How to get past our past. Brisbane, Australia.

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

Thank you everyone for coming, obviously you all know Kajal or you might have seen her post on Facebook in various groups, inviting sort of anyone who's spiritually inclined or not so spiritually inclined, but look we it's yeah so firstly thank you everyone for coming and thank you Mataji for the lovely kirtan. It's our great pleasure to invite Chaitanya Charan Prabhu to our house. We've known Chaitanya Charan Prabhu probably for over five years and he's really been sort of you know inspirational in our devotional journey and spiritual journey.

For those who don't know the kirtan, what we were doing and who Krishna is, Krishna is just the sort of photo out here or the the mural out here, but yeah Chaitanya Charan Prabhu has been very inspirational. You know firstly because I guess sort of us being sort of in our sort of 40s, sort of wanting to have a scientific explanation to everything, Chaitanya Charan Prabhu himself was an engineer, a very very intelligent, highly sort of educated person coming out of one of the reputed universities in India and looking for sort of a bigger explanation to life, more of an explanation to life just beyond what we are going through and then he found Krishna, Hare Krishna and also his spiritual journey. But since then he's been an absolutely sort of intelligent articulate scholar who gives lectures at ivy league universities in the US, at various sort of corporations like Microsoft, Google etc and he's got a very scientific way of breaking down spirituality which is what attracted us to him.

Kajal was always a very spiritual person since she was young and I would be standing outside a temple whereas she'd be inside and Chaitanya Charan Prabhu was really the inspiration who sort of really pushed me along as well. So today's topic is you know how to get past your past. We all have challenges in our life that we find it difficult to get past I suppose, whether it's relationships or certain incidents and yeah and sort of that mental baggage sometimes it's hard to get rid of.

So I'm very excited to hear from what Prabhu is going to teach us and talk to us about today. So without further sort of yeah, adieu Chaitanya Charan Prabhu. Thank you.

So I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for coming today afternoon on Mother's Day. Am I audible to everyone? Can you hear me there behind? Sorry it's my fault because we are Wi-Fi free zone.

So Prabhu had a projector, he had everything laid out but those who know me like I'm very radiation sensitive, chemical sensitive so yeah. So Prabhu I'm so sorry. That's fine.

So let's begin with a gentle calming meditation. So wherever you're seated you can close your eyes and you can take three deep breaths. As you close your eyes just envision the breath coming out from from outside inside rejuvenating you.

Let's take three deep breaths. One, two, three. Now we can let us utter the sound many of you will be familiar with it.

So we'll try to draw it out like that and I will explain. We'll explain and then we'll decide it. So try to draw it out as much as we can and just dwell on the sound.

The sound is like a elevator for raising our consciousness. The more we let ourselves enter into that sound the more our consciousness rises upwards. So we'll utter the sound as long as we can with our breath.

So together okay let's do this cycle two more times once more three breaths three deep breaths as you breathe in and breathe out wherever you feel any tension in your body squeeze and release it and let it go out as you breathe in and breathe out one two three together oh one last cycle three times deep breath and one oh one two three together. Thank you. Take a couple of gentle breaths and then open your eyes.

Once again, and thanks for coming today. And I'll start by introducing the subject. And I would also like to know within we talk about this topic, how to get past our past.

So what comes to your mind? I have spoken this topic in India. I'm based in India. So my name in short is Charan.

So I was born and brought up in India in the last century. I've been a monk for almost three decades. And when I came in, some of you noticed that I need crutches for walking.

So when I was one, I got polio. It was a bit unfortunate. At that time polio was a deadly disease.

A lot of people get affected. So there was a vaccine for it. And my mother took me to a town where we were staying at nearby clinic to get the vaccine.

But unfortunately, because it was a small town, there was a power supply outage the previous night. And because of the power supply outage, the fridge in which the vaccine had been kept had got heated up. And when neither the attendant nor the doctor noticed it, I was given that vaccine.

Instead of preventing polio, it ended up causing polio. Because the germs in it increased. Now, I don't remember any of this.

I was about one. And I was just learning to walk and I fell down. I could never walk thereafter normally.

So that was an incident that more or less in one sense defined my life. I always have some physical restrictions and limitations. But when I was about two and a half or three, a distant relative had come to our home.

And she was consoling my mother, saying, it's so sad. Your son got polio. And I still remember my mother's words, very calm, clear, confident.

She said, whatever he lacks physically, God will provide him intellectually. I don't know why my mother said that. Whether at that age, I had shown some intellectual ability, or whether it was her hope, it was her prayer, it was her blessing.

Whatever it was, those words stayed with me. And as I grew up, I found that I had some intellectual ability. I could remember things quite nicely.

I could articulate things clearly. I was able to read fast. And as I grew up, I was always quite good at my studies.

So I was focused on my intellectual side. And there was a kid in our neighborhood, who was the top athlete in our locality in my school. And he was so good at athletics, and I was zero.

So he would make fun of me, he would mock me, use words like cripple. I was more annoyed than irritated with him. But one day my mother approached me, and she said that this boy's mother had, I am going to speak a little bit about mother, because it's Mother's Day, when I move forward.

So she told me that this boy's mother had approached her and said that he was struggling in maths. And I was quite good at maths. So she wanted that I should help him in maths.

Even before my mother completed her request, my head was shaking vigorously. In India, when you shake the head, it means no, not yes. So I said, I don't want to help him.

My mother insisted. She said, they are our neighbors, and he is your friend. I shook my head even more vigorously, he is not my friend.

So my mother said, no, you have to help him. So then I sat down with him, and we had known each other socially, but we never sat down and discussed anything serious in terms of studies. So when I started explaining him basic mathematics, I spent about 15-20 minutes with him, and I felt as if his IQ was lesser than his height.

He just couldn't get anything at all. And one part of me wanted to laugh at him, but something stopped me. Maybe later I articulated it, but basically, it is that I realized that he, just as I had a physical limitation, he had an intellectual limitation.

And he laughed at me at my physical limitation. If I laughed at him for his intellectual limitation, then how am I really different from him? So that was a very defining incident for me that everybody has issues, everybody has limitations. In some ways, my limitation, my physical limitation is much more easily visible.

So if I am traveling, if I am carrying, I get wheelchair assistance. If I am carrying some heavy luggage, people offer to carry that luggage for me. Somebody who has intellectual limitations or some other limitations are not visible, they often don't get that assistance.

So during our life journey, at whatever stage we are in, in our past, something or the other has happened that has limited us in some ways. It could be physically limited, financially limited, socially limited, psychologically we may be scarred. And that seems to not just shadow us throughout our life, but limit us, hamstring us.

And how do we get past our past? So for me, that is the understanding of the subject that the past injuries, past wounds, past hurts or hang-ups, it could also be like past habits we may have developed, addictive or destructive habits, that may hold us back. So that's the angle I'm approaching this topic from. When you talk about getting past your past, would any of you like to share what it brings to your mind? It would be like for me to be free of the emotional component of any issues.

So it's not to say that we want to go back and change it or whether we want to lament about it or whatever, just not to have that emotional charge attached to it. So we can look at it, analyze it, we can take whatever learnings we have from it and kind of just use it to our advantage if we can. Yes, true.

It is very well articulated that the past incident has happened, but the emotion of it stays on with us. And because that emotion stays on, then that agitates us in the present. And whenever the memory comes back, it's almost like a ghost from the past haunting us.

Now, whatever has happened, in one sense, it's over. And we would like to learn something from it and move on. But rather than learning from it, so whenever the past memory arises, it almost seems to lock us into that.

And then we seem to live or relive the past. And there's no learning. It's very difficult to be learning from it.

It's very difficult for leaving it also. So yes, if we can get the emotional component out of it, then we could learn and leave it and move ahead with our life. Yes, that's a very good point.

Anything else? We'll explore this a little bit. Thank you. I don't know if it's an anchor or something, but for those that come overseas, this is the country, the land, the family that we left behind.

It's the experience, your childhood, everything. And it's no longer. It's a new country.

It's a new life. Are you detached of that? The people hasn't moved. It's me who's here.

Thank you for sharing that. Sometimes there's a major change in our life, like we relocate to a different country. Then it's almost as if a part of us is left there and a part of us is here.

And it's almost like we are fragmented. And what is there is going on, in whatever way it is going on, but we have to move on to the new life. So, in fact, this is slightly different, you could say that.

Now, the past can also be negative. If you have something which has a lot of emotions, maybe hurt, which you want to leave behind. But sometimes the past may also have some good memories and for whatever reason, we have to leave it behind.

Is that what you're referring to when you said? Yeah. So, it's not so much that what hurt us in the past, but the fact that the past is no longer with us now. So, yes, that is also one important component.

Sometimes the changes of life can take us away from what was dear to us. And then how do we deal with that? We'll talk about it. Thank you.

I was once doing an interactive discussion like this with a group of you young people. How do we get past our past? So, white boy raised his hand. Yes.

How do I get past this interactive discussion? I think that, this is not mine, but the problem with human life is that we have preferences. And that's a Buddhist teaching that that's the problem because we either don't want to experience what we've experienced in the past or we don't want to let go of what is good in our past. So, we don't let things, we don't let go.

We have this preference for one thing and not for another. And so, we limit our experiences by having those preferences. And that's sort of a difficult thing not to have because we don't want to experience bad things again.

And if we have some joyful experience, we want to hang on to it. But that's not the way to grow. Yeah, that's quite a deep thought.

But often our underlying preferences, they make us very selective. This is what I want to experience, this is what I don't want to experience. And then if we have experienced something which we didn't want to experience, then that keeps haunting us.

And if you experience something which you would like to repeat, but it's no longer there. So, that also it's a problem. So, you put your energy into not experiencing that.

Exactly. Re-experiencing that. So, it's like limits where you go.

Yeah. It's like sometimes the past doesn't let go of us and sometimes we don't want to let go of the past. So, both ways we stay caught in the past.

Yeah. So, now that raises a big question that how much are our preferences a part of who we are, of our identity, our personhood? Yeah. So, if I let go of my preferences, will there be a I left after that? Yeah.

So, that's a very good point. We'll discuss that. Any other one you would like to say? Thanks for sharing.

I think about sort of letting go of the good part of your past or good memories or good relationships, it's that fear of the unknown, right? If you let go of some of that good stuff, it's that fear that what's going to come in future, you know, am I going to like it as much as I liked what I had in the past, you know, and that emotion is pretty big in me. It's that fear of the unknown or fear of the future in contrast to what's in the past, you know. If the fear of the future is because the past was so good, then you are a very fortunate human being.

So, life is quite hard and we all get scarred by life. Yes. So, in one sense, the way life works is if our past was bad, it can wound us so that we are not ready for the future.

If the past was good, we can get attached to it and then that leaves us unprepared to face the future sometimes. Yeah. So, thanks for sharing.

You want to say something? Thank you. Yeah, please. So, there's also the question of traumas from the past, whether it's a loss of a loved one and all that.

So, it's very hard sometimes to get past that, you know, the grief lives on, whether we acknowledge it or not. So, that processing is also takes its own course throughout our lifetime. So, yeah, that's the… Yeah.

That is true. Traumas, it's almost in the last 20, 30 or 50 years, how much traumas affect us is being more and more recognized. And while we all have memories, traumas are very special.

I'm not using special in a positive sense. A special kind of memories where it's not just the memory that is stored in the past. The memory is like a raw wound that never heals.

So, if we have a wound, if it heals, then we can forget that it is there. Sometimes the wound may leave a scar, but if the scar is also dried, then okay, when we see it, you see it, okay, there's a scar over here. But if it's raw, then every time there's a slight touch, it's a whole, it's almost like a volcano of emotion that gets erupted outwards.

So, yeah, dealing with traumas is quite difficult. And in many ways, that was one of the reasons why I turned towards spirituality. Like I mentioned earlier that my mother helped me to focus on my intellectual side and grow ahead and go.

So, when I was in my 10th standard, in India, the 10th metric exam is considered the most important, one of the most important exams. And I was first in the entire state of province of Maharashtra, which has several million people in it. And so, at that time, I was the collector of the district, the biggest government officer.

He came to my home to felicitate me. And it was a big event. And that very evening, my mother was diagnosed with terminal blood cancer.

And so, what is the highest moment of the, one of the highest moments of my life, that very night, we got this news and within one month, it was all over. So, that led me to think, what is really real? My father had a traveling job. So, I was mostly much more connected with my mother.

So, what really matters, what is of value in life? And that led me to a spiritual search. And I'll come to what that spiritual search led me to further. But in many ways, our pain, everybody experiences pain in life, and trauma is a very severe kind of pain.

Now, pain will be transmitted. So, pain in me will be transmitted to others, unless pain is transformed. So, that transforming the pain instead of transmitting the pain, that is one of the things that spirituality, it has helped me to do some extent.

But yeah, traumas are very difficult to process. And it's sometimes, one, as they say, hurt people, hurt people. So, even if you don't want to, our traumas get triggered and then we are unable to process the pain and then we transmit the pain to others at times.

So, I'll talk about this topic in three broad ways. I'll talk about first, how our memories and our mind works. I'll draw for this model from the Eastern text from Bhagavad Gita primarily.

Then I will analyze this in terms of how it can help us make sense of life. And then I'll talk about some practicals. So, I'll use an acronym called MAP, M-A-P.

So, Model Analysis and Practicals. And throughout the talk, feel free to ask questions anytime. And I'll feel free to not answer them.

What I mean by that is, if the question is going to be answered a little later, if it is not directly relevant, I may not answer it immediately, I may answer it later. Of course, I'll answer it. So, the Eastern Wisdom text, especially the Bhagavad Gita, offers a three-level model of the self that if we discuss about our preferences, how much are they part of identity.

So, we'll come to that. Basically, we have our physical side. That is, when we see each other, we look at ourselves in the mirror, we see our body.

That's our physical side. Now, beyond that is a subtler side that is not visible. That's our mind and the whole subtle body.

There are many different words used for it. I'll just use the word shorthand mind. Now, that is the place from where our thoughts, memories, emotions, desires, they arise from there.

Now, beyond this mental side is our spiritual side. That is the soul. That is the essence or the foundation of our identity.

It's like if somebody is using a computer, then the computer has the hardware and they have the software and then they themselves are the user of the computer. So like that, our physical side is the hardware of the computer. Our mental side is like the software of the computer.

And we ourselves as souls are the user of the computer. Now, within this model, our past, sometimes our past can leave physical scars on the body also. Somebody may get injured or wounded.

But the scars which we, the impact of the past that we are concerned about it, that is primarily stored on the mind. And everybody has a unique mind. We all have some similar thoughts, some distinct thoughts, and some unique ways of thinking and experiencing the world.

So, we have our own set of impressions in the mind. And the important part of this model is that while our past has created impressions in the software of our mind, that past does not affect the soul. The soul itself exists beyond time and beyond the effects of time.

And the key to healing from our past or letting go of our past is to recognize the difference between the soul and the mind. That, so that is my physical side, my mental side, and my spiritual side. Now, for most people, even when they grow a little bit upwards, we all sense that there is something like a mind inside me.

We use that word mind to mean many different things. So, but there is an inner component of us, which we call as the mind. But this model of the self, it differentiates between those two layers, the mind and the soul.

So, what is the difference exactly? The idea is that the soul is the source of consciousness. Do you have a phone here with you? Okay, anyway, I have. No, that's fine.

You are phone-free also. Okay. So, okay.

Can you just use the phone one minute? Can you turn on the flashlight, if possible? Oh, thank you. So, now, here, from this phone, there is a source of light and a beam of light is coming from there. So, that source of light is the soul.

And the beam of light coming from that is its consciousness. So, consciousness is the energy behind awareness. So, right now, you are looking at me, I am looking at you, we are aware of each other, that awareness is the soul's consciousness comes out from the soul and goes outwards, like the beam of light going outwards.

But this beam of light does not go unfiltered. So, now, if I am here, is the light still there? My hand is here. Is the light still there? The light is there, but it's practically not seen.

Now, can the light be seen? It's partially seen, it's diffused. So, basically, our mind acts like this pathway for the soul and the mind can partially block the light of the soul, can allow the light of the soul to come through or can almost entirely block the light of the soul. So, when we say entirely block the light of the soul, that doesn't mean the person is unconscious, that the light of the soul comes out, but we have no consciousness of our spiritual side, that there is any reality beyond the mind that is lost.

So, we could say that when this light is coming out, our mind can be broadly in three states. It can be a conductor, it can be a semiconductor, and it can be an insulator. So, the Sanskrit words used for these are called sattva, rajas, and tamas.

I don't need to get into the words, but the idea is that this is an elaborate frame of analysis that the consciousness of the soul, it comes through the mind and depending on how the mind is constituted, the consciousness comes out partially, partially, fully or not at all. So, when this is happening, if we identify, see there is our identity, and there is our identification. So, there is our identity, and there is our identification.

What do I mean by that? That when people see us, people may identify us in particular ways. So, somebody, now many, as I said, I'm based in India, and most of you are here from Australia and some of you from other countries. Now, when any person who looks like a westerner comes to India, Indians first, where are you from? Now, for that person, the country which I am from may be a small part of their identity.

You know, I am here on a spiritual search, I want to learn more. I don't want to think about my past country. But what happens for people, some part of our identity becomes the most important part.

That's how they identify. So, somebody identifies as an Indian or as a middle-aged person or as a young child or as this or that. Now, that's a part of our identity.

But we may not identify with that so much. So, for example, when people see me, because I need crutches for walking, the first thing they think is, oh, this is a physically handicapped person or this is a person with special needs, whatever be the current term for it. But the idea is, for me, the fact that I need crutches for walking and that I have a physical disability, that doesn't occupy much of my headspace.

For me, my crutches are like my glasses. I can't see very well without my glasses. I can't walk very well without my crutches.

But it's no big deal. Just put on the glasses, pick up the crutches and move on with life. So, there is my identity and there is my identification.

So, what I am identified with by the world may be different from how I identify myself. All of us may face this challenge in different ways in life. This is how sometimes biases or prejudices come in.

Oh, you belong to this group. Okay, maybe I belong to that group, but I don't identify myself with that group. You identify me more with that group than I identify with that group.

Isn't it? Sometimes that's how it happens. So, now beyond how others identify us, there is how we identify ourselves. And how we identify ourselves may also be different from our identity.

What do I mean by that? So, as I said that there is the soul, there is the mind and there is the Now, somebody was maybe traumatized or victimized in the past by some terrible incident, by some terrible person. Now, that incident happened to them. It depends on them how much they identify.

Somebody could identify themselves as a victim. Somebody can identify themselves as a survivor. So, now both identities, they act as a story.

They are basically the foundation of a story we tell ourselves about who we are and how life has treated me and how I will treat life. So, beyond whatever be our identification, whether personally how we identify ourselves or how the world identifies us, beyond that lies the ground of our identity. That is as a spiritual being.

See, we may be males, females, whatever, we may be young, middle-aged, elderly, we may be from this income bracket or that income bracket, we may have this educational level, we may have all these identities, but these are functional identities. And underlying these functional identities, there is our fundamental identity. And that fundamental identity is never threatened.

It is never wounded. It is something which can never be taken away from us. So, I may say that I am an engineer.

I may say that I am an intellectual. I may say that I am so and so. Now, each of these, it is possible that they may be taken away from me.

But the I, the sense of personal identity, the foundation of that is my spiritual side. So, each of us are something more and something beyond what the world identifies us with or even what we ourselves identify with. So, this I moved from the model to the analysis part now.

So, our wounds, they affect our mind, but they do not affect our soul. So, both the past holding on to us and we holding on to the past, both of those are phenomena associated with our mind. And coming to your point about how much our, the point which you raised about how much our preferences define us, they define our mind completely.

So, the mental side of us is nothing but preferences, like attachments and aversions, likes and dislikes. But they do not define our spiritual side. So, my current preferences may or may not reflect my spirituality at all.

So, our preferences, somebody may say that, suppose somebody is an alcoholic, and now just as there is alcoholism, there is shopaholism. Shop, shop, shop, shop till you drop. Nowadays, shopping has become so easy with our own phones.

We don't have to go also somewhere to shop. Now, some people may identify with that activity so much. If I am not shopping, who am I? They define, they get their feel good, they get their dopamine hit.

By shopping, yeah, I can buy things, I can buy stuff, that means I have power, I have influence, I am successful. So, everybody identifies with some things much more than others. And sometimes that identification which happens, that is what locks our mind with some memories.

So, whether it is the past holding on to us or we holding on to the past, what is happening is, this three-level identity is there, the fundamental identity and the functional identity. So, it is the identity that we have that is what is wounded, that is what is traumatized, that is what is affected, that particular level of identity. So, how I am identifying myself, that is what is affected.

And spiritual growth. Now, the mind being wounded, sometimes the mind can be healed easily, sometimes the mind's healing may take a long time. And sometimes, there may be some wounds in the mind that may never be healed.

So, in some ways, the mind is very similar to the body, that sometimes we have some bodily injuries, which can be healed quickly. Some may take a long time to heal. And some, they may never get healed, you may just have to learn to live with them.

But understanding that I exist beyond my mind, I am not my feelings, I am the feeler of my feelings, I am not my thoughts, I am the thinker of my thoughts. So, I am not my desires, I am the desirer of my desires. So, going beyond the mental functions to our spiritual core, this stepping back is a very powerful way of getting some distance from whatever part of the past we want to get past.

Let us do a short thought experiment to get the sense of the difference between our mental side and our spiritual core. So, wherever you are seated, you can close your eyes. So, I will just do a guided thought experiment.

You can try to participate in it as much as you can. So, wherever you are seated, you can close your eyes and start breathing gently. No much effort to breathe deeply, but just gentle breathing, let it go on.

Now, look with your eyes closed, look straight ahead. When you look ahead, because your eyes are closed, you cannot see whatever is physically in front of you. But it's almost as if there is some kind of screen inside you.

And on that screen, you may see various things. You may see maybe some dull color, maybe the overhead sky, maybe just some darkness, or you may see a series of images going. You may see the face of a loud one.

You may see some TV image that you saw on TV. You might see your favorite object. Some images may stay stuck, some may go on.

Whatever it is that you see on that screen, it is there on the screen and you are the seer, the observer of that screen. Now, as you are looking at that screen, try to take a step backward so that you can catch sight of who is it that is looking at that screen. I repeat, there is a screen inside you which you can, on which you see various things when your eyes are closed.

But there is someone looking at that screen. You want to catch sight of that. So, take a step back and try to catch sight of it.

Now, you will notice that each time you take a step back, that seer steps back with you. No matter how much you step backward, what you are looking for is what you are looking with. So, the seer cannot be seen because the seer is what is seeing.

So, in this thought exercise, that screen inside us is our mind. And the seer of that screen is we, the soul. You can take a deep breath and then you can open your eyes.

So, some of you may have been able to visualize this more easily than others. But this idea that there is a screen inside us, that is something we can all easily relate with. And sometimes we close our eyes and then so many memories pop up.

One of my friends says that as soon as I close my eyes to sleep at night, it seems that on this inner screen, all the things that I forgot to do during the day, they start popping up. And sleep just seems to disappear. So, it can be very frustrating what pops up on the screen.

But the key insight is that if I understand that there is a seer and there is a screen, they are two different things. So, I am not the screen, I am the seer of the screen. Now, because the screen is inside us, when something pops up on that screen, we get caught in it.

We get consumed by it. This inner setting, it is almost like an inner theater. So, we could watch movies by going to a theater and we can watch movies on our phone or in our home on television or on a computer.

Now, the difference, if the same movie could be watched in both places, the difference is that in the movie theater, there is a more immersive experience, isn't it? The idea is that the movie at one level is an illusion. I was in America and I was invited to give a talk at many colleges. So, there were 3-4 talks one after another.

So, while I was going for one of the colleges, the talks were organized quite rapidly. So, while I was going along, I asked, which college am I going to now? So, the name of that college was the American Institute of Illusion. So, what does it mean? That is where people learn to make movies.

So, in one sense, whatever you watch in a movie, that's an illusion. And there are some movies which are blockbusters. Some movies are the opposite.

Now, Hollywood has come up with a new word called the flopbuster. The movie just causes the whole producer and the whole team to collapse. So, now why do movies flop? Now, we can go various reasons.

The direction was bad, the acting was bad, the story was nuts, whatever. But basic point is, the movies flop because the illusion is not good enough. Isn't it? The illusion doesn't engage us.

So, we need to identify with some character, we need to identify with some story. Something has to connect with us. So, when we go to a theatre, the illusion is much more immersed.

So, basically, when we go into the theatre, two things happen. The lights around us get switched off. Now, sometimes some of us may have home theatres where we may try to simulate that effect, where the lights around us turn off, so that there is not much to look around us.

And then the light in front of us turns on. And then our entire attention goes over there. And in a movie theatre, if you are not watching the movie, there is not really much to do unless you go to sleep.

Isn't it? If it's a two, three hour movie, unless you want to walk out of there, maybe people will get angry with you. Why are you disturbing us? So, it's natural to get caught over there. So, for all of us, we could say that there is this, we are all in a theatre.

And the mind is like the movie screen theatre. And the soul is the watcher. But the soul is the sole watcher over here.

The soul is the sole, is the only watcher. This whole, this inside us, this theatre is there. And when the soul is not spiritually evolved, when we are not aware of our spiritual identity, we don't even know that actually there is a life beyond the screen.

We don't even know that there is an option that I can turn away from it. I may not be able to turn off that screen, but I don't have to keep looking at it. There is a whole life beyond what is being displayed on the screen.

So, now, to the extent we are unaware, to that extent we get consumed by whatever is happening on that screen of the mind. But to the extent we understand that actually the screen, that there is a movie going on on that screen, and I can choose whether to watch it and I can choose whether not to watch it. That single decision can make a huge difference in how we look at ourselves and how we evolve in our life.

Now, this doesn't mean that what is coming on the screen of the mind is always troublesome. Not at all. The mind is a functional tool for us.

And sometimes when we are driving in a car, now there we see something in front of us, there is something far away ahead of us. We need to be aware of all of it. So, all that is coming on the screen of our mind.

At the same time, we might be talking to the person next to us and that person may speak something and that may also pop on our screen. So, now, if we are driving through a very tight traffic situation, we say, let's talk later. I want to focus on driving.

So, what we are trying to do? We are trying to monitor and filter what comes on the screen of our mind. I need to pay attention over here right now. So, this is relatively easy to do with respect to external stimuli coming on our mind.

So, if we are having an important phone call and we are at home and somebody else is making a noise, somebody is watching something on TV, we say, lower the volume. I need to focus over here. So, we monitor the stimuli quite a bit when they come from outside so that what comes on the screen of the mind, we can select.

Just as we can select what comes on the screen of the mind so that it is useful. Similarly, we can select whether I focus at all on what comes on the screen of my mind. That requires some spiritual growth.

So, this is the second part. The analysis part is what? That I am different from my mind and my past creates impressions, scars on my mind, but the past does not affect me as the soul. So, what is the practical part? What does this mean for us if I want to move ahead from my past? So, there are basically two things that come out from here.

One is that is selection and the other is rejection. I will explain what I mean. Selection and rejection.

That when I am the soul and there is the mind which is the screen inside me, if I consciously select practices that remind me of my spirituality, that reinforce my sense that I am a spiritual being at my core, beyond my mind. So, there are sometimes when our mind is agitated and then we do something, we hear some music, we go to the natural scene and we feel peaceful. That's nice.

There are sometimes we may notice that my mind is disturbed, but I am not disturbed. It's almost like there is something here, that person spoke to me, that is annoyance, that is an irritation, but that's there in me, but it's not me. It's like I am living with the pain, but I am not living in the pain.

I am living with the hurt, but I am not living in the hurt. What that sense that my mind is disturbed, but I am not disturbed. When we get that sense, we start understanding that the screen inside me does not define me.

That screen inside me does not have to control me. So, at the start of this session, we did one spiritual practice that was chanting of mantras. We chanted the Hare Krishna mantra, we chanted the Aum mantra.

So, there are spiritual practices like this in various traditions of the world. And while the specifics may vary, the point of the spiritual practices is manifold. One of those is that it helps us to move apart from our mind.

Not so that we reject the mind, but so that we distance ourselves from it. And once we have distanced ourselves from it, this inner distancing between me and my mind, that enables me to select what on the screen of my mind is favorable and to reject what is unfavorable. The Bhagavad Gita calls this as Abhyas and Vairagya.

That I select what nourishes my spirituality. And once I have selected what nourishes my spirituality, then I can look at my mind with objectivity. So, then I can decide which of the components of my mind I need to focus on and I don't need to focus on.

So, I'll talk about rejection a little bit more. Now, rejection is very different from deleting. Our mind does not come with a delete button.

Or if there is a delete button, it is unknown to us, which will be quite sadistic for a button to be there and we don't have access to it. But basically, we can assume there is no delete button for our mind. So, we cannot choose our memories, but we can choose which memories we replay.

So, on the screen of the mind, the screen will always be on and something will be going on on the screen of the mind. We cannot freeze the screen, we cannot turn on the TV inside us. But when a particular movie starts, a particular TV show starts, we can decide, do I really want to watch this? So, as we recognize that I am different from my mind, then we become more and more aware of what is popping up inside us.

So, instead of saying, I am angry, as we grow in terms of our spirituality, I can identify anger is rising in my mind. So, rather than identifying with my mind, I identify my mind. Rather than saying that, somebody's alcohol, I want to drink alcohol, I say, no, okay, the desire for alcohol is rising in my mind.

So, this distancing is there inside me, but it is not me. This distancing, this act of distancing can be done through articulation or re-articulation. The normal articulation would be, I am angry.

But no, instead of that, this mind is different from me, anger is rising inside me. Now, when that anger is rising inside me, that anger, once it grows, it can seem very powerful. But I can choose whether I let it grow or not.

That happens by how much attention I pay to it. So, this is the last key point I'll conclude with, that I was in Calgary, in Canada. I was going for a university program over there and that university program was on top of a hill.

It was winter over there, so it was snowing. And while it was snowing, we got to observe how snowballs are formed. So, the road was winding up and down and we were going and at the top of the hill, there is a small snow pebble and that snow pebble starts rolling down, rolling down.

As it keeps rolling down from there, from snow pebble, it becomes a snow stone. Then it becomes a snow boulder. And then at the top of the hill, when it's a small snow pebble, somebody can just kick it with their foot and it'll crack apart.

But when that same snow pebble is rolled down the hill and become a snow boulder, at that time, it can crack that person apart. So, the snow pebble, the snowball, can it be stopped? It can be stopped when it's a snow pebble. It cannot be stopped once it becomes a snow boulder.

So, like that, similarly, our emotions, our desires, our hurts from the past, when they start popping up inside us, initially, it's like when the movie is starting inside us, we have this access to the select button. Do I want to watch this movie or I don't want to watch the movie. But as the movie starts playing more and more, it just consumes our entire screen.

Like sometimes, you have a phone with split screen. So, we are seeing one thing at one place and we are also looking at some other things. But if there's only one thing on the screen, we get so caught, we forget that there are other things to do also.

We might put a memory, we might put a digital pin something. Okay, you have to do this. You put a reminder.

But some programs are so invasive, and the reminder itself gets filtered backwards. So, we can't even see that. So, once this movie starts going fully, then it will play itself out.

It won't go on forever. But once it starts playing out at full speed, it may be very difficult to turn ourselves away from it. We'll get consumed by it.

But when it is starting off, at that time, we can choose to look elsewhere. So, what powers this movie to move onwards? Initially, on the screen of the mind, everything starts as a small thought. It's like a small pop-up on the screen.

The pop-up keeps growing, growing, growing till it fills the inner screen. And what causes it to get filled is our attention. How much attention we pay to a thought determines how much it will grow.

So, not every thought requires our thought. Not every thought needs to be thought about. It's like our phone may have so many notifications, not every notification needs to be noticed.

So, like that, as we become more alert, we become more internally aware, then certain things may pop up. They're there for some time, but if we don't pay attention, then they will go off on their own. Now, the way we do that, the way we don't pay attention is by having something else to pay attention to.

So, when we have something meaningful, something purposeful, and that's where spiritual practices come in. Spirituality can give us experience that is calming, experience that is strengthening, an experience that is uplifting. And when we learn to be sheltered in our spiritual practices, then when this unwanted pop-up comes up, we immediately do our deep breathing, we do our mantra chanting, we shift our focus.

And when our focus stays on that spiritual content inside us, then the things which cause discontent for us, they start declining and disappearing. Now, this doesn't mean that we have to forever reject them. Coming back to your last point which you made, there is learning from the past and there is living in the past.

So, when the past has a very strong emotional hold on us, then there is no learning from the past. Then we end up living in the past, we end up being locked in the past, we end up lamenting the past, but we can't learn from it. But over a period of time, when the past pops up and we don't play that movie, we shift our attention away.

The more we shift our attention away, the emotional power of the past decreases. The emotional power of the past depends on how much attention we feed it. So, like I have a wound, with time the wound will heal itself.

But if I have a wound, I keep touching it, I keep scratching it, then the wound will not heal and every time I touch it, it will cause pain. So, sometimes people say, okay, something bad has happened, I want to learn from it. Sometimes the best thing to learn from the past is that this is not the time to learn from the past.

We sometimes need some distance. So, for some people the distance might be one hour, for some people it might be one week, for some people it might be one year also. So, if we find that when we look back at our past and it seems to overwhelm us, then that means that we don't have sufficient distance from it.

So, whenever that past pops up, turn, turn your attention to something else. When we do that, gradually that rejection of that replay of the past will weaken its emotional power. And once its emotional power is weakened, then eventually when it plays, we can evaluate with greater objectivity.

And then whatever is to be learned from it, we can learn from it and we can let it go. So, I'll summarize what I discussed today. And then if you have any questions or comments, they're most welcome.

So, I talked about how to get past our past and we discussed about what does it mean to get past our past. It could be some bad memories or bad events and the impact of the bad events. It could be some good things that we are afraid of losing.

It could be our own reluctance, our own attachments by which we want to replace certain experiences and we don't want to let go of certain things. We don't want to avoid certain experiences. So, it could be our traumas.

So, how do we deal with it? I talked about the acronym. Anyone remember the acronym? Math. So, the model of the self.

I talked from the Bhagavad Gita that there's a three level model. The body, mind and soul. It's like the hardware of a computer we are using, the software and the user.

And within this model, the key thing is that the wounds from the past, which exist as memories, they affect the mind, not the soul. So, our fundamental identity as souls is unaffected by whatever has happened to us in the past. And in the analysis part, I explained that how we often identify ourselves with certain things and the world identifies us with certain things.

But our identity exists beyond whatever is our layer of identification. So, to understand that, that the soul is different from the mind, we did the thought experiment that there's a screen inside us and there's a seer of that screen. So, the mind is like the screen, the soul is the seer.

And on the screen of the mind, something is always there. And sometimes our past movies start going on and they consume us. So, it's like a theater inside us in which the lights around us are turned off, we get fixated on the theater.

So, what we need to do is create a distance, create a distance between us and that inner screen. And that happens through our spiritual practices. So, through mantra chanting, through deep breathing, through spiritual practices, we create this distance.

And then when that happens, we can select or reject what appears in the mind. So, reject means if some memory from the past comes up and seems to consume us with its raw emotional power, then we can just shift our attention, select our attention to something else, which is more wholesome. And when we refuse to pay attention to the past, its emotional power weakens.

And when its power has become sufficiently weakened, then we can look at it without being consumed by it. We can learn from it and let it go. And this way, by recognizing that I am a spiritual being and I am beyond my mind, we can move past our past.

Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Any questions or comments? Yes, please.

In my observation, most people belong to either one of the camps. They either tend to overanalyze the past and keep going back to try to process it, or the people who try to just block it out altogether, and it's almost like you're being in denial. It's pretty hard to find a balance, like a balanced approach.

Like you said, sometimes you just got to let it go. It's also especially a challenge when you are in close contact with people who have had some severe sort of experiences, and you have to kind of let them go at their own pace. And sometimes people are just not ready to process things.

But yet they are exhibiting certain qualities of behavior that are pretty difficult to deal with. So, how do we find that balance of knowing when to try to process, when to let it go? Yeah. Okay.

It's a very individual question that when to, some people overanalyze, some people live in denial of the past. So, if we consider a graph, say, the y-axis of the graph is clarity, and the x-axis is time. So now, when we think about an issue, sometimes somebody does something very foolish.

We say, what were you thinking? Or somebody is about to do something foolish. When we say, have you thought this through? The idea is that if we consider the graph of clarity versus time, the more we think, the more clarity we get. Should I invest money over here? Should I be in this relationship? Should I take a job over here? Thinking gives us some clarity.

However, this graph does not keep going steadily. After some time, it flattens out. That means, after some time, the more we think, we don't get any further clarity at all.

And after some time, the graph starts going south. That means, the more we think, the more confused we get. So, this initial clarity, that flattening out, and then the clarity ahead, that also is lost.

Somebody says, earlier I was not sure. Now, I am not sure if I am not sure. So, now the key thing is that when the graph is moving upwards, that is the time, till that time we pursue it.

But once it starts flattening out, we need to stop. And once it starts going down south, a hard stop. So, when do we recognize it? So, now, as you said, some people, they think too much about the past and some people think too little.

So, since my childhood, I used to think a lot, not only about the past, but I used to ask a lot of questions about everything. And many of my teachers, other co-students, they say, you think too much. And my mental retort, out of respect, I would not speak it generally, my mental retort was, you think too little.

So, sometimes it can seem very relative. But the thing is, each of us has to evaluate what is my default direction. And we learn about it a little bit, that I tend to just leave the past behind and move ahead.

Can we really move ahead like that? Or we think too much. So, we all can learn about what are our default tendencies. See, one way to know that I am not thinking adequately about the past is that something from the past triggers me.

So, for example, we see something and it has an excessive reaction. So, the idea is that sometimes we are speaking with someone and then that person seems to be very disturbed by something. So, then we may ask, did I touch a nerve there? What does that mean? That there is some sensitive part and my words touch that.

So, just like if there is a physical injury. So, if say, once I was giving a talk in America in a university and I was sitting on a dais and the organizer wanted to tell me something. So, he came from behind and he tapped me on my shoulder.

And he tapped me and I almost winced and screamed. I controlled myself. He said, I am sorry, what happened? He said, actually, I had fallen on my shoulder and I had a sprain over here.

So, normally tapping on the shoulder does not lead to any reaction. So, if a small stimulus leads to a huge reaction, that is an indication that there is an injury over there. So, how can I know that I am in denial of my past, I am not thinking about the past, I am not thought through my past? It is that if something triggers me from the past and I get very triggered by it.

So, there is no need to get so angry about this. I am not angry about it. So, the idea is that when we are disproportionately triggered, that indicates that we have not thought about it adequately.

So, then we need to spend some time to think about it. Those of us who tend to think too much about the past, then it is good to write things down. For those who tend to overthink about the past, one of the best ways to deal with it is to not think about the past without writing.

Or nowadays with technology available, without speaking, if writing is difficult, we can dictate and have it transcribed. And then as we are looking at it, we look to see, am I learning something new over here? Or am I simply replaying the same old things? So, if I start off, I gain some clarity, I am flattening out. So, as soon as I am flattening out, I stop.

Sometimes I start and I start remembering the past and whatever I speak each time, all the same things are only coming. That means the graph is starting out only flat. There is no going up at all.

So, if there is nothing new, no insight is coming, no even new observation is coming, the same old sob story, sorry to use that word, but the sob story is coming out again. Sometimes we may need to vent it to get it off our chest. But if this is the 100th time we are speaking it, then venting it is actually causing it to stay on, rather than venting it is letting it get out.

So, by writing and observing what we are writing, we can analyze if nothing new is coming, that means I am overthinking about it. So, that way we can avoid the extremes of overthinking and denying. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? Yes, please. I need to know a bit more when you are talking about identity and the difference between that and what we identify ourselves with. And I was wondering if there is any way we can ever know what our identity is or is just maybe there and we will never know.

Okay, that's a good question. See, our identity itself is multi-layer. So, as I said that there is a physical side to us, there is an emotional side to us and there is a spiritual side to us.

The spiritual side is our core. And we have multiple dimensions to our identity. We have a particular gender, a particular nationality, particular educational level, particular height, particular complexion, particular looks, all those things.

Each of these is a part of our identity. Now, if we consider it like a canvas. On a canvas, there are many elements in the painting and it all comes together as a beautiful painting.

When the painter painted, each stroke contributed to the final image, final work of art. But when we look at it, what we see is the final work of art and we see is this good or is not good. So, our identity is in one sense like that.

That there are every major incident that happens in our life, that's like a stroke on the canvas and it forms a part of who we are. So, in life, we go through certain experiences, they shape our outlooks to life, they shape our values and then it reshapes our identity to some extent. So, that's the canvas.

So, like that, if I go back from the canvas metaphor to the TV screen metaphor. Now, which kind of movies play over there? What kind of stories I tell myself? This is something which is shaped by my life experiences. Now, beyond all these stories that we tell ourselves, am I as a person, am I as a soul? So, for knowing the soul, the process is that this mind, which I said is like a TV screen or a movie screen, that mind has to change from a movie screen to a mirror.

So, when that happens, then when we look, we can look back at ourselves. So, the soul is described to be sat, the Sanskrit word is sat chitananda. Sat chitananda means it is a being that is ever existing.

It is also a being which is conscious and curious, which wants to know and it is joy seeking. Now, existing, curious and joy seeking. Now, we will see these three fundamental drives in all living beings to different degrees.

Nobody wants to die. Everybody wants to continue living some way or the other. And everybody wants to know.

Now, what we want to know may vary. So, that is the screen of the mind deciding where our curiosity goes. Some people may want to know more about politics, some about sports, some about fashions, some about this, some about that, but the curiosity is there.

And through it all, we seek happiness, we seek joy. So, the basic feature of the soul, the core components of our identity are these three drives. The drive to exist, the drive to know and the drive to rejoice.

And the more the mind through spiritual practice, the Sanskrit word is purification. As we become purified, then the mind starts changing into a mirror. And that is when we can see ourselves in our spiritual glory.

Excuse me. I wanted to ask about the shadows. When you talked about overreaction, I remember the shadow could be related to that thought.

Yeah. So, I was using the term shadow in the sense that our past seems to be like a ghost that is shadowing us, which is constantly there. And the word shadow is specifically used in Carl Jung with psychology also, to refer to that part of us, which is not processed, that which is unaddressed.

So, often the wounds of our past or the impressions of our past, they impel us to act in particular ways. And there are many times when we do something and then somebody asks us, why did you do that? And we might try to come up with some reason at that time. But you know, one part of us, yeah, even I don't know why I did that.

It's like sometimes somebody shopaholic, why did you buy that? I don't know what came over me. I did that that time. So, there are in the mind many things which we are unconscious of.

And what is unconscious, either we become conscious of it or it will make us conscious of it. But it will make us conscious of it in a way that can be disruptive or destructive also. So, that's why sometimes if you are under thinking about our past, and the past will certainly surface in some unpleasant or nasty ways.

So, shadow work means basically that we learn to observe and address ourselves to better understand what is driving us. And when we address that, then gradually that force on us reduces. So, for example, if somebody tends to be short tempered, now one way we can say just control your anger.

That is true at a functional level, we need to do that. But sometimes we need to go deeper, okay, what is causing my anger? So, this person spoke like this and that person did that. Well, that's true, but that's only the surface trigger.

Now, there is something inside us which is unaddressed. And then when we go deeper, then we understand, okay, maybe this happened over here. And because of that, I am so angry, that residual anger is there and it's exploding.

Similarly, if somebody is say addicted to something, if somebody is addicted to drugs, now, you can say just learn to control yourself. Well, that's one way to go. But quite often every addiction is basically an unhealthy pain processing mechanism.

It's an unhealthy way to cope. So, under every unhealthy craving is a healthy need that has been distorted. So, for example, somebody feels lonely.

And when they feel lonely, they get comfort by going high with drugs. Or they are social drinker, they hang out with people and they all drink together. So, the craving is to drink, but the underlying need is to address loneliness.

So, when we go deeper, we start understanding what is driving my behavior. And when we address that, then we are no longer troubled by that at the surface level. So, that's shadow work.

So, to some extent, when we learn to distance ourselves from our screen, we start recognizing, okay, why does this pop up on my screen? And then I can better process it. So, okay, last question. I don't want to keep everyone waiting.

So, I'm just wondering about soul. Does it change over time and life experience? Or is it always the same, like unchanging? Or is the mind stuff that you're dealing with, does that change the soul? Yeah. See, the word soul is used by different people to mean different things.

Many people use the word soul in a metaphorical sense. That is, for example, if cricket, somebody is playing cricket, and somebody cheats, you know, they may say, this is the wound on the soul of cricket, or this is the soul of Australia, or this is whatever. So, often the word soul is used in a metaphorical sense to refer to the non-material essence of something.

However, the Gita, the Gita wisdom tradition, it refers to the soul not in a metaphorical sense. It's actually in a literal sense, not physical, but it's literal, it's real. So, that soul is unchanging.

Now, when we say the soul evolves, sometimes we use the word like that. But what it means is, the soul's consciousness evolves. So, I give the example of that phone and the light coming from it.

So, the soul, the battery is, the source of the light is the same. But based on our conditionings, based on the kind of impressions that are there in the mind, this consciousness goes in particular directions. So, for example, by default, somebody, as soon as they have time, they will want to just watch TV.

Somebody, as soon as they have time, they will think, how I can earn more money? As soon as they have the time, let me go in some natural, peaceful place and sit there and reflect. So, that is the default direction our consciousness goes. So, when we say the soul evolves, what it means is, the default direction of the consciousness of the soul, it rises upwards.

So, the soul does not change, but the soul's consciousness evolves in its default directions. And the unchanging nature of the soul is the basis of our identity. But the changing direction of the consciousness is what leads to our evolution.

So, the word spiritual evolution, it refers to the refinement or the moving in a healthy direction of the consciousness in a default way. Am I addressing your question? Yeah. So, then is that Purusha and Prakriti or is it? Yeah, there is Purusha and Prakriti, but in between there is Chetana.

So, from the Purush comes consciousness with Chetana. That Chetana does not change. Consciousness, the Chetana is what changes.

The Purusha does not change, the Chetana changes. So, thank you very much for your thoughtful participation. I am grateful that you came today.

And much of what I spoke today is here in one of my books. The theme of our talk was, You are not your mind, you are better. So, this is a small book with around 64 question-answer type articles, two-page articles.

And there are some simple conceptographic diagrams, explain the concepts. So, this book is there and there are few other books also. We have more copies or there is only one-one copies? There are just more copies of this one.

These are just one copy. So, if any of you want, these books are available. And I will sit here for some time.

I will be here to answer any questions or to sign the books if you want. Thank you and my best wishes and prayers. You all can evolve spiritually, you can fulfill all our divine potentials.

Thank you. Can we just put our hands together for Rishi Prakriti? And if you don't want to buy a book, but you are very active online, he publishes an article called the GitaDaily.com, which is from the Bhagavad Gita text. And he also has a website called the SpiritualScientist.com. So, there's a couple of things online, which are pretty fantastic to read and just immerse yourself in Bhagavad Gita and spirituality more generally.

But thank you once again. And there's some fruits and bikkis at the back. And one of our friends who lives on a farm or an acreage has brought a lot of fruits.

So, if you want to grab a fruit on the way out, please feel free to do so as well. But thank you again for coming. Thank you.

Can you stop that?