that some people just as soon as we come in, then they seem to bring out our worst. As soon as we go in their presence, they come in our presence, start getting angry, we start shouting, we just lose control. So if we know that there’s a person like that, now there may be something wrong with them, there may be something wrong with us, that is a matter to be dealt with later.
But if you just understand, okay, this person is like a trigger for me. Then if I have already gone through a tough day, and I have 10 things I’ve dealt with, and I’m already exhausted, I’m irritated, I just want to finish things, then better decide I won’t deal with this person today. Just postpone it.
So to be forewarned is to be forearmed. So if you just can just become aware of our triggers and regulate our exposure to those triggers, that itself will ensure the unhealthy responses don’t come out. So awareness is not something which will come instinctively.
It has to be cultivated conscientiously. And that means, at least become aware of our triggers and create some arrangement by which we can regulate our exposure to those triggers. When we do that, then we will be able to better moderate our responses.
And over a period of time, when we do it in one case, then what happens? That increases our confidence. It increases the self-awareness and awareness can make a difference. And then we start looking at other areas in our life.
Oh, I can become more aware here also. So we can start by becoming aware of our triggers. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your kind attention.