How we defeat ourselves – and how we can stop doing so

Seminar at National Institute of Technology, Rourkela

Link to powerpoint presentation

Seminar outline:

How we defeat ourselves:
Our mind
1. Magnifies problems
2. Imagines pleasures
3. Neglects opportunities
4. Denies reality

How can we stop defeating ourselves:
1. Meditate
2. Illuminate your inner world
3. Navigate your inner pitfalls
4. Do it with others

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
darkness. Thank you very much. Am I audible now? Thank you.
So, respected professors, guests, and my dear students, friends, I am grateful and honoured to be here amidst all of you. As I mentioned, I have come here several times before, from 2007. And it is a joy to see your bright faces.
You are the future of the country and the world. And today I would like to share some insights from the ancient Indian wisdom tradition about how we can move forwards in our self-development, in our self-improvement, towards self-actualisation. And I will talk this from the opposite perspective that how we defeat ourselves and how we can stop doing so.
Next. So, when we are not self-aware, we hit self-goals. In football, a self-goal is when a player sends the ball into their own goal instead of the opponent’s goal.
That is considered one of the most foolish and self-defeating ways of using a match. We hit self-goals. So, now, nature offers us examples of how some living beings defeat and destroy themselves.
So, for example, a fish may be free in water, but then it sees a bait. Now, it can get food in many other places, but when it sees the bait, it goes towards the bait and gets caught. And it loses its life.
A mouse sees some cheese lying in some mouse trap. Now, it can find food anywhere else also, but it goes into the mouse trap and gets trapped and again destroys itself. Now, still the fish and the mouse have excuses.
What they are attracted to looks like food and they do not know in advance that it is dangerous. Unfortunately, we human beings often have neither of these excuses when we defeat ourselves. I will talk about defeating ourselves with related to gross physical substances first and then I will move towards subtle psychological behaviour and patterns.
So, for example, everybody knows that say smoking is injurious to health. And for no one, a cigarette looks like food and yet millions of people ruin their health by smoking. And smoking is just one activity, there may be alcoholism, there may be drug addiction.
In all these things, what is happening is we are voluntarily choosing to do some things by which we damage and destroy ourselves. At a less damaging level, nowadays a big problem today is at least a big perceived problem is obesity, where people are frantic about not becoming overweight. And what has been found is that if people have a choice, say to eat a healthy snack or eat a fatty snack, then if they are aware, if both is available, they will choose the healthy snack and eat it.
But if they are busy talking on the phone or they are busy surfing something on the net, and they are not aware of what they are doing, and at that time, they just get an urge to eat. Then even without their awareness, their hand goes to the fatty snack. And then they eat it.
And after eating it, what did I do? Why did I eat this? So, when we are not self aware, when we are not aware of what we are doing, there is something mysterious within us, which makes us do things that are harmful for ourselves. Next. So, last year, I was in America, I was giving a talk in Ohio State University, I was talking about to the vegetarian club there about regulating our mental diet.
And after that talk, an African American student came to me and he said, I had talked in my talk about how if we do not eat food properly, the food which is meant to nourish us can injure us, it can even kill us. Like that our own thoughts, they can hurt us to the extent of even killing us. And the same point which I made over there that 1 million people every year commit suicide.
This figure of 1 million means that one person is committing suicide every 40 seconds. That means since I started this talk, almost 15 people have committed suicide. And this figure of 1 million is actually successful suicides.
Now, there is no such thing as a successful suicide in the sense that suicide itself is a defeat. But successful suicide means for every person who actually commits suicide, there are at least 10 people who attempt suicides. And this figure of 1 million is again only the suicides which are counted.
In the third world, especially many suicides go uncounted also. And even with these qualifications, these limitations, still this figure of once 1 million is more than the casualties due to war, murder, terrorism all combined together. That is more than the number of people who are being killed by others are the number of people who are killing themselves.
When there is some terrorist attack somewhere, there is worldwide concern about how to combat terrorism. Because life is precious and we do not want life to be lost. But what is this mysterious, malignant force that makes a million people every year destroy themselves? The WHO, the World Health Organisation calls suicide a tragic social health problem for which there is no known cure.
So, after this talk, after my talk in Ohio State University, I spoke of similar points over there. So, this African American student said, he came and said that just before the talk, just before I came for the talk, I was contemplating suicide. I was contemplating suicide and somehow, something made me feel lonely.
Let me just go and hear this talk. And when I heard the talk, I realised that actually it was not I who wanted to commit suicide. There was something else within me that was speaking to me.
Commit suicide, commit suicide, commit suicide. And that voice, now I have understood that is different from me. That voice is not me.
And this voice which propels us towards self-destruction, that is the voice which we need to identify and then distance ourselves from. When we are able to do that, then we can avoid any form of self-defeating behaviour. So, move on.
So, here we, as Martin Luther King said, that we have guided missiles and misguided men. His further quote goes on that he says, our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. The means that we live with have exceeded the ends that we live for.
So, here I will take a slight detour and I will talk about the relationship between science and spirituality. Often in a scientific college like this, we may have the question, ok, we have science, do we really need spirituality? What is the relevance of it all? Please go ahead. So, here Nobel laureate R. V. Schrodinger, he states that, I am very surprised that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient.
It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and something that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight. It knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity.
Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. This is not a criticism of science. This is a top scientist who recognises the power of science, who was a pioneer in taking quantum physics especially to new heights.
He is acknowledging that science has its focus, science has its strength, but its very strength comes at a cost. Science observes matter and tries to give material explanations for material phenomena, but in this very process, it misses out on other aspects of reality. If I have a very sophisticated telescope and I am able to see with the telescope celestial bodies that are light years away, that is a very powerful telescope, but it is not that with that telescope, I will be able to sense or smell if there is a fire behind me and the fire is consuming the planetarium in which I am.
The telescope has a particular strength and its strength has to be acknowledged, but at the same time, it cannot warn me about the danger of a fire. For that, I need another device, I need a fire alarm. So, like that, we are integrated beings.
We have a material side, we have a spiritual side, we have an outer side and we have an inner side. So, science helps us to deal with the outer world. Science has phenomenally transformed our capacity to navigate the outer world.
At the same time, the inner world, our thoughts, our emotions, these are so subtle that these are not measurable by science. These, we need a different device for dealing with them. For example, the whole of medical science, one of its purposes is to remove pain.
At the same time, in medical science, there is no way we can measure pain. Now, if somebody asks, I got too thick, okay, what is the degree of the pain? Now, 5, 10, 11, 12, we may have some hypothetical scale, but there is no quantifiable measurement of that. And pain is a real experience for us.
Pleasure is a real experience for us. These are not quantifiable, these are not measurable. Albert Einstein says that all that counts is not countable.
So, the inner world contains a lot of things that count in our life. But they, we need, for understanding them, we need an alternative source of knowledge. So, science helps us to deal with the outer world, spiritual wisdom helps us to deal with the inner world.
So, what is this force that often makes us act in self-defeating ways? So, I will explain this based on some insights from the Bhagavad Gita. Let us move forward. So, the Bhagavad Gita in the 6th chapter, 5th and 6th verses, talks about this inner force.
So, it says that within us is our mind. And the mind can be our friend, the mind can be our enemy. And we need to raise ourselves with the mind and not degrade ourselves.
So, the mind is like a software. And if I have a computer, the computer has a hardware, the software and the user. So, like that, the Bhagavad Gita explains, our existence is three-dimensional.
There is the body, which we all see, and there is the mind, and there is the soul, which is spiritual. So, now the software, the hardware may be perfectly functional. But if there is a virus in the software, then the hardware will be of no use.
So, similarly, the mind is like the software. And in that software, if any virus-like negativity has come in, any self-sabotaging programmes have come in, people may be perfectly healthy, but they will ruin themselves because of that virus. Just like a software problem may make the hardware useless.
So, there is this inner sabotaging that happens. Now, how does that happen and how can we deal with it? That will be the main part of the seminar. This will be based on two acronyms, mind.
So, MIND, I will take this in two acronyms. First, I will talk about how we destroy ourselves in terms of this acronym. And then I will talk about in four ways in which we can avoid such behaviour.
Next please. Yeah. So, how we defeat ourselves? MIND.
So, this inner negative programme, this inner virus, what does it do? It magnifies problems. It imagines pleasures. It neglects opportunities and it denies reality.
Let us look at this one by one. M is magnifies problems. So, there is a particular kind of disease called delusional parasitosis.
So, this is a, what I am going to tell is a real incident. It is from the medical history. What is this parasitosis means? If some parasite is present in our body, that is some disease that comes by that.
Delusional parasitosis means that people imagine that there are some diseases, there is some parasite inside my body. So, there is a woman who had this delusion that there is a frog inside my abdomen. And this frog is, you know, it is making havoc inside my abdomen.
And she would go to doctor, doctor, please do a surgery and remove this frog. And the doctor did all kinds of probes and doctor assured that there is no frog inside your stomach. No, doctor, there is a frog.
One doctor, two doctors, three doctors, four doctors. And she had a doctor whom she trusted. She went to him six times saying that, doctor, there is a frog in my stomach.
And then the doctor decided that she is so deluded that the solution is to delude her further. So, he said that, yes, we have detected a frog in your stomach and we are going to do a surgery. And then they did anaesthesia.
He put her under anaesthesia. And he had told a nurse to get a frog from the nearby pond. And then when she recovered from anaesthesia, he just did a small incision in her stomach.
And then when she came back to consciousness out of anaesthesia, he showed her the frog. This was the frog and we have got her. And now you have become healthy.
And this woman was so delighted. Thank you, doctor. Thank you.
Thank you. Now all my problems are gone. So great.
Thank you very much. And all the medical staff thought it was a very clever solution. And things went on nicely.
But after a fortnight, that lady came back again and she told doctor that frog had babies and they are still inside. So, what happens is when we start imagining a particular problem, when the mind starts fantasising and imagining, facts don’t matter. We just imagine what if this goes wrong, what if that goes wrong, what if that goes wrong, what if that goes wrong.
And when we started visualising all the things that can go wrong, we can’t do the things that we can do right. And in that way, we paralyse ourselves. Yes, we all have problems in our life.
But often, the mind magnifies the problems. Magnifies the problems means, yes, there is a present problem that I have to deal with. But the mind says, what if this happens? What if that happens? What if that happens? What if that happens? And then we become crushed by the burden of all the things that we worry will happen.
Now, it is said worry is like a rocking chair, which keeps moving but gets us nowhere. When we are worried, we are always restless and we are not able to do anything. Now, planning and preparing for future problems is a sign of intelligence.
But when we are worrying, we are not thinking analytically, we are not thinking objectively, we are not preparing. We are simply dreaming in a dystopian way. Utopia is a very bright future, dystopia is a very dark future.
So, if we look at our own lives, we will find that most of the things that we worry about, 90% of those worries never materialise. Yes, problems do come. But suppose there was a coolie who had to carry, say, 10 kg luggage and he is going to be paid for carrying 10 kg luggage.
And that coolie put 20 more kg luggage on himself and he was struggling under 30 kg weight. Why are you carrying 30 kg? You will be paid only for 10 kg. No, I have to carry 30 kg.
So, that will be self-defeating. Like that, we all have problems in our life. But when we magnify the problems, we have to deal with a 10 kg problem, but we make it into a 30 kg problem.
Now, this may happen, that may happen, that may happen, that may happen. And in that way, we paralyse ourselves. So, when we magnify problems, we disempower ourselves.
And I will discuss in the later part how to deal with these issues. But at this stage, let us focus. This is one way when we worry unnecessarily, when we let the mind magnify problems, we sabotage ourselves, we defeat ourselves.
Next. Imagines pleasure. I is imagines pleasure.
Alexander Pavlov was a prominent psychologist and he did some very interesting experiments to understand behaviour. So, he had some dogs and he, he arranged that whenever he fed the dogs, he would ring a bell. He would ring a bell and at that time he would feed the dogs.
And after some time, he just rang the bell without offering any food. And he found that just by the sound of the bell, the dog’s tongues would start salivating. Normally, we salivate when we see food.
But what had happened, the dogs, instead of associating, instead of associating saliva with the stimulus of seeing food, they associated it with the sound of the bell. And in this way, they imagined that whenever a bell would ring, they will get food. And by imagining this way, they allowed themselves to be misled.
So, this is often we misassociate one thing with another. And by such misassociation, we mislead ourselves. So, for example, currently I am working on a book on addiction.
So, I was reading accounts of people who became addicted and then became de-addicted. So, initially, when people start drinking, they think, oh, this is enjoyable. It’s cool.
They think I’m drinking, it’s cool. But then over a period of time, almost all addicts, if they become addicted, they say that I don’t drink to get high. I drink to come back to normal level.
I drink to cope. So, there was this particular alcoholic. One night at around 2.30 in the morning, he suddenly got the urge to drink.
He got up from his bed and he was single. So, he went to his fridge and he found there’s no alcohol over there. Then he took out, this was in America, he took out his car and it was a cold freezing night.
Snow was falling and he went to the nearby bar. And he came to that bar and he found that the particular drink that he wanted, that was not there in that bar also. So, then he had to go about two miles across to another bar in the city.
And as he was going out in the night amidst the snow, at that time his car broke down. And then while the snow was pelting on his body, he did not have any proper umbrella or anything. Still, in that snow, he went all the way to that bar.
And finally, he got that drink. And as he got that drink, he just took it out and immediately gulped it out. He said, no, no, wait, wait.
He drank a little. He says, I’ve gone through so much trouble to get it. I will drink this peacefully now.
So, he put the lid back and started walking back to his car. He thought, I’ll go to my car, I’ll go to my house and I’ll drink peacefully. And as he was going along, there was snow along the ground, he slipped and he fell down.
And he had not put the lid on the alcohol properly, on the bottle. So, what happened was, he did an abhishek of alcohol. So, he bathed himself with alcohol.
As he has fallen on the ground, his initial reaction was fury. I have gone through so much trouble to get this alcohol and then it’s gone. As he was lying on the ground, suddenly he had an epiphany.
He looked up and he saw skyscraper buildings all around and all of them, the lights were closed. He said, what am I doing? Everyone is sleeping peacefully in their beds, comfortably in their room heating or heated rooms. And here I am out in the cold, in the snow, struggling and enslaving and suffering.
At that time, it struck him, by drinking, I am not enjoying. I am not enjoying. I am bound, I am enslaved, I am suffering, I am not enjoying.
So, initially, when one starts indulging in some self-defeating habit, we start thinking there’s pleasure. So, like the Pavlovian dog associated the sound of the bell with food, like that, we start thinking, okay, when I drink alcohol, when I smoke or whatever I do, this is pleasure. But after some time, the habit becomes so addictive, so compulsive, that we do that habit not to get pleasure, but to avoid the suffering of not doing it.
And there is no pleasure, but we think there is pleasure. And like the Pavlovian dog, we keep imagining pleasure when there is no pleasure. And that way, we sabotage ourselves.
We are studying for an exam, and suddenly, some notification pops up on our phone. Nothing urgent, but I look at the notice, and then from one, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and then the whole hour may go away. So, here, what is happening? We think some notification, something, maybe there’s some break, some pleasure, but actually, it breaks our flow of studies.
So, we often imagine pleasure when in reality, there is no pleasure. And that’s how we defeat ourselves. So, neglects opportunities.
We are often present everywhere, except in the present. Suppose, you go for, I’ll explain this. Suppose, you go for a feast, you know, maybe there is some programme, some marriage or some celebration, after that there is a feast.
And say, this is a special feast. In this feast, everybody is getting different items. So, you have got a set of items in your plate, your neighbour has got another set of items, other person has got other items.
Now, suppose, instead of eating the food that is there in front of us, it’s also a feast, it’s also delicious. Oh, he has got that. Oh, she has got that.
Oh, what have they got? What have they got? And we look at all that we don’t have, and we feel miserable. Although, what we have is also good, it is also delicious, but we just don’t see that. So, we would say this is true, you know, eat the food that we have.
Why bother about what others have, if what you have is good, eat it. So, just as we would consider this unnecessarily masochistic, unnecessarily causing suffering to oneself, like that, whatever we are to do in life, we have to do it in the present. Right now, the present moment is all that we have, it is all that we will ever have.
Whatever changes we want to make in our life, we have to do it in the present. But what the mind neglects the opportunity of the present, and we start thinking about the past, oh, what all we have gone, what all went wrong, what all I did wrong, or whatever, who did wrong, or we go into the future, and think, oh, maybe that will happen, maybe if this happens, what will I do? If that happens, what will I do? And in this way, we lose the opportunity of the present. And people often worry, what is there in my future? Will I have a bright future or not? And the future will be brighter, if we brighten the present.
The future emerges from the present. And if we focus on using the opportunity that we have right now, whatever I have right now, if I do that, that will enable me to move forward and brighten the future. So quite often, we lose the opportunity that we have, because of this self sabotaging distractiveness of the mind.
Go ahead. D? Deny is reality. In the Mahabharata, Duryodhana is a especially villainous character.
And he, right when he is just a small child, just entering into his teens, he hatches a whole conspiracy to have his cousin Bhima poisoned. And from that point onwards, he tries one thing after another, he tries to have them burnt alive, he tries to dishonour and disrobe the Pandavas, queen Draupadi, and he cheats at the gambling match. He does atrocity upon atrocity.
Eventually, when Krishna, just before the catastrophic Kurukshetra war, before that when Krishna goes as Shanti Durtu, as a messenger to seek peace on the most accommodating terms. At that time, Duryodhana makes this statement. He says, why is everyone blaming me? Even if I introspect, I don’t see any wrong that I have done.
I don’t see any wrong that I have done. This is the, if I have a wound, if I keep hiding the wound, I say, no, I don’t have any wound. I don’t have any wound.
I don’t achieve anything by that. The wound is going to worsen. A wound denied is a wound worsened.
Similarly, we all have faults. And to the extent we deny the faults that we have, to that extent, we aggravate those faults. Of course, we shouldn’t obsess on the faults.
We don’t have to give ourselves an inferiority complex by thinking about the faults, always. But if we deny the faults on our part, we can’t deal with them, we can’t correct them, we can’t improve ourselves. And often those faults worsen.
So we, quite often, under the influence of this self-sacrificing mechanism of the mind, we keep blaming others. And in the process of blaming others, we lose the opportunity for improving ourselves. There is a hero within us.
But when we are all searching for the villain outside, we cannot find the hero inside. We cannot bring out the good within us, if for all problems in our life we are pointing to the bad in others. So we look at ourselves, not so much to blame ourselves, but to recognise how we can bring out the good within us.
So these are four broad mechanisms, magnifying problems, imagining pleasure, neglecting opportunities and denying realities, by which the mind causes us to defeat ourselves, causes us to underperform, causes us to not realise our potential. Let’s move forward now and look at how we can deal with this. I’ll talk about four principles.
So how to stop defeating ourselves. So meditate, illuminate, navigate and do it with others. So first one is meditate.
The calm within empowers us to cope with the storm without. Meditation is not just sitting in some posture or going to some jungle or just regulating the breath. All these are fine.
But the essence of meditation is to shift our thoughts from the changing to the unchanging. Suppose a person is in a boat or a person is say in a river or ocean, there will be waves in that. And as the waves come, a person will be constantly tossed up and down, up and down, up and down.
The bigger the waves, the bigger will be the tossing up and down. If that same person is in a boat, then their tossing up and down will be lesser. If that person is in a boat that is anchored to some solid object, then the shaking will be much, much lesser.
So in our life, there will always be the waves of duality. The Bhagavad Gita uses the word Dwandwa to refer to this. There will be happiness, distress.
There will be honour, dishonour. There will be pleasure, pain. There will be health, sickness.
We will go through these and Bollywood term is Kabhi Khushi, Kabhi Gum. So these dualities will be there. But these dualities don’t have to toss us up and down.
We don’t have to get shaken by the problems of life. And how can we do that? We are like that person who is in an ocean. The waves are going to come.
If we place ourselves in a boat, then the shaking will be much lesser. That boat, Gyan, Plave, Naiva, Vrijinam, Sanda, Rishisi. In the Bhagavad Gita 4 chapter 36 verse, Krishna explains that spiritual knowledge is like a boat.
And that boat, spiritual knowledge is not just theoretical. It is transformational. So if we apply spiritual knowledge, the primary application of that is meditation.
So when we meditate, meditation is a process of connecting with our unchanging core. So the world around us is changing. It’s like the boat is shaking, but the anchor will not shake.
And to the extent the boat is linked with the anchor, to the extent the boat will not shake and the passenger in the boat will also not shake. Similarly, if we connect ourselves with the unchanging reality within us, then we will not be shaken so much by the ups and downs of life outside us. The supreme unchanging reality is God.
And meditation is essentially a process for connecting with the supreme unchanging reality. And one of the easiest ways to connect with the absolute truth is through spiritual sound. In the Indian tradition, this is called as mantra.
Now mantra is not just some ordinary sound. It is sound imbued with spiritual power. Just like we can have any arrangement of A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, or we can have any random arrangement.
But if I consider E is equal to MC square, it’s an arrangement of letters and symbols, but it has so much wealth of insight and power within that. Like that mantra may seem to be like a sound combination of words, but the utterance of mantras, these enable us to focus, to turn in words, to connect with the unchanging reality within us. So there are various forms of meditation, mantra meditation, where we recite mantras and meditate on their sound.
They act as anchors to connect our consciousness with the indwelling reality within us. So meditation is something that can enable us to calm ourselves. And what happens when we calm ourselves? If we are agitated, we don’t see or even what is in front of us.
Sometimes we lose something and we’re searching, oh, is it here? Is it there? Is it there? Is it there? Most of us probably have heard of the story of an absent-minded person who has the specks on his head. He’s searching everywhere for the specks. So often when we are anxious, when we are worried, when we are agitated, then we can’t even see things right in front of us.
So the first thing if we are to deal with our inner enemies is we need to calm ourselves. And meditation enables us to calm ourselves. It’s a very easy and empowering way to calm ourselves.
Next. So illuminate. Illuminate means to light.
Now if you came into this room and it’s completely dark, and you wouldn’t know where to go, what to do. So if light is there, then we can see and we can decide what is to be done. So in our inner territory, right now, different voices suddenly emerge from within, and they impel us to do different things.
And we just don’t often know what is happening. Many of us, we may have experienced that we do something. And then we ask, why did I do that? Why did I do that? I never wanted to do that.
So why does this happen? Because in our inner territory, everything inside me is not me. Everything inside me is not me. There are forces within us which are different from us.
And then we study spiritual wisdom that becomes like an inner torchlight. Gyan deepen bhaswataha. With the torchlight of knowledge, our inner territory becomes illuminated.
And when the inner territory becomes illuminated, we can understand, okay, this thought, this desire, this is a good thought or desire. This is not a healthy desire. This is not important for me.
I don’t need to do this. So today, this kind of illumination of our desires is especially important, because we live in a culture where the media is corporate controlled. And the corporate controlled media often wants to instil desires within us and make us purchase things that we often don’t need.
There are peripheral desires, which we identify as our own, and then we start chasing after things which are not even important for us. So when some desire is there, when some drive is there within, if we can understand, is this important for me? Is this mine? Or is this something that has been foisted from outside within? Spiritual wisdom enables us to discern like this. I would like to give an example of how we may end up accepting external desire, external impositions as our own aspirations.
In the 1920s, the cigarette selling companies found that their sales had reached a plateau. This is especially in America, but in the Western world in general, they found that all the people who had the money to smoke, they were smoking. At that time, the harmful effects of smoking had not yet come to public light, or whatever had come, they had been suppressed.
And people were thinking this is just a enjoyable, stylish thing to do. But then, at that time, they found all the men who think that this is an enjoyable, stylish thing to do, they were doing it. And whom do we sell this to? So then, one of the marketing agents had a brainwave.
He said, we have not tapped 50% of the market. Why is that? Women don’t smoke. So then, in the 1929, July 4th parade, on the occasion of the Independence Day in New York, they got, the cigarette companies got some of the most prominent female icons of those times, the Hollywood stars, and the, what are the sports people, all the prominent female icons.
And as they were walking along on this march, on July 4th, at the most photogenic points, at the most strategically visible points, all these female icons were paid to whip out a special thin cigarette made for females and light it and start smoking it. And there were hundreds of photographers, they were all clicking photos. And all these female icons were told, what are you doing? When they were asked, they were told, what are you doing? We are lighting the torch of freedom.
We are lighting the torch of freedom. Now that was the time when the suffragette movement was gaining momentum and women had the feeling that for so many centuries, we have been exploited and now we are going to be free. And when that emotion, the idea, oh, we want to be free, that idea, that imagery of freedom was somehow by this propaganda associated with the cigarette.
And then, within less than a few years, literally millions of women started smoking. In the frenzy created by the thought of the light of freedom, nobody asked the question, you know, how does smoking lead to freedom? It is just completely lost. It is only after a decade or so, the harmful effects of smoking in general came up.
The surveys became prominent. All the more so, the harmful effects of smoking for women came up and especially the harmful effects of women, especially if they smoke when they are pregnant. So many babies were born with congenital deformities and none of that was known.
Everything was swept away in the frenzy. So, I am giving this example to illustrate that sometimes some desires are foisted on us from outside and we think this is what I want to do. But when we have spiritual wisdom, we are able to analyse, is this really important for me? Is this what is going to help me grow? Is this what is going to help me become a better person? Do justice to my talents? Or am I craving for something which is not important for me, which is just imposed on me from within? So, when we talk about self-defeating behaviour, the self-defeating behavioural patterns often come from outside.
They come because from the outside world we get influences. And when things are outside, you know, if suppose you are studying and you are studying very seriously and some friend came and said, come on, let us go for a move. No, I want to study.
My exam is coming up. But when that same thought comes from within, I do not know, you are watching me. Yeah, I will watch you.
So, now, just because the thought has come from inside me, that does not mean it is my thought. It is still an alien thought which has actually come to damage you. So, when our inner territory is illuminated, then we understand what desires are true to our real self and what desires are impositions on us.
So, this is how illumination helps us. Science can make things better. Science can help make better and better gadgets.
Spirituality can make people better. It can help us to get better control over our inner world. It can help us to become more self-mastered rather than being controlled, rather than self-defeating.
Go ahead. Navigate. Navigate your inner pitfalls.
Sometimes, we experience mental congestion. Most of us, if we go to any metropolitan city, we may have experienced traffic congestion. Recently, in Delhi, in the Gurgaon area, there was an eight-hour traffic jam.
People were just miserable. So, when there is a traffic jam, when there is traffic congestion, nothing can move. So, sometimes, in our inner world, there is a thought congestion.
So, we start this, this, this, this, this, this. The 16th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, in the 16th text, Krishna states that the consciousness gets caught in 100 directions. We are not able to do anything.
So, when there is thought congestion. Now, if there is traffic congestion, then a wise person has to find it ok, this traffic here, traffic here, maybe I can go by that road to navigate to find which way I can move forward. So, like that sometimes when there is traffic congestion in our thoughts, it is too many thoughts are going around and sometimes it is not too many thoughts going around, it is the same thought going round and round and round and round.
Sometimes somebody you know maybe snubs us or insults us or disrespects us, that person may do that in 10 seconds and go away, but for the next 10 hours we are thinking about revenge fantasies, next time I am going to snub that person, right in front of everyone. Now, we are simply that same thought is going round and round and round and nothing constructive is happening. So, when there is congestion in our inner world, how do we deal with that? So, to navigate the inner world as I said spiritual wisdom helps us to understand that everything inside me is not me.
So, now, how do I understand what is actually me, what are my thoughts, what are my desires, what are my values, then one very good way is to get it out, when in doubt get it out. That means, when we feel like doing something, when we feel like going here, doing this, doing that, we are not really sure should I do this or should I not do this, get it out, get it out means write it down. Journaling is a very powerful way of distancing ourselves from our thoughts, especially if we have to make some decisions, should I choose this field or should I use this field, should I go for this career or should I go for that career, should I have this relationship or should I have that relationship.
When we are undecided, the thoughts just go round and round in the head, but if we get the thoughts out, just write it down, once we write it down, once the thoughts come out of the head, there is a distance between the thoughts in them, yeah, this makes sense, this is not, this is irrational, this is unlikely, we can actually evaluate the thoughts, evaluate the desires when they are outside of us and when they are outside of us, then we can decide what should I do. So basically if we get the thoughts out, if we journal, if we write down, instead of simply acting on our thoughts, if we write them down, then that is like taking a mental snapshot, a snapshot of our mind. Now suppose somebody is trying to say decorate themselves and they don’t have any mirror in front of them, then they are combing their hair, they don’t know actually how I look, maybe if I comb a little, it will look good, maybe I comb a little here, it will look good, but there is no mirror, there is no way to know whether I am looking good or not.
So if there is a mirror, in the mirror, this doesn’t look good, maybe I should do this, so like that, when we get our thoughts out, write them down, then they come out of us, we can look at them and then we can look at ourselves, this thing is not very important. This inner differentiation, our capacity for inner differentiation will enable us to avoid self-destruction. Go ahead.
Last point. Do it with others. If we want to do anything constructive in our life, to try to do it alone is to make it unnecessarily difficult for ourselves.
Our desires are not just linear, they are also triangular. What does that mean? Linear means, let us say, there is some object over there, I see that, I think maybe I should get that. Suppose, see here I have given the example of football, say now maybe I can give a more contemporary example, there is this new video game, Pokemon Go, and many people are just mad after this game.
So, there are people who have, you know, got caught in traffic jams, people who have got caught in the roads, because they are just clicking on their phones, trying to find out what is happening. So, now, if we see someone just obsessively clicking on their phone, what is going on, what is this? You see this, why are you wasting your time, what is there to get so excited about? So, we look at that game, we find there is nothing so great about it, but when we find someone who is completely into it, then their excitement, their addiction, their infatuation with it boils into us. And then somebody may say, hey, you are wasting your time, other person says, no, come, I will show you what, come, I will show you what I am doing.
And then afterwards, after a few hours, they say, no, that person says stop, no, no, I want to play on. So, what has happened? That desire came not just by looking at that game, it was not just a linear desire, it is a triangular desire. That means, if somebody else is desiring that thing, and then we associate with the person who is desiring that thing, then that desire comes to us.
So, our desires grow not just linearly between us and a particular thing we want to do, they grow triangularly also by associating with those who are doing those things. So, like that, if we want to improve ourselves, if we want to avoid self-defeating behaviour, we have to look for friends who are steadily striving for self-improvement. If we have spiritually minded friends around us, and then they engage in spiritual practises.
Somebody may say meditation, you know, that is for old people, I am not interested in that. But then if you meet some friend who is very young, contemporary, performer, and then they tell you that actually I meditate and it helps me improve my concentration, it helps me improve my performance. Oh, really? I want to try it out.
So, when we do it with others, we, there is a symbiotic effect. Now, their inspiration comes to us, our inspiration goes to them. And whenever we want to improve ourselves, the easiest way to do it is to find out friends who also want to improve ourselves, who also want to improve themselves.
And in their company, they can move onwards. And we all have many gifts within us. I conclude with one thought, that what we are, what we are and what we have is God’s gift for us.
What we become is our gift to God. What we have is God’s gift to us. We all have certain talents.
Sometimes we are so caught in what others have that we do not notice our talents. But what we have is God’s gift to us. And developing those talents, becoming the wonderful people that God wants us to become, that is our gift to God.
And spirituality is the means by which we can develop the gifts that God has given to us and we can become the gifts for the world that God wants us to become. It is the path by which we can develop our talents, do justice to our abilities and fulfil our potentials to the fullest degree. So, I will summarise and then we can have some questions.
So, I started by talking about how we all are vulnerable to self-defeating behaviour. At least the fish and the mines have excuses. Their bait does not look like food and they do not know it is dangerous, but we do not have that.
When we smoke or drink or engage in other forms of substance abuse or self-defeating behaviour. And the worst kind of self-defeating behaviour is suicide. And it is colossal.
More people are killing themselves than are being killed by others. So, we discussed, how do we make sense of this? What is this? Why is it happening? So, science illumines the outer world, but when self-defeating behaviour is coming from within, we need a torch to illuminate the inner world and spiritual wisdom offers us that torch. And we discussed the Bhagavad Gita’s tripartite model of the self, the body, the mind and the soul, like the hardware, the software and the user.
And the self-defeating behaviour originates from the corruption of the mind. Just like the corruption of the software with virus can cause the computer to malperform. Similarly, the corruption of the software of the mind causes us to engage in self-defeating behaviour.
And then we discussed four forms of this self-defeating behaviour, the magnification of problems. M was, we discussed how there is delusional parasitosis. So, we have some problems, but we imagine 100 other problems and instead of having to carry a 10 kg weight, we burden ourselves with 30 kg weight and then we find it impossible to carry.
So, we should not let the mind magnify the problems. Does anyone remember what was I? MIND, what was I? Yeah, imagines, imagines pleasures. Yeah, thank you.
I discussed about the Pavlovian dogs. They imagined that the bell sound would provide food and that is why they started salivating. So, like that, based on social propaganda, we may think, oh, this particular habit is enjoyable.
Say a person, I give the example of that alcoholic who got the epiphany that I am bound, I am not enjoying. Falling on the ground in the middle of the night or bathed in alcohol in the frozen snow, he says, I am not enjoying. So, he had associated the idea of drinking with enjoyment, although there was no enjoyment.
But there is only agitation and frustration over there. End was? No, that is in the second part, navigate. Neglect opportunity.
Neglect opportunity, yeah, thank you. So, we discussed how, if instead of eating the feast that is there in my plate, I look at what is there in everyone else’s plate. I miss out on the satisfaction and the nutrition that I can get there.
So, like that, the past is someone else’s plate, the future is someone else’s plate, the present is what I have right now. And if we focus on the present, if we brighten the present, the future will become brighter. And when we do not focus on the present, we engage in self-defeating behaviour.
And what was D? Deny reality. Yeah, deny reality. We discussed how Duryodhana was not ready to take any blame for his own misdeeds.
A wound denied is a wound worsened. Then we discussed about how we can deal with this, avoid this self-defeating behaviour. That is also another acronym, mind, MIND.
What are the first M? Meditation. Meditation, yeah, meditate, thank you. So, in meditation, what happens is that the external world is very rest, it is very agitated.
So, meditation means to shift our thoughts to our inner world. Just like a boat that is anchored does not shake so much. So, when we are anchored in the supreme unchanging reality, then we would not shake so much because of the world’s ups and downs.
And spiritual sound, the utterance of spiritual mantras is a powerful way in which we can direct our consciousness from the changing world to the unchanging reality within us. And I, does anyone remember? Illuminate. So, if we come to a room and we do not know whether there are friends or enemies over there, we do not know how to deal with it.
So, like that our inner world is presently dark. That means, the desires that are there, are they our desires? Are they desires good for us? Or are they bad desires? Are they desires that have been externally imposed on us? If we do not discriminate, if we do not have the light to discriminate, to discern this, then we often do things which are not important for us, which waste our time. I gave the example of the propaganda that a cigarette was light, the torch of freedom.
And by that, women who had no desire to smoke and millions started smoking with all the harmful effects of that. Then, n, does anyone remember? Navigate. Yeah, navigate the inner world.
Now, if I am going on the road, if I know there is a ditch over here, there is a speed breaker over there, then I will actually make sure that I go carefully. So, like that, once we know that everything inside me is not me and then a particular desire comes, particular thought comes, then what do we do? We do not just act on it. When in doubt, get it out.
Write it down. As soon as we write some things down, the thoughts are going round and round in the head, they come out and we get some distance and objectivity and we can evaluate. Is this important for me? Does this make sense? Does this need to be done? And then by this journaling, we get a snapshot of our mind.
With that snapshot, when we are trying to say decorate ourselves, if we do not have a mirror, we cannot understand what we are doing. So, like that when we have a snapshot, then we can evaluate what is happening and then make wise choices. And the last d was? It is a do it with others.
So, if we want to improve ourselves, if we want to avoid self-defeating behaviour, if we mix with friends who are engaging in self-defeating behaviour, we will sabotage ourselves. Our desires are not just linear but also triangular. And by associating with those who are striving for self-improvement, then we will also march on a path to self-improvement.
What we are is God’s gift to us. And what we become is our gift to God. So, spiritual wisdom helps us to discover our gifts, discover the gifts that God has given us and helps us to develop those gifts so that we can become the wonderful people that we are all meant to become.
Thank you very much. Are there any comments or questions? Before we proceed towards question and answer then, there is an announcement that on the desire of this day. So, we have been taught in these classrooms, in our classrooms that there is no question such, like a silly question, but who appeared with you, because you asked the question, because of the time.
Yeah, please. Everyone is there. Is that what you mean? So, there is no question.
So, there are two things for identifying the good and bad nature of qualities. One is the content and the second is the consequence. So, content means that what is the substance of that particular thought or quality.
So, for example, if I have a habit of being lazy, the content is that I do not want to do things. The consequence is that, you know, I often miss opportunities, I then get a lot of pressure of doing too many things. So, what we have to do is, if we are not able to make out, if we have acted on certain qualities, we look back at our life and try to understand the consequences and try to evaluate what consequence, observe, analyse what consequences were there and based on that we can decide, that is the consequence.
But with respect to content, you know, we, our life is too short to make all the mistakes. Now, we have to learn and that is why we need an external reference point. External reference point means that to understand what is right and what is wrong, if I am going on a road, I cannot go on all the wrong roads to find out what is the right way.
If there is a map, then I can consult the map and move forward. So, therefore, similarly, spiritual wisdom is like a map for the journey of life. So, if you study spiritual wisdom, then we understand, ok, these are virtuous qualities, these are not so virtuous qualities and by that we get, as I said, a mirror by which we can look at ourselves.
And with that, so, it acts not just as a, see, when we talk about a map, that is for going in an outer direction. Spiritual wisdom acts like a map in the sense that it helps us to go on the journey, but it also acts as a mirror, because this journey is not an external journey, it is an inner journey towards understanding our qualities and develop, our good qualities and developing those qualities, discovering and developing them. So, it acts as a mirror.
So, if we, first of all, observe the consequences of different kinds of actions or acting according to different qualities, then we will be able to get some sense. But a more reliable way, more efficient way to do that is, is to, Albert Einstein said that, if I have seen further than others, that is because I am standing on the shoulder of giants. What others have seen, I have added, I have seen that and I have been able to see.
So, like that, the sages of the past have given much spiritual wisdom and this spiritual wisdom, that can act as a map for our inner journey and can act as a mirror to show us our own qualities, by which we can know what are good qualities and what are bad qualities and then we can choose wisely. So, if we understand the certain qualities are good and certain are bad, still, why do not we like the good qualities? Why do we like the bad qualities? There are two main reasons for this. One is the inner habit, the second is the outer culture.
The inner habit means, if we have indulged in particular kinds of behaviour repeatedly, then that becomes habitual for us. For example, this floor is sloping downwards. When it is sloping downwards, if water spills over here, it will automatically go downwards because the floor has slid like this, it slid like this.
If I want the water to go up, I have to make a conscious effort. So, like that, if we have repeatedly indulged in certain kinds of actions in the past, then our thoughts are tilted in that direction. Our inner consciousness, our inner territory is tilted in that direction.
And that is why we do those things happen without any effort from us. So, if something has become an inner habit for us, then we have to become conscientious. When I am doing this, no, okay, I have this reflex action to do it, but I will not do it.
But the wonderful thing about this is our inner territory is malleable. Although it may be sloping in one direction, that means we have one kind of habits right now, we can cultivate a different kind of habits. And if we repeatedly do the good things, then even the doing the good things will become a habit.
And for that the outer culture is important. Outer culture means if we are associate, if the people whom we are around us, if they are habitually doing things which are not good, then we will have no impetus to do good things. For example, if we come to know that I want to wake up early and study, morning time is very good for studies.
But if you are staying with friends, all of them are sleeping till late in the morning. You may wake up early in the morning and say everybody is sleeping, just go to sleep. But if you have a friend who wakes up early in the morning, and that person you wake up and then that person waking up and studying and then you wake up, let me also wake up and study.
So, outer culture. So, if we can, if we want to develop a good habit, although right now we do not feel attracted to that habit, then we try to find out someone who has that habit and try to associate with them. By that we will get the impetus to develop that habit.
And by doing that activity repeatedly, our tastes will change. Right now because of habituation, we will be attracted to something bad. But it is not our permanent mental pattern.
It is changeable. And by repeatedly doing something good, our attraction to that will happen. And then we will become habituated to the good things also, ok.
Yes. We will have. I think you should give others also chance for questions.
Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah.
Hi everyone. My question is, as everywhere I am curious about what happens to me in the future. So, I look for advice around people.
So, I look for advice from people around me. There are a lot of people and a lot of advice. And this leads to procrastination.
I am unsure which advice to choose and which not. So, if there are many people. You can sit.
If there are many people who all give different kinds of advice. And in trying to decide which advice to follow, we become indecisively procrastinate. How do you avoid that? Yes.
Basically, there are two aspects. Ultimately, when we take someone’s advice, we are putting some faith in them. And faith is required in every field in life.
When I am sick and I go to a doctor. The doctor tells me take this medicine. Now, I do not really know what that medicine is going to do.
But I put faith in that doctor. But faith should be not blind but reasonable. Now, reasonable faith means it should be sensible and it should be verifiable.
That means if I have a stomach upset. And I have acidity or stomach upset. And I go to a doctor.
And doctor says you have to amputate your leg. I say what? I have got stomach upset. Why do I have to cut my leg? This does not make sense to me.
So, when we go to a doctor, we just do not blindly follow what the doctor says. We hear their diagnosis. We see whether it makes sense.
And then after that whether it is verifiable. Verifiable means doctor says you take this medicine morning, afternoon, evening. In 3 days your stomach upset will go away.
We take it and we see. Now, every time we have a stomach upset. We do not go around thinking there is Ayurveda.
There is allopathy. There is homoeopathy. There is naturopathy.
There is this, that. We do not bother which all medicines are there. What is their merit? What is their demerit? No.
We go to whatever is easily accessible for us. And we subject it to this test. Does it make sense? And does it work? Does it make my health better? So, like that we should not worry too much.
There are so many people with so many different advices. Which one should I take? No. We use our God given intelligence to evaluate.
If somebody tells us something, does it make sense? Does it make sense? That is the first thing. Is it sensible? And after that, is it verifiable? Somebody says, you do this, things will improve. You will be able to become a better person.
Or you will be able to do this better. Whatever it is. We set a time limit for ourselves.
Okay, I will try this for one week. I will try this for one month. I will try this for three months.
Depending on what it is that we are doing. And then we see for ourselves. As you said rightly, procrastination will lead us nowhere.
So, we have to take a decision. And we use our intelligence. And based on our intelligence, we take a decision.
But we don’t have to make any decision into an irrevocable commitment. Now I have done this. This is what I want to do throughout my life.
We do it as a test case. Okay, this is what I will try out. And in fact, if you see at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is, in the Indian tradition, is considered God.
But even he is not calling for faith. In the sense of blind faith. He says at the end of the Gita, In 18.63 he says, Deliberate deeply on what I have said.
And then do as you desire. So, the Bhagavad Gita reveals a vision of a God who acknowledges human intelligence and human independence. Acknowledging, you have intelligence, now you evaluate what has to be done.
And then, after that, acknowledge human independence. Now you decide what you want to do. So, it’s an invitational call.
It’s not an imposition. It’s not a demand for blind faith. So, we use our intelligence to see if something is sensible.
And then we use our experience, try it out diligently, to evaluate whether it works. So, if something is sensible and verifiable, we can adopt. And thus we can move forward in our life.
How can we avoid ourselves being influenced by people who are confident and wrong? Yes, this is a major problem. In the Bhagavad Purana it is said, that the present age, which is called Kalyuga, It is said, That means, the more audacious a person, the more truthful they are considered to be. In fact, Eric Globular, who was the associate of Hitler, he had that slogan, Tell a lie, loud enough, long enough and bold enough.
And people will believe it to be true. So, rather than just looking at the confidence of people, we have to look at the content of their speech. And the content of their life.
That means, a person may be speaking very aggressively. A person may be speaking very assertively, very confidently. But what are they speaking? Does it make sense? We have to use our intelligence.
We should not just let the appearance enamour us, infatuate us. We look at the content of their speech. And after looking at the content of their speech, we look at the content of their life, as much as is possible.
If somebody says that, you know, You do this and you can become free from all negative behaviour. You can become free from all self-defeating behaviour. And then we find out, they themselves are addicted to this or that.
Then that means, they are not walking their talk. So, that is why, we should not isolate the knowledge from the living. So, if we observe people, rather than just looking at their appearance, we look at the content of their speech, and then we look at the content of their life.
And if what they speak makes sense, and how they live is congruent with what they are speaking. If a doctor says Ayurveda is very good, if a doctor says allopathy is very good, and then when his own son is sick, he is taking him to Ayurvedic doctor. That means, there is a mismatch over there.
So, by matching of these two things, by evaluating the content of their speech, and checking for the congruency between the life and the speech, walking and the talking, we can make well-informed decisions. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah.
Where is the mic? Can you give her? Yeah. Ok. Good question.
So, we have to sometimes prepare for the future, and sometimes we have to look at the past and learn from the past also. So, how can we live in the present? See, when I talk about the past and the future being distractions, what it meant was the distracted mode of thinking. Certainly, we need to learn from the past.
Certainly, we need to prepare for the future. But learning from the past is different from lamenting about the past. And preparing for the future is different from worrying about the future.
The key difference between learning and lamenting, or between preparing and worrying, is who is in control. When I am lamenting about things, I am not in control. That means, my mind is just going here, there and everywhere.
Hey, that went wrong. Why did they speak like that? Why did this happen? And we are just passively watching. Ok, this is like this.
This is like this. When we are learning from the past, we are in control. Ok.
I will direct my thoughts to this incident. Ok. This is what I did.
And this is what that person did. And this is what happened. Maybe if I had done things like this, then, why did I do like this? Oh, I thought like that.
Right? If I had thought this way, then I would not have done like this. So, if we are in control, it is not our mind dragging us towards the past and making us do this, do that, and think about this, and worry about, and lament about that. That means, if we are calm, if we are self-aware, if we are self-focused, then we take our thoughts to the past.
And then we learn from the past. That is beneficial. Similarly, if we are just passively observing, and that may go wrong, our mind thinks that may go wrong, that may go wrong, that may go wrong, and then the thoughts that go in the future, they simply make us paranoid.
They make us extremely worried. But if we are in control, we are calmly evaluating, ok, this can happen, then I will be doing this. This can happen, then I will be doing this.
So, whether we have inner calm and control or not, that is very important. You see, there are three kinds of people. Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, and some people wonder what happened.
So, when we are not in control, then we just wonder what happened. Oh, maybe this happened. Why did this happen? Oh, maybe that will happen.
And we just worry. So, learning from the past and preparing for the future are both not just desirable, they are essential. But to be able to do that, we are in the present in the sense that we are aware that, ok, I am sitting here right now, and I am going to think about my past.
And then I will learn about the past. It is not that we let our thoughts just go away without our conscious awareness, without our conscious control. So, when we are aware and when we are in control, and then we direct our thoughts towards the past or the future, then we can learn for the past and we can prepare for the future.
Does it answer your question? Yeah. Ok. So, sometimes, when some things go wrong in our life, we may have a plan, but still we become restless.
So, anxiety in the face of uncertainty is natural. When something is uncertain, to feel anxious is natural. The problem is not fear.
The problem is the fear of what comes after fear. What does that mean? That means that, ok, if there is a problem, and, ok, I have to think, how am I going to deal with it? Then I am preparing for it. But if my mind goes in overdrive, and, oh, this has gone wrong, people get panic attacks.
I am going on a vehicle, and I see a vehicle having an accident. What if my car gets an accident, and then what will happen? My hand will break, or my face will get wounded up, and I go into a paranoia over there. So, to some extent, when there is uncertainty, anxiety is natural.
Just like if I am sitting on this chair, and if this chair’s leg breaks, then I will tilt on this side. I may even fall. But just because I have fallen, does not mean I have to fall down completely.
I can rise up. So, like that, sometimes our mental balance tilts. So, when things go wrong in life, a certain amount of anxiety is natural.
But if we are spiritually orientated, if we are grounded in our intelligence, then from that anxiety, we will be able to draw back. They say be concerned, not disturbed. Be concerned, not disturbed.
That means, if we have a sense of that my core self is spiritual, then we understand that I am above the problems of this world. Suppose there is a fire that is broken out, and I am in the middle of the fire, I will be scared. But if there is a helicopter above, and that helicopter lifts me above, then I am above that fire.
Now, I still will be concerned. Are any of my friends there? Do I have to… Is there anything I can do for helping them? But at that time, I am not disturbed. Because I am out of the danger.
So, when I am in the ground, in the middle of the fire, I will be disturbed. But when I am above, I am concerned but not disturbed. So, what spiritual wisdom does is, it draws us out of the rush of situations, out of the mess of situations.
So, when we are caught in things, we get consumed by them. Consumed by worry, consumed by fear. But when we cultivate spiritual consciousness, when we meditate on spiritual sound, when we learn spiritual wisdom, then that raises our consciousness above.
Okay, these things are happening, but I am different from these things. Let me observe, let me see what can be done. So, we need to be concerned.
And when there is disturbance, initial disturbance is natural. But rather than letting our thoughts get carried away, if we turn our thoughts towards spiritual wisdom, then we will get calm. We will rise above the situation and we will be able to deal with it more maturely.
Does it answer your question? Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Okay.
At the age of 20, how can I know myself fully? There is so much that I do not know, which I may come to know in the future. And how can I take right decisions? See, we have to work with what we know right now. There are aspects of us that we do not know, but we work with what we know right now and our knowledge will expand.
It is, life is to some extent a journey into, it is an adventure, but we do not know what is going to come in the future. So, what I know right now, if I try to understand that. So, whatever, okay, these are my strengths, these are my weaknesses.
I understand that, I build on my strengths and I learn to manage my weaknesses and I move forward. And if we are, if we have good friends around us, they may tell us, hey, you have got this talent also. Or they may say, you are a little irritable.
We learn from them. And then if we observe ourselves, we will also learn. From observing ourselves, we will learn more about ourselves.
So, in fact, you know, our whole life is a journey of self-discovery. But at this stage, we use the knowledge that we have. Ultimately, we, no one can know everything about themselves.
But, if we use what we have right now, there is, we are not alone in this world. There is God who is guiding us. And in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, Depending on our attitude, it is reciprocated.
As all people surrender to me, I reward them. So, if we use what God has given us, what we know has been given to us, then God will give us more. He will either give us more abilities, will reveal more abilities to us.
It is just like, for the parents, all the property that they have, that is meant to be given to their children. That is what they want it for. But, for those same children, they may right now just give some small pocket money.
Why? Because the children really don’t know the value of money, don’t know how to use the money. But, as the children grow up, they become responsible. The parents will interest their property.
So, like that, we have certain knowledge right now about ourselves. If we use it properly, then by that we are showing that we want to use what we have properly. And then more will be revealed to us.
So, rather than worrying about discovering ourselves, we focus on developing what we know about ourselves. And when we do that, and especially, as I said, if we cultivate, if we practise meditation, if we learn spiritual wisdom, then we will also get the inner torch light. We will be able to light the dark areas of inside us.
And we will find out what are our strengths and what are our weaknesses better. But most importantly, start using constructively what we have. And start developing the, start acquiring the inner torch light to discover what we have.
In the life journey, more and more will be revealed to us as we move on. Does it answer your question? Thank you. So, how can we stop meditating and become very particular in what I intend to do? So, even when we make schedules, sometimes we are able to implement only partially.
So, how can we become more focused in doing what we intend to do? See, first thing is to try to micro plan our life is to set ourselves up for frustration. Because there are always things that happen in life which are beyond our planning, beyond our control, beyond our expectation. So, we need to understand the difference between plans and planning.
Plans may not work, but planning works. Planning gives us a general sense of direction where I should be going in my life. Okay, I have my studies, I have my exercise, I have my this, this, this.
So, we decide in these areas of my life, I have to do these things. That’s planning. So, planning is more like having a compass for knowing where we need to go.
Plans is more like a clock. Okay, I do this at this time, this at this time, this at this time. So, quite often because of the contingencies of life, plans may not work.
So, we often go to two extremes. One extreme is I want to micro plan every detail of my life. This time I’ll do this, this time I’ll do this, this time I’ll do this.
But life just doesn’t work like that. So, sometimes our friends may be really needing something from us and we may have to suspend our plan. If we don’t suspend the plan at that time, we may hurt that relationship, we may hurt that friend.
Now, of course, we cannot. So, what happens? One extreme is when we try to micromanage our life, we become frustrated because we cannot do that. But when our plans don’t work, we go to the other extreme and think.
Nothing works, I’ll not plan anything. And when we don’t plan anything, then we just leave ourselves at the mercy of the world. Somebody comes, let’s go here, we go there.
Let’s do that, we do that. And then we have no direction at all in our life. So, that’s why what we should focus on is not so much the micro planning of our life, but the macro planning.
Macro planning means that have the sense, okay, in this week, I have to do these things. I have to, these are the areas in which I live, I have to do these things. So, if you plan like that, then that planning will give us a sense of direction.
Sometimes, you know, one area of our life may consume more time. But, and it may be required at that time to give more time to that area. But at, if we have, okay, I have done, I spent this much time here, now I should spend some time here.
We’ll be able to balance ourselves. So, by having, by focussing more on planning than on plans, that means focussing more on the direction in which we want to go, rather than the specific steps that we will take in going towards this direction. Yes, we can have specific steps also, but we don’t have to obsess on them.
If they don’t work, that’s okay. That’s the first point. Let’s focus on planning more than specific plans.
And second point is that when the plans don’t work, we can, not at that moment, because that time we may just be consumed by frustration, this didn’t work. But maybe at the end of a week, we look back at ourselves. And then, okay, why did this work? Sometimes we may find that we are just trying to do too many things in too little time.
Like sometimes when some people want to go for travelling, you know, they want to take their whole house inside their suitcase. That just can’t be done. So, sometimes we try to cram too many things in 24 hours, it won’t work.
So, we can observe, okay, this is not going to work. So, maybe I need to cut some things down. Or sometimes we find, hey, when this thing happened, I didn’t have done that.
So, especially for learning like this, for observing ourselves and learning ourselves, if we have allocated time for developing our spiritual side, then this objectivity in looking at ourselves, we will develop that much more. And then, we will be able to utilise our time much, much better. Does it answer your question? Thank you.
Any other questions? Okay. Hello. Yeah, so far we have had a very polite audience, but the audience has become very selfish.
Yeah. I have two questions. The first one is that, can I be happy without spirituality? And why is that important? So, can I be happy without spirituality? And if I am satisfied with science, do I need to go towards spirituality? Yes.
It’s a valid question. First thing is that, I may have the emotion of happiness sometimes in my life, even without being spiritual. But what exactly is happiness? Who is happy? If I stick to a materialistic vision of life, then what does that materialistic vision of life mean? That I am simply made of the chemicals that comprise my body.
And now the chemicals don’t have any emotions. Now, when a mother sees her baby, she feels so much love for the baby. If we stick to a materialistic vision of life, what is that love? That love is nothing more than the generation of certain chemicals in certain areas of the brain.
Now, if in a laboratory, certain chemicals move from one beaker to another beaker, would we say, oh, there is love over here? No. The flow of chemicals is not love. So, the flow of chemicals from one beaker to another beaker in a chemical laboratory does not comprise love.
Similarly, the flow of chemicals in the brain from one place to another place doesn’t comprise love. So, we may say, whether it is love or whether it is happiness, if we have a non-spiritual, if we have a materialistic worldview, there is no explanation for what is happiness. Who is happy? Because chemicals or atoms and molecules, they are ultimately inert.
They are inert, they are insentient. There is no question of them being happy or unhappy. So, it is, if we are not having a spiritual dimension to our life, we may temporarily presently feel happy.
But we have no understanding of what is happiness and who is it that is being happy. It is like if I am doing a mathematics sum, if I do the whole sum accurately, but if I get the first step wrong, then all my accuracy in the subsequent steps is not of much use. It is hard work, it is intelligent work, but without the first step right, things don’t move forwards.
So, similarly, without spirituality, for some time in our life, we can be happy. But that happiness is very superficial. So, yes, just like sometimes when a small child is there in a family and then the parents or the relatives want to have the fun with that child.
Then what do they do? They may just go to the belly of the child and start tickling the child. And when you tickle the child, the child may start laughing. But is that happiness? You know, if tickling were happiness, then all of us could have for ourselves a perpetual tickling machine.
And with our own perpetual tickling machine, we will be happy throughout our life. So, that is very superficial. Happiness is an emotion that comes from within.
It is not just something that can be generated by tickling a part of our body. Just as we understand that tickling may probably be some laughing, but that is not happiness. Happiness is something very deeper, much deeper.
So, similarly, chemical stimulation is not happiness. So, what happiness is, is something which we understand when we turn toward life’s spiritual side. Albert Einstein said that we can talk about the ethical foundation of science, but we cannot talk about the scientific foundation of ethics.
We can talk about the ethical foundation of science. That means, is science being used for good purposes or are some people manufacturing nuclear weapons for mass destruction. So, you can talk about ethical or unethical uses of science, but we cannot talk about the scientific foundation of ethics.
Ethics is something which is outside science. So, primarily three things. Now, what is right, what is wrong? That is the question of ethics.
Then the question of purpose. What are we meant to achieve ultimately in life? What is it that is going to make us happy? What is happiness? How are we to achieve happiness? So, question about ethics, question about purpose and question about origin. Origin is where we came from.
So, where we came from, what are right and wrong choices and where we are meant to go. Questions about origin, value and purpose. These are questions which are outside the scope of science.
So, we can live with science and we think I am satisfied without it. But as I quoted Martin Luther King, said we have guided missiles and misguided men. So, one of the biggest problems in life today for many people, especially in the western world, is that people have no sense of purpose to their lives.
In India, because we are relatively, even now a poor country which is growing, for many people the struggle for existence is itself a struggle for getting a job, struggle for developing a career, that itself is a big thing. But for many people in the west, the pleasures of life that they have looked forward to, that are dangled before them, they have enjoyed all the things. What next? There is nothing more left to do.
There is a haunting sense of purposelessness. So, Alfred North Whitehead, he said that, he is a prominent western thinker, he said, What are we? Are we nothing more than just electrons moving around aimlessly and endlessly? Are we nothing more than just electrons moving around aimlessly and endlessly, round and round and round and round? Is that all that is there to our life? So, what more is there to our life? That we learn from spirituality. So, what is happiness? How to achieve happiness? And what is the origin, our own origin? What is the values? What are right and wrong? And what is purpose? All this we learn from spirituality.
Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah. Should we stop? Further questions can be routed to this page through website www.principalinsurance.com They can even, if they want, they can write the questions and I will answer, if they write on cheats, I will answer them on my site in the next few days.