Healing the earth by healing the heart

[Earth Day Talk at Lotus Meditation Center, Denver, USA]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
And then I concluded by talking about how for each of us, for ourselves as well as for others, we need to see what is taking us toward Krishna and what is coming in the way toward Krishna. And that’s how if we have that vision, then we can understand each other better and then help each other better.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Earth Day.
So I will try to speak on the topic of healing the earth through healing the heart. Just a few weeks ago, I was at a media conference in India. And this was a, I’m associated with a project in India called the Govorgan Eco-Village, which has won several international awards for sustainable development, not just modelling it, but also sharing it and inspiring many others to share it.
This is in a village near Mumbai. And there was this conference over there. So the many prominent ecologists had come.
And one of the ecologists there was quoting what he had heard in an international conference. He was saying that about 20 years ago, when we started becoming aware of what a catastrophic ecological level we are headed towards, the scientists felt that if we just make people aware of what we are doing to our environment, and we provide the measures to decrease consumption, to recycle, then to a large extent, the crisis can be mitigated. The way we have lived the last few decades, and the last few centuries at large, since industrialisation started, it is said that we have not inherited the earth from our ancestors.
We have actually borrowed the earth from our descendants. That means the resources that we have used are such that we are making resources unavailable for future generations. And so around 20 years ago, when they started this, creating eco-awareness, encouraging people to start eco-friendly living, certainly as compared to a few decades ago, green awareness is much, much more today.
But still, at this conference, they’re saying that it seems there’s something within people, which just doesn’t let them act in a harmonious way. This is not so much a crisis of lack of knowledge, or your lack of ethics, it’s a crisis of consciousness. Crisis of consciousness means that we are just not aware of what we are doing, what its consequences are going to be, and what we could do to change.
So we have actions at the outer level, and we have the consciousness at the inner level. Our consciousness shapes our actions. So we could say that if some vegetation is growing on the surface, then we see the vegetation, you see, fruit trees, flower trees, vegetables, but they grow because of the seeds that are there within them.
So the seeds are like the conceptions that are present within our consciousness. And our actions grow from those seeds. So we’re providing knowledge to people about how their actions are detrimental, and that we should change them.
That is like trying to cut off the trees, cut off the vegetation, but the seeds stay below, and the seeds come out again. So broadly speaking, this is a crisis of consciousness that raises the question, what makes us act the way we do? In fact, my spiritual journey began over two decades ago because of this question itself. Why do we do the things that we do? Why do people act the way they act? As was mentioned in the introduction, I was at one of the premier educational institutions in India studying engineering, and I was always among the top students.
One of my role models in college was a student who had been the first in the university for all the eight semesters of engineering that he had been studying. And he also happened to be a chain smoker. I couldn’t understand at that time if he can figure out complex sums of electronics, complex electronic concepts.
I was studying electronics and electrical engineering. Why can’t he understand that he is hurting himself by smoking so much? Anyway, when he passed out in the college, in campus he got the highest-paying job in the history of our college. And he was given a hero send-off when he left.
But within six months, while working in that job, he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, and he succumbed. So that made me question. Obviously, he was intelligent, far, far more intelligent than me as far as studying electronics was concerned.
But what made him smoke so much that he eventually killed himself? Mark Twain has attributed to her said that giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I have done it over a hundred times. So, there seems to be something within us which impels us to do things even against our better judgement.
And it is this which sabotages human behaviour. Broadly speaking, when we want to do course correction, when we want to, say, go in a different direction, just now when we came to this venue, we just overheard, went a little ahead, we had to come back. So, if we are on the wrong track, we need to come back.
Broadly, to do anything, we need three things. What to do, why to do, and how to do. So, knowledge, motivation or inspiration, and process.
So, knowledge, what to do. Ok, I want to drive to this, to this meditation. Why do I want to go there? Ok, I want to go there because I want to participate in this programme.
How to go there? Ok, I have got a car, but I am over here, I will take this turn, take this turn and come back. So, most of our education today focusses on telling us what to do and how to do. Even the green awareness which is there, it tells us, ok, this is what you should do, this is what you should do, and this is how you can do it.
Now, why is told at one level, oh, the earth is such a great crisis, should not do it. If we are not careful, we will be in big trouble. But, paradoxically, about 60-70 years ago, when first the results, the harmful effects of smoking started becoming well known, at that time it became mandatory to put in, smoking is injurious to health, on the cigarette packets.
Ironically, after this happened, the cigarette sales increased. It didn’t decrease. Now, the point here is not, we are not talking about smoking specifically or any other particular habit, the point is that knowledge doesn’t seem to be enough.
This boy, my senior student was so intelligent, obviously he knew that by smoking so much he was playing with fire, but still he kept doing that. So, most of the outer distress that we see is because people have internal distress, hurt people hurt people, hurt people hurt people. When we are hurt internally, we act knowingly or unknowingly in ways that hurt others.
And we could say, by extending the same principle, that hurt humans hurt the earth also. We hurt ourselves, we hurt others and we hurt our environment. That’s primarily because there is something hurting within us.
What is it that is hurting? Actually, all of us are looking for happiness. All of us are by nature seekers of happiness. And yet we see in today’s world, despite phenomenal technological progress, we have something seriously missing.
Today, luxuries that were unimaginable and unattainable even for royalty a few centuries ago, those comforts and luxuries are available for everyone today. Air conditioning is a simple example. So, we have enormous amount of comforts and yet there seems to be an enormous amount of distress.
Once in a while distress is a sheer amount of mental health problems. One out of every four persons in America is expected to have a serious mental health problem during the course of their lives. And surveys vary, but between two to one out of eight people during the course of their lives will contemplate suicide.
One million people commit suicide every year. Recently there has been such a great concern about free access to guns in America and people shooting, especially in schools, innocent children. But far more on the number of people who are killed by gunmen are the people who are killing themselves.
One million is actually more than the number of people who are killed in wars and murders combined together. When suicide happens, at one level it’s entirely against the law of nature. The law of nature is that all living beings struggle and fight till their last breath to survive.
They devise more and more new mechanisms and adapt so that they can survive, so that they can prolong their life. So, when suicide occurs, we could say it is the mind attacking the body and the mind destroying the body. So, what is hurting within us is the mind.
At the level of emotions, at the level of the mind, there is enormous distress. And our actions grow out of our need to avoid that distress and our need to find happiness. One of my friends is a de-addiction specialist.
I was recently at a mental health care centre in New Jersey. I was speaking there to the de-addiction counsellors, care providers. And they were telling that, talking with some of the addicts also, initially people take drugs to go high.
You don’t feel life very enjoyable, you want relief, you want stimulation, you want a kick, you take drugs to go high. But after that, we don’t come down to normal, we go below normal. And then again we take drugs to go high, again we go down further below.
And over a period of time, the overall graph of our consciousness goes down. Although there are drug-induced spurts which go up. And then, if before the drug addiction, the habitual consciousness was here, after repeated indulgence in drugs, although there are spurts up and down, but the overall graph goes down.
And then eventually, people take drugs not to go high, but to just feel normal. Just to feel normal. So here, the very activity which people start with the drugs, to get some pleasure, that erodes the quality of our life.
That decreases the level of our consciousness. And eventually we do it simply to feel normal, not even to feel good or feel high. And this applies to almost everything in life.
We consider today, who are the highest paid professionals today? What do you think? Which professionals? Entertainers. Yes. Isn’t it? Politicians can make a lot of money, business people can make a lot of money, but entertainers are among the people who are paid the highest.
It’s said if a doctor can stitch a broken leg, fix a broken leg, the doctor doesn’t get even one-tenth of the pay that a person who can kick with the leg gets. So, in fact, even entertainment needs to be depicted in an entertaining way. What I mean by that is that in India, there was a movie about a female boxer and she won Olympic medals.
And when this movie was made, there was a Bollywood actress who depicted that wrestler. And that actress, through that one movie, made more money than what that wrestler had made throughout her life. So, entertainment has so much money in it.
Now, why? Why are people ready to pay so much for entertainment? And the word people sometimes can be so abstract. It’s not everyone out there. We all are ultimately paid.
What we value reflects our values. What we are ready to pay for reflects what we consider important. Entertainment has always been a feature of human society.
But the obsceneness with which people seek entertainment now, this has very few precedents. So, if we are ready to pay so much for entertainment, that means we consider entertainment such a wantonly. And at one level, we could say, oh, we have so many avenues with which we can get entertainment.
With our phone itself, we can go to so many channels, we can have so many websites. With television now, we can have hundreds of channels. There is so much variety of entertainment.
And yet, when a survey was done about people in the middle and upper class, it was found that 5% of the time people are happy, 5% of the time they are distressed, and 90% of the time they are bored. 90% of the time people tend to be bored. So, again, entertainment stimulates us.
So, if this is a normal level of consciousness, entertainment makes us feel good, it takes us above. But it too makes us dependent. The more we seek stimulation through entertainment, the more the world around us stops seeing stimulation.
I was in a college programme and one boy had written something on his T-shirt. People purchase T-shirts with all kinds of strange things written on it. So, this T-shirt said, 90% of the world’s women are beautiful.
The remaining 10% are in my college. Now, how does he know that 90% of the world’s women are beautiful? That is through what you have seen in TV, movies, through the entertainment industry. That is how things should be.
And what is available in the real world is not good enough. So, basically, the more we get captivated by digitally altered and doctored images, the more reality seems unappealing. And this applies to everything.
So, entertainment is certainly not as destructive as, say, compulsive smoking or taking drugs. But still, the problem is the dependence. And my point which I was making is, hurt people hurt people.
So, even our compulsive need for entertainment indicates that we are hurting within. And we are trying to get away from this hurt by just inundating ourselves with various sensory stimuli. So, to the extent we are hurt within, to that extent, we will act in ways that promise us relief from that hurt.
And quite often, consumption promises to be one such way. The more I consume things, the more I feel that I am successful. I am happy.
I am powerful. I am someone that counts. So, the inner feeling of dissatisfaction, of loneliness, of alienation, of something vital missing in our life, all that makes us act out in ways that eventually turn out to be destructive.
Destructive for ourselves, destructive for others and destructive for the earth we live in. More often than not, if we look at our life, we act not so much to seek pleasure as to avoid pain. Of course, we all want pleasure.
But most of our actions are, I am watching, I want to turn on the TV and watch it. Now, sometimes on the TV there is some good programme and we want to watch it because we like it. But more often than not, whether we turn on or open our phone and look for messages, it’s simply because real life doesn’t seem that stimulating.
So, I want to find out something stimulating. So, it’s basically boredom which we are experiencing and we try to get relief from that boredom. So, I was talking about for changing our behaviour, there are three factors, there is knowledge, there is motivation and there is process.
So, knowledge and process are there. But as far as motivation is concerned, somehow something within us sabotages us. That’s what we were analysing and that is that within us there is discontent.
The hurt feeling within us makes us act impulsively in ways that promise pleasure but eventually create trouble. So, to understand this, the Bhagavad Gita, which is an ancient yoga text, offers a three-level model of the self. So, it is like if you have a computer system, there is the hardware, software and user.
So, the hardware is like the body, the software is the mind and the soul is the user. So, with our technological advancement, we have focused on improving the hardware enormously. But the software is corrupted and that’s why although we are having more and more facilities at the physical level, we are comfortable physically and yet we are distressed mentally.
So, we could say we are comfortably distressed. So, to understand this three-level model of the self, let’s do a thought exercise. So, wherever you are sitting, you can sit in a relaxed way, close your eyes and with me you can take three deep breaths.
One, two, three. Now with your eyes closed, look at what you see in front of you. As the eyes are closed, you can’t see what is in front of you physically.
But still, it is as if there is a screen inside you and you will see various things there. You may see this room, you may see your home, you may see a friend, a loved one, you may see your car, your pet. You may see various images coming and going on this inner screen or you may see just a dull haze of colours on that screen.
But still, you see some kind of screen on which there is something. Now, while you are observing this screen, try to take a step back and look at who is looking at this screen. Take a step back and try to spot the inner seer of that inner screen.
Try once again. Take a step back and try to look at who it is that is looking at the 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. You are that inner seer and that inner screen is your mind. You can take one minute breath and then you can slowly open your eyes.
Thank you. You can open your eyes now. So this inner screen, which is the mind, normally acts like a window.
Right now when you are looking at me, I am looking at you. So, for perception to happen properly, the inner seer, the inner screen and the outer scene have to be in one line. When we are absent-minded or when we are mindless, actually it is not that the mind is absent or the mind is less.
The mind is always there, but the mind has gone off somewhere else. This inner screen is meant to function as a window, but it is a very versatile screen. It can also function as a TV screen.
I was at a 5-star hotel for a conference and there they had a big window. And actually that window, if you press a button, that window turned into a TV screen. A large screen TV from which you could see.
So our mind is something like that. Normally it functions as a window, but at one moment it is like a window and the next moment it changes into TV. And it will just go off somewhere else.
For example, we are sitting here and we are discussing and say, some sweet fragrance comes from outside. And as soon as the fragrance comes in, what happens? The inner screen that pops up, what is that fragrance? It means some delicacy, I am not eating it, will I get it? When will I get it? Who has brought it? Where is it available? When was the last time I ate something good? Thoughts start streaming over there and we are no longer aware of what is, where we are, what we are doing. Sometimes we are talking, people get lost.
And they say, earth to you, earth to you, come back to the earth. You are going to dreamland. Basically, what happens over here? The inner screen starts becoming like a TV and starts displaying a movie.
A series of images come over there and that makes us distracted. That makes us absent-minded. The mental health problems that people face today fall broadly into categories.
One is anxiety-related disorders and the other is depression-related disorders. Anxiety and depression. Now, if you look at this metaphor of the inner screen and the inner shield, and we analyse what happens when we suffer from depression and when we suffer from anxiety.
In depression, the inner screen becomes like a movie and it starts replaying all the bad things that have happened in the past. Oh, this person betrayed me. This person did like that to me.
Oh, this happened like that. That happened like that. And as this inner screen is showing this tragedy, this went wrong, this went wrong, this went wrong, this went wrong.
And each time we see this, our morale starts going down. We start getting deflated internally. And we start thinking this went wrong, this went wrong, this went wrong, this went wrong.
The future is also leading to the same thing. And we lose heart. So, of course, there can be clinical depression, which can be because of chemical imbalances.
But in general, when we talk about normal depression, that’s largely because we are just having a perpetual replay of the bad things that have happened to us in the past and we are projecting that onto the future. So, depression happens when the inner screen starts showing the negativities of the past. And anxiety occurs when the inner screen again becomes a TV and starts showing a horror movie of all that may go wrong in the future.
As we keep thinking like this, we start becoming more and more agitated, fearful, paranoid, worried. Worry is like the interest we pay on loans we haven’t yet taken. It’s all problems that we are imagining.
Some of them may happen, most of them will never happen. But it’s just that. Now, in both cases, the inner screen becoming like a TV and going to the past or going to the future, this is not bad.
But it has to be purposeful. Not chaotic. Purposeful means we are calm and reflective.
And we go back to the past and analyse. Okay, this happened like this, I did like this, then this happened like this, maybe we could have done like that. And we learn something from it.
That is construction. So, when we ourselves direct the inner screen backwards and analyse what happened, then we learn from the past. But when the inner screen automatically starts displaying over there and we get carried away by it, then that is where we are not learning from the past, we are simply lamenting about the past.
Similarly, we are in control and we take our inner screen to the future. Okay, this happens, I can do this, this happens, I can do this. Then we are planning for the future.
But if it goes off on its own and starts painting all terrible scenarios, then by that we are not preparing or planning for the future, we are simply worrying about the future. Suppose somebody is watching a very entertaining movie. They are so caught in watching a movie and in their house a thief sneaks in.
The thief looks around and what is there to steal? This TV is very good. The thief picks up the TV and starts running. And this person is so glued to watching the TV that instead of stopping the thief, this person starts running after the TV, keep on watching on the TV.
So something similar happens to us in our inner world. That one train of thought starts and we get carried away by it. So when I said we are hurting internally, what does it mean? That means on our inner screen unwanted images are coming.
Now all of us, if we look at our lives, we all have problems, we all have hurts in our life. But if those hurts get continuously replayed on our inner screen, that hurts us much more. So the inner screen, if it is malfunctioning, then that causes us to hurt.
And when these unwanted images are coming on our inner screen, then we just want to change them. And for changing them, we may compulsively get hooked to entertainment. I am so worried, I am so bored, I am so irritated.
I just want to escape from it. And turn on some television. Or just drink, smoke.
Nowadays we can have device addiction also. Now devices are very powerful for communicating with people far and wide. But when we become dependent on them, when they become our means to escape from reality, then that can become damaging.
I saw a video of a group of kids. They were sitting on a mountaintop, a beautiful natural scenery. And all of them were looking at their phones.
And curiously, in their phones, they were also looking at natural scenery. But instead of enjoying the natural scenery around them, they were so hooked that that’s what they were doing on their phones. So basically, if we want to act in a healthy way, whether it is to heal our relationships or the earth at large, we need to heal ourselves internally.
And healing ourselves internally means making sure that the inner screen doesn’t display unwanted energy. That it doesn’t go off in unwanted directions. And for that, two steps are required.
First is, we could say defusion or de-identification. For most of us, like I said, the thief was stealing the TV and the person went away with the TV. So like that, for most of us, a thought comes in the mind.
We identify that to be our thought. We equate ourselves with that thought. And we get carried away by it.
If you understand there is an inner screen, and I am different from that screen, and I can choose whether to focus on what appears on the screen or not. To elaborate this metaphor, we could say that our inner screen is like a computer screen in which many tabs are open. So one tab is maximised, many others are minimised.
So, sometimes a pop-up window comes up. Sometimes if I am working on the computer, suddenly it says the software update is available. Do you want to update? And we choose yes, no, or wait.
Sometimes some software or malware and they suddenly come up and instal themselves. And then, do you want to instal? No. The default option there is yes.
And then within 15 seconds, if you don’t click, no one will start installing. Sometimes a pop-up window comes up. The cross is not seeable only.
Where is the cross? You start looking like that. So like that, in our inner world, suddenly images pop up. And when those images pop up, at that time, if you understand, this is just an image that has popped up within me.
I don’t have to identify with it. And if we distance ourselves, if we defusion or de-identification means, we don’t identify with it. We identify.
Okay, this is an image different from me. Do I need to process it now or should I process it later? To the extent we learn this, by becoming observers of our own emotions, to that extent we find ourselves becoming calmer. We ensure that we don’t get carried away by our thoughts.
Whenever I travel from one city to another, I usually, at the airports, I use a wheelchair assistant. And sometimes, quite sometimes, I like to memorise some spiritual texts, some spiritual verses. So a few weeks ago, I was with a wheelchair assistant and he was taking me along.
And I was memorising some verses. I was just looking at my phone, reciting the words. And suddenly, I heard some yelling sound or a shout, shouts of alarm.
I looked up and everybody was looking at me. So what happened? So what happened was that the wheelchair assistant had stopped because somebody else was there in between. And I had also stopped.
Now I noticed that I had stopped. And then I was just looking at my phone. And then the wheelchair started moving.
I thought the wheelchair assistant was behind me. But what had happened? He had been looking at his phone. And the floor was sliding.
So it was an inclined floor. So the wheelchair just went off on its own. And then… Fortunately, it was not a very high speed and suddenly some people came in between and stopped it.
But similarly like that, a chain of thoughts within us just starts off. And it is there at one moment we are thinking of one thing. And suddenly, one thought comes up and we just get carried away.
So to the extent we understand that there is this inner screen and I am the inner seer, most of the times we identify ourselves with the inner screen. And whatever comes up over there, that’s what we get focused on. That’s what we get carried away with.
So next time whenever we start feeling depressed, this person did like this to me, this person did like this to me, some idea, some thought comes up like that, we can try to envision it. This is simply a window that has popped up. Do I need to focus on it right now? Because sometimes the mind has its own sorry story going on.
People are so bad, he is so bad, she is so bad, like that. If we identify, this window has popped up, just drag it aside, put it in a corner and focus on what we are doing. So to the extent we understand ourselves as different from the inner screen, to the extent we can monitor what appears on that inner monitor, we can screen what appears on the inner screen and then focus on that which is important for us.
And by this itself, a substantial amount of our agitation will cool down. And the last point, with which I will conclude and then we can have some reflections of discussion. it’s one thing to understand that I am different from the inner sphere.
But another equally more important thing is to understand who I am. Sorry, I am different from the inner screen. So to understand who I am, the mic has a mind of its own now.
So, I understand that I am different from that inner screen. But as I said earlier, no matter how much we try to see the inner sphere, we can’t see. Because we are that sphere.
So who is it that is a sphere? That is something which we can understand through meditation. Now to change the metaphor slightly, earlier I said there is an outer screen, outer scene, inner screen and mercier. Let’s change the metaphor to something vertical.
If we have a two-level building. And in the two-level building, at the ground level, the ground level is like physical reality. The first level is the spiritual reality.
Physical level of existence and spiritual level of existence. And the pathway between them is the mental level. The mind links the physical and the spiritual.
I was, last year when I had come to America, I was in Florida and at that time the hurricane Irma hit Florida. So I came from there to New York and other places to do some talk. And he was there on a retreat.
And while he was in the retreat, he had cut himself off from the whole world because he wanted to write a book. And one day in the morning, he just came out and looked out of the window and he saw water everywhere. Becoming concerned, he had cut off his internet also and turned on the internet and found the internet was not there.
So he tried to call his friend. There was no phone connection over there. And then as he saw, there was a rain and the water level was rising, rising, rising.
He became alarmed. There didn’t seem to be anybody around anywhere. He was all alone in that house.
And it was just, he had also borrowed a friend’s house. It was a small cottage kind of thing. So he became alarmed, not knowing what to do.
And looking here, looking there, that time the power went off. And then he turned on his flashlight and was looking at what to do. And behind a closet, he saw something which looked like a door.
He pulled the closet aside and he pulled and a door opened. And then he saw a small fleet of stairs. And he ran up.
It led to an attic. He had not even noticed that the attic was there in the house. So he went to that attic, stayed there.
The water level rose, rose, rose. The ground level was completely inundated. He was safe at the first level.
And then he was observing. For several hours the water was safe. But after that the water was going down, down, down.
And then, the power came back. The phone came back. And then he called up someone.
And then he was rescued. So similarly for us, most of the times, we stay at the physical level of reality. And we don’t even know that there is some higher level.
Just like he was staying in this house but he didn’t even know there was an attic. So we stay at the physical level of reality not knowing that there is anything spiritual. And when floods come in, when problems come in, we just try to adjust something at the physical level.
So entertainment or any kind of indulgence is simply trying to adjust at the physical level. And most of the consumption that we do, most of the destruction of the environment that happens because of our mindless consumption, that’s because simply we are trying to find relief from the distress at the physical level caused by the mind. So, now the physical level of distress and the mind exaggerate the distress.
And imagine this, imagine that. But the mind is also a channel by which we can rise upwards. So, if we meditate, meditation is a way by which we raise our consciousness from the physical to the spiritual level.
At the start of this talk we had what was called mantra meditation. Mantras are powerful spiritual sounds which can raise our consciousness from the physical to the spiritual level. And we can envision a mantra to be like an elevator for the consciousness.
That every time we chant the mantra, we are entering into that elevator. And the elevator goes up, takes us up. But our consciousness is so restless it comes down again.
But again we raise it up. It comes down again, we raise it up. And by this we become more and more spiritualised.
That means we understand more and more clearly that I am different from the air screen, I am the inner seal. I am invisible. And therein, in that understanding, in that realisation, lies great serenity, lies great security.
So the more we can realise our spirituality and find security and serenity therein, to that extent we will heal ourselves internally. And to the extent that we are healed internally, to that extent we will be still there. The knowledge that we, the world provides us of how to make a change, knowledge of what to do, the process of how to make a change, all this will become workable for us when we are healed internally.
Otherwise, even if we know what to do, even if we know how to do it, still we will not feel like doing it. Just like say, Dwayne is saying that I think you are smoking whenever I want. But then, again the anxiety again collapses.
Similarly, at one level, to protect the earth, we just have to decrease consumption, we have to recycle. But as long as we are distressed internally, we will seek relief by various means which will lead to excessive mindless consumption. But if we heal ourselves internally, we will find ourselves becoming more and more capable of responsive, responsible action that we will be able to choose wisely and we will be able to respond properly to whatever situations come in our life.
This internal healing is what all of us have an opportunity to do by growing in our self-understanding, by growing in our spirituality. So I will summarise what I spoke today. And if you have any questions or comments, we can discuss.
So I spoke about healing of the earth by healing the heart, healing externally by healing internally. So, the ecological crisis wherein we have inherited the earth, we have not inherited the earth from our ancestors but borrowed it from the descendants. We are living in a way that is just not sustainable.
This is not just a crisis of industrialisation but it is a crisis of consciousness. All those sciences provided enough knowledge and enough processes for more healthier way of harmonious way of living. Still, there is something in people which makes them act unwisely.
As I talked about my friend who was a brilliant student, was number one but he succumbed to lung cancer because of chronic smoking. So what makes us act like this? Our actions are determined by three things. Our knowledge, our motivation and our process.
What to do, why to do and how to do. So, in one sense, the education system, the media today provide all three to us. But the knowledge and the process, even if they are there, there is something within us which seems to sabotage our motivations.
To understand that, we look at the Gita’s model of the self. Three level model. There is a body, mind and soul.
There is the hardware, software and the user. So, today’s scientific progress has improved the hardware but the software is corrupted because of which people are distressed. And we discuss the malaise of mental health problem that is afflicting the world today.
So, hurt people hurt people. When we are hurt internally, we act in a way that hurts ourselves, hurt others and even hurt the environment. So, there are external events which hurt us but it is our mind’s replaying of those events that hurts us even more.
We talk about, I did thought experiment about to understand that there is an inner screen and the inner seer. Inner screen is the mind, the inner seer is the soul. The inner screen which is meant to act like a window for our normal functioning acts like a TV and distracts us.
So, when it acts like a TV that replaced all the bad things from the past that have happened to us, then we succumb to depression. And it becomes like a TV that shows a horror movie of all the bad things that may happen to us in the future. We suffer from anxiety.
So, to prevent ourselves from getting carried away by this by whatever is being displayed on the TV, we need de-identification or de-fusion. So, that means we understand that this inner screen is different from me. But I am different from whatever is appearing, popping up in my inner screen.
So, while working on a computer when different images, different pop-ups come, we do not get carried away, we evaluate. Ok, this pop-up, I will evaluate whether to do it now or later. And secondly, we realise our spirituality through spiritual practises like meditation, especially mantra meditation.
So, by understanding that inner screen is different from me and understanding that I am the inner seer who am spiritually indestructible, we can decrease the amount of hurts that happen internally because of the mind’s malfunction. And the more we are healed internally, the more we will be able to heal externally using the knowledge and processes available for constructive contribution in the world. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Any questions or comments? Some of you can speak something which spoke to you, something which felt this could be a take-home point with you. Next, please.
Yeah, it’s true. Thank you. Actually, this inner screen is very powerful.
But if we catch it, we can change what is displayed over there. One time I had a negative interaction with someone and I was going from one city to another. Somebody else was driving me and I was just a little angry.
Why did he do like that? Why did this happen? And then I was just thinking about all this. Suddenly I looked out. Actually, I was looking out and at that moment suddenly I saw actually there is a beautiful greenery.
There is a wonderful mountain out there. Beautiful green sky. Beautiful blue sky.
Greenery with all kinds of flowers around it. Actually, that was California at that time and it’s very beautiful over there. It just struck me at that time and I asked the person who was driving me how long we had been seeing this.
He said, last 15 minutes. And in 15 minutes I was going through a beautiful scenery but I did not notice even one thing. Why? Because I was just so caught.
So, that I was thinking this is just one example but so many times in our life I must have missed out so many enriching experiences just because I was caught in this thing. Caught in what I was applying on the screen. So, if we can diffuse ourselves the hand, we realise that we are missing out in so many enriching experiences in life because of this mind’s misdirecting.
Thank you. Anyone else? Yes. The staircase analogy of how we don’t have necessarily we have to solve everything on the ground level on the physical level.
So, we can always as you said it is not always everybody doesn’t know that there is a staircase but if we can find we can go and there is some serenity at that place. Yeah, thank you. Yes.
Sometimes some problems have to be transcended. Trying to fix every problem simply exhausts our energy. There are many things wrong in the world in our world also.
We can’t fix everything. Sometimes we just rise upwards and focus on the bigger picture. Thank you.
Anyone else? Yes. I feel like the first people are a beautiful phrase because I think a lot of people that are violent towards others and just really hateful like tend to act like they are taking pleasure from it you know and a lot of people realise that it is actually because they are hurting inside and I feel like a lot of people tend to mask that part of their personality when they have to hurt other people. Yeah, it’s true.
It’s hurt people who hurt people. Sometimes we just see this person behaving so unreasonably that we could look into their hearts and understand that they are themselves hurting. Normally somebody is angry and shouting at us yelling at us accusing us condemning us and we basically feel that how dare they speak like this about me.
But if you think from their perspective being angry is not a pleasant experience. How many of us when we were angry were happy about being angry. We were venting out our emotions when our heart starts palpitating it’s not a pleasant experience.
So those who are angry may hurt others but they are themselves also not happy they are also hurting. Having said that there are different degrees in which the hurt feels can be expressed. Sometimes some people say when they are angry with someone they just give the other person the silent treatment just won’t talk with you.
Sometimes some people may just become irritable and just snort back or just grunt and just speak a few words without speaking much. Sometimes some people may just yell sometimes some people may attack physically sometimes some people may pick up gun and start shooting. So if when we become hurt our responses start becoming destructive then that leads to a multiplier effect.
So to the extent we can check that it’s better. So even if somebody is hurt and then that’s why they are hurting us we have to see what their need is to respond appropriately. Sometimes stronger action is required sometimes a medial action medical action or police intervention or military intervention can be required.
Everybody who is hurt hurts others but how they hurt really is depending on their personality depending on their nature depending on their world view. And then according everybody can be understood but the response to people has to be according to the way they are acting. Anyone else? Any other thoughts? Yes.
I was just reflecting on how all of this strategic driving is remedied through mantra and the screen can be cleaned and dusted and mirrored and mind can be cleansed through mantra so it’s such a healing. Yeah, it’s true. When you chant the mantras it is not just that I understand I am different from the seer but gradually the image of the screen also starts changing.
The negative image of the inner screen starts increasing and the positive images over there start increasing. So mantra is said to be the cleanser of the inner screen. Yes, please.
My question is just to ask do you think that most people identify with their thoughts? Oh yeah, okay, yeah. Do most people identify with their thoughts immediately in America? I would say that it is there all over the world. It is that the mind is very powerful and it just you could say hypnotises us into identifying with it.
But to the extent society is structured to the extent that our social interactions are governed by certain norms to the extent the the fusion with the mind the identification with the mind also doesn’t lead to unwholesome expression. That means if I live in a society where there is respect for elders most traditional societies are like that. Even if I get angry with someone even if that anger comes I feel that anger but the culture of society the structure of society will make me check myself.
This can have unwanted effect also sometimes but it can also have a healthy effect. So society becomes more and more unstructured when there are no norms in society when our feelings become the barometer for deciding what is right and what is wrong then the extent to which we get fused the extent to which we get carried away that has no limits. So another simple example to understand this is say if we have a busy day and suddenly something pops up in our mind like this like this why did this happen why did that happen now if we have many binding engagements I have to do this I have to do this and we just snap out of that we are forced to snap out of that and move on do that do that do that of course to some extent that may still go on in the back of the mind and it will again come up but if imagine we have a whole day with nothing to do and then that inner something pops up in our mind we may spend hours resenting revenge fantasy fantasising or whatever don’t even realise it so to the extent our lives are planned and structured we don’t want them to be over planned and over scheduled and over burdened but to the extent there is some plan and structure to that extent the images appearing on the screen cannot divert us too much but to the extent there is no plan no structure and to that extent when we imagine these images the inner screen can divert us that much so to the extent during our idle time our mind works overtime so but we have nothing to do nothing to do doesn’t mean that we can’t sit and relax or meditate but when we just pass it one image comes up and it goes so fast sometimes some news is there or some discussion is there, it’s slow, sedate kind of things going on.
Sometimes some high entertainment is there, one image, second image, third image, fourth image, so fast the images flash, you just get caught with it. So the mind sometimes acts like that, the mind works overtime. So if we can create some structure for our life, then that can help us preventing from the mind taking us away too far.
And in the western world to a large extent, society has become very unstructured. Even to some extent our relationships force us to come out of our head. That means if I have a responsibility, if I have someone to take care of, I have to do something in a relationship.
Even if my mind says do this, do this, no, we will not get carried away. But when we have nothing very structured in the outer world which we have to do, then the mind’s images can take us off in an unwanted direction to an almost unlimited degree. Does that answer your question? Any other questions or comments? Yes.
I thought one thing that really stuck out to me was the screen where like how all of a sudden you’re thinking of one thing and then all of a sudden you just pop it to another thought and it can change like that. I thought a good comparison to that was like when you’re having a conversation with someone, it can start in one place and it can go and it can start just talking about one thing and it can go to a totally different structure. Yeah, it’s a very good example.
Yeah, when we’re talking with someone, our mind, we just go jump from one subject to another. This is a very good example because sometimes some people tend to dominate the conversation. So you’re talking and it’s not a discussion, it’s a discourse.
So they’re just speaking and when they’re leading it, they can go here, there, everywhere. So similarly, inside us also, the mind is there and we are there. So you could say it is meant to be a dialogue, but sometimes it just becomes a monologue and then the mind starts speaking to us.
It doesn’t even speak to us, it speaks at us. Like this, like this, like this, like this, like this. At one moment, sometimes we wake up in the morning, we are fresh and maybe the mind is just speaking something, this, that, this, that.
After a few hours, we feel tired. Although we have not done much physically, the mind is bombarding us. Do this, do this, you are like this, you are like that, you are like that.
So yes, so the mind can dominate the conversation and just take us from here to there, to there, to there, everywhere, just jumping. Very good example. Thank you.
I got that you said through meditation our consciousness grows and that just seems like such an easy concept, but it’s not. In our society, if we all had time, we can just sit and meditate and in our society grows, grow, grow, grow, grow, and it’s up to us to stop and grow our consciousness. Even though it seems like such a simple thing to do, it’s not, it doesn’t flow in our society.
Yeah, it’s true. Although meditation is so easy, but it doesn’t flow in our society because we are always on the go. Yes, again this is true.
This is because we measure everything in terms of externals. So for example, I say I don’t have time. Why? Because I do this, do this, do this, do this, do this.
So we evaluate our time’s availability also based on the things that we have to do. But in this, we forget that time is taken not only by actions, time is also taken by thoughts. So for example, if I have to attend a class, say as a student, I’m learning something, so my whole morning is a book.
Morning I do this, afternoon I do this, evening I do this. But just before I go and enter a class, say somebody snubs me, I greet them and they don’t even look at me. I enter to their class, oh my, it’s filled with revenge.
How dare they snub me like this? Next time, in front, in public, in front of everyone, I’ll snub that person. And that one incident happens within five seconds. But for the next 50 minutes in the class, revenge fantasy is over.
It’s seething with anger. So actually, if you look at it from the schedule point of view, you say, I was in the class. But you’re not in the class.
So we are all busy, no doubt. But just having activities to do is no guarantee that we will be doing those activities effectively. So I may have a lot to do, but if my thoughts are out of control, I won’t do much in my day-to-day activity.
I may attend a class, but I get very little from the class. And therefore, I have to study that class, I have to get to that class again. I have to read those, I have to be able to hear the recording, ask someone else, so that one hour is what they said.
So instead of that, if I have spent some time meditating, if I spend time diffusing myself from my mind, distancing myself from my indefinite, I will be able to… This is a pop-up on the screen. This requires training. So if we just can understand ourselves and share with others, that time is taken not just by actions, but also by thoughts.
And if we put some time in regulating our thoughts, then whatever actions we do, they will become much more effective. So that’s why spirituality, or we could say meditation, is not just another to-do in our life. It can seem like, I have already 100 things to do, I am going to do 101st thing.
What can I do? I don’t have the time to do it. It can appear like that, but meditation is not just another to-do. Actually it is another way to do.
Once we start doing meditation, it changes the very function, and everything that we do, we do it in a different way. We are more focused, we are more purposeful, we are more productive. So yes, at one level, it is another to-do.
But it is another to-do, which provides us another way to do everything else. So in the long run, it is actually an efficient use of time. Anyone else would like to say something? I just have a comment about that, along with what Wendy said, about this time factor.
And I even told my own mother, I said, give me the cable. And you know, it is such a, it seems so simple, but the amount of time, and this isn’t even considering, I know that, you know myself included in the past, we will use the entertainment on television, not only to take us away, but to take us away from our thoughts. Because our good thoughts are not coming in and out so quickly as we watch that screen.
We are at that moment, it seems real to some extent. But I think it is very difficult, because there is sort of an addictive behaviour, I think, for that week, for the country. That’s true.
Television saves so many of our hours, and we are trying to simply get away from our thoughts at that. That’s true. Most people speak, because they find speech more tolerable than silence.
Because when we are silent, our mind is speaking to us. You are like this, this is like this, this is like that. So stop it, turn on some sound.
Let me speak, or we have some device that speaks. And we are trying to get away from our thoughts. Now at one level, yes, whatever is being spoken inside, the inner screen, the sound is coming, the image is coming, that’s unwanted.
But in trying to get away from it, the activities that we do, often they decrease the quality of our life. And that’s how we get hooked to things which are just a waste of time. For example, if somebody gets addicted to substances, they can ruin their lives also.
So there are two things over here. First is that, essentially what is a habit? As I said, it’s very difficult, it’s an addictive pattern in entertainment. Essentially, when we say a habit, if something pops up on our inner screen, and then, as I said, there are some things which come with a yes, and you have to click within 15 seconds, no, then it is a start-off.
So, the stimulus comes up within our inner screen, and a response comes from us. So the lesser the gap between the stimulus and response, that will indicate the stronger is the habit. Stimulus comes, and the response comes, instantly.
It’s more of a reaction rather than a thought response. So when we are addicted, say, to television, that means, as soon as some negative feeling comes, I feel bored, I feel angry, I feel depressed, I feel worried, the stimulus comes up, and immediately the response, the reaction is obsolete. So, actually, discipline or willpower, it essentially means striving to increase the distance between the stimulus and the response.
So, to the extent we can increase this distance, to that extent, we will not react, but we will respond. So one way to do it is that, try to decrease the availability of the external temptation. Say, somebody is alcoholic and they want to give up alcohol, and if their house is next to a bar, it’s almost impossible.
So some amount of this, we try to decrease the stimuli coming inside, the stimuli itself. But another important thing is that we need to create a linear pattern for our life. It’s, say, if I have nothing really to do, something pops up on my, I’m just sitting on my computer thinking what I should do, and a pop-up comes up, or I’m just reading casually something, and something pops up, maybe that’s more interesting, I’ll look at it.
But if I’m on my computer doing something purposeful, have this exam tomorrow, prepare for this exam, and a pop-up comes up, not now. So, our capacity, basically there is three things, something which is important for us which we want to know, something which is just casual which we are doing, because that’s what is right in front of us, and then some other option which pops up in our mind. So you could say something is important, something which is urgent but not really important, and something which is either important or not.
So, whatever pops up, most of the time we’re just doing whatever pops up in front of us. I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do that. But if we have something which is really important, which we want to do as a contribution, something which we value, then ultimately changing the inner screen is a matter of identifying what we truly value, what is of real value, and focussing on that.
So, when I have something, when I have a yes for something important within me, then saying no to something unimportant becomes easier. Say, if a friend invites us, come out with me for the evening. You may not want to go, but what reason should I bring up? But if at that time, we have another engagement already fixed, you know, I’m going for this programme, I’m going for this programme, so I’m sorry I can’t come.
So if I already have some other engagement, then saying no to some other invitation is much easier. But if I have nothing planned, then saying no becomes, even if we don’t want to go there, still saying no becomes difficult. So similarly for us, we need to have a yes within us for things that are important for us.
And when we have that yes for things that we value, then when some other prompts come up, we won’t get carried away. So that’s why ultimately, discipline is not just a matter of determination, it’s a matter of discovery. Determination means that I’m going to do this no matter what it is.
But discovery means what is really important for me. I have to go within and understand that. So when I discover something that is truly important for me, then discipline comes as a by-product.
This is important, so I’ll do this, and this, I’ll do this, I’ll do it. But if I’m just relying on willpower, now I’m going to do this, now I’m going to do this, now I’m going to do this, that is very strenuous, it’s very exhausting. So to the extent we understand our implicit values, and this is where again, meditation and spirituality help us understand who we are and what our implicit values are.
To the extent we understand that, to the extent the both the unwanted imagery popping up and our impulses getting carried away by both of their communities. Thank you. I thank all of you for your participation and for coming here today.
Thank you very much. Thank you. We also have books that you can turn