Journaling as a means of transforming the inner world from chaos to order

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Men rising up to end the silence around us, about the chains that bind us, to dispel the darkness of illusion with luminous spiritual technologies, to finally become the hero within us all. I am Karunavatar Das, with me is my dear co-host Jai Jagannath Prabhu on Arise, the Honest Man’s podcast, and we have the most esteemed Chaitanya Turan Prabhu with us today. We are so immensely grateful to have Prabhu with us again for the second time.
He was with us two weeks ago, or three weeks ago, but unfortunately there were some connectivity issues and we were unable to have a podcast with Prabhu. And today, just before we came on, we were experiencing a little bit of glitchiness as well, and we are really hoping that everything is going to be okay today. So please just pray with us to Krishna that he allows the internet connection to flow.
So I just would like to, last time I gave this introduction for Prabhu, but I would really like to just introduce him nicely a second time. He is really a most esteemed, qualified personality. So Chaitanya Turan Prabhu is a monk, he’s a mentor, and a spiritual author.
He’s done his electronics and telecommunications engineering degree from the Government College of Engineering in Pune, and he subsequently served as a software engineer in a prominent multinational software corporation. He travels all over the world, from Australia to America, giving talks on spiritual subjects in universities such as Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, and Cambridge, as well as companies like Intel, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. He’s also the author of 25 books, and then he’s the author of the world’s only Gita Daily feature, wherein he writes daily a 300-word inspirational reflection on a verse from the Bhagavad Gita.
Till now, he has written over 1,700 Gita meditations that are posted on GitaDaily.com and are read daily by thousands from all over the world. He also answers questions by spiritual seekers on his site, thespiritualscientist.com, where his over 3,500 audio answers and several hundred articles are available. His articles have been published in many national newspapers, including Indian Express, Economic Times, and Times of India in the Speaking Tree column.
Then, he’s also a member of ISKCON’s leading intellectual body, the Shastric Advisory Council, and is the Associate Editor of ISKCON’s Global Magazine, Back to Godhead. So, certainly such a multidimensional, greatly qualified person, and we have him for a very interesting subject matter today, and Jai Jagannath Pabu will lead us into that. Thank you, Chetan and Sharan, for joining us again.
Yeah, the topic is, I’ve titled it as transforming chaos into order, because I’m seeing, in my head, I’m thinking of, generally, as like a logos. You know, in Eastern philosophy, they say, in the beginning, there was the logos, and the logos turned the darkness into the order of the universe. And so, I kind of envision language, or Shabta, or journaling as a sort of logos that can help deal with the chaos inside and bring it into order, so that we may be, you know, directed in our activities properly in the outside world.
So, that’s how the title came about. So, it’s about journaling, and you know, the reason I wanted to say that, because if you just say journaling, it sounds like such a wimpy thing. I don’t know why, like, it kind of like strikes like, what is that going to do in the modern age? So, let’s start off, like, what is journaling, like, how you conceive of journaling, and how did you stumble upon it as a personal, let’s say, practise in your own life? Okay.
So, first of all, thank you for inviting me here, and thank you for tolerating all the inconveniences with which we finally got here. I’ve seen several of your podcasts, and very thought-provoking and stimulating. It’s an honour to be here.
And for me, I would say, journaling has come from three different directions. First is my love for words. Second is my tendency for introspection.
And third is my aspiration to share spirituality as a resource for helping people raise their consciousness. So, I just love words. One of my hobbies in childhood was just picking up a dictionary and memorising words.
So, I would say that I love Sanskrit words, but I love English is like my home language, although it is my second language. So, I love to think, and you know, words serve two purposes. Okay, there’s a lag here, isn’t it? A little bit.
No, we can hear you fine. We can hear you fine, though. No problem.
No problem. Okay, Krishna. Okay, Krishna.
So, let me share something. So, you know, words broadly serve two purposes. We often think of words as simply as tools to express our thoughts.
But words are also tools for discovering our thoughts. So, the more we talk about logos. So, when we say, generally, we realise the power of word to discover our thoughts, when somebody tries to do reflective listening with us, you sound upset.
I’m not upset. I’m enraged. Oh, okay.
So, what happens is, when you write things down, I find that the thoughts themselves become clearer. So, first of all, so words, I found, so there was a love of words, and I always like introspection. So, I found words and in words and journaling, both came together for me to do introspection very powerfully.
And so, I also approach, I thought, I thought of third thing is that how I like to share spirituality. So, let me make this a full screen. So, broadly, you know, that we could consider spirituality from three different perspectives.
There’s textual, traditional and applicational. So, textual refers to, you know, what does this verse mean? What are the different comment explanations of this verse or this word or this concept? How does the text flow? That’s textual spirituality. So, we have a rich tradition of textual spirituality in Acharya’s commentaries in the Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavatam, for example.
Then traditional spirituality largely talks about the beliefs and practises, the philosophy and the practises of particular traditions. So, in general, when we as devotees talk about applied spirituality, you know, we are largely talking about traditional spirituality because we talk about applying spirituality means applying chanting the holy names or worshipping the deity. Now, in the outside world, when people talk about applying spirituality, they are thinking of something else.
They think about how can I make my life more meaningful and purposeful? How can I become more understanding and forgiving? How can I connect myself better? So, how can I get more emotional stability? So, basically, what I try to do is that try to find ways at the intersection of these three. So, how do we get over here? So, you know, so for me, in one sense, journaling is a tool to gain and share spiritual insights. So, I’ll share one more thing over here.
This is a model of the self I use. This is based on 342 in the Bhagavad Gita. We know Indriyani Paranyahur, Indriyabdhya Parammana.
So, senses are above the world, above them is the mind, above them is the intelligence and above them is the soul. So, I divide them into two parts. We could say that the soul and the intelligence are the reflective self and the mind and the senses are the impulsive self.
The part of us which thinks and analyses is the reflective self. The part of us which just wants to act without thinking, that’s the impulsive self. So, this is a model to understand the two selves.
Now, Krishna Prabhupada says in 6.5 in the Gita, he says, elevate yourself with yourself. Don’t degrade yourself. So, what I see this is journaling is a tool to create a dialogue between the reflective self and the impulsive self.
So, what journaling does is, say for example, certain things happen in my day to day. Say, I yelled at someone or I overate or I overslept, whatever I did. So, then I look back to what were the thoughts that prompted me to do that.
When I look back, then I start seeing, okay, this was the impulsive self speaking and this is what the impulsive self speaks. So, in this way, the more the reflective self comes in charge, then the more the impulsive self can be restrained. Now, the impulsive self is not always bad.
Sometimes you get good ideas also. But in general, I see journaling as a way to bring these two selves in dialogue with each other. So, if you see the previous image, basically, journaling, first thing it does is it distances the two.
You can separate the two basically. Okay, this is the reflective self, this is the impulsive self. And the more we journal, the greater can become the distance between the two.
Now, you don’t necessarily have to have a distance, but having the distance helps bring about a dialogue. Because otherwise, it’s difficult to know which self is speaking. When I’m getting angry with someone, am I being aggressive or am I being assertive? Does the situation call for it or is it just I’m letting my emotions control me? So, I found that seen in this way.
So, journaling gives spiritual insight. So, I do seminars on journaling. I’ve done it for Indian audiences, Western audiences.
So, actually, they start saying that, you know, this idea of impulsive self and reflective self, this is real. You can actually see it in action. And then when we show that this is based on the Bhagavad Gita, that the Bhagavad Gita talks about these two models of the self, elevate yourself with yourself.
Don’t degrade yourself with yourself. That actually helps them gain interest and even faith in the Bhagavad Gita. So, there are many people who talk.
So, in one sense, journaling gives spiritual insights, if seen in this way. And secondly, there are many people who talk about journaling. But while journaling, there is no philosophical foundation for journaling.
So, spiritual insights, we can also, journaling gains from spiritual insights. So, I used to journal before I was introduced to bhakti. And now, when I do it, actually, it is much more fruitful.
Because I’m not just writing my thoughts or writing my events. I’m actually getting a better understanding of what is happening in my inner world. So, and somebody says, you know, what is the point of journaling? What is the use? I say that, you know, we spend time reading news, we want to stay in touch with the world.
But what about staying in touch with yourself? Staying in touch with your own emotions, saying what are the emotions that are driving you? What are the emotions that are dominating you? What are the what what is it that making us tick? And then what is what is it that is making us trip? So, I feel that journaling does help a lot. So, for me, you could say journaling is both a tool for outreach and a tool for enrich. So, that’s the broad introduction.
I mean, that’s an amazing introduction. I feel like I’m in a seminar. I’m like, taking like all these notes.
Yeah, me too. I’ve got like extensive notes already. I have a follow up question to this.
First of all, I want to say that’s a fantastic introduction. You know, just in general, one of the attractive features of Indian philosophical systems in general, is its practise of taxonomy, like this ability to like categorise things so that that we can discern clearly and then have deeper conversations, not only outside, but within ourselves. So, that was like a very beautiful taxonomic presentation that you just gave that made everything like really amazingly clear.
My follow up question, because you said you got into journaling before you met the devotees. And I’m suspecting that you’re a little bit older. And so, I just feel like older generations didn’t have the tension of digital media that the newer generations have.
And digital media is like a very powerful, seductive force, bringing us to engage with the outer world and away from ourselves, as you say. And I feel like older devotees, even myself, I’m a little bit older because the whole technology explosion was just starting to happen when I was in the sixth grade. So, I’m still a little bit older.
I had like a normal upbringing in that sense. So, I did, like growing up, I read a lot of books. I did a lot of writing.
But as digital media started to become more part of our lives, there’s like a lot of competition for yourself with this outer seductive force. And so, how do you, because you’ve already discussed what is journaling and why it’s important. And it was like very succinct and amazing.
How does one deal with this, these new forces for your inner authority in the form of like digital media specifically? That’s true. It’s a big challenge if you want to get distracted. You know, I write on the Gita every day.
So, I wrote an article on 1617. There is ever increasing competition among ever increasing distractions for ever decreasing attention spans. Krishna, yeah.
Yeah, that’s well stated. I just want to add. For clarity.
Yeah, yeah, please. There is ever increasing competition among ever increasing distractions for ever decreasing attention spans. Oh, my God.
Because I’m experiencing it so viscerally. It’s just, you know, there’s also just this common phenomenon that like, you know, everyone says these days, like when I try to, you know, when people like, when I try to read a book, you know, then it’s like, concentrating, concentrating. Mind, mind, mind, mind just like freaks out, you know, and you just, you just can’t like, can’t be there.
This is just a very common experience these days. And personally, just when I think about, when I think about journaling and the need for, because goodness gracious, I have such a need to do it. You know, there’s so much chaos in the inner world, and it needs to be done.
But my big challenge is already that life is just so full, you know, and it seems like journaling is something very intentional, very intentional, very like, deeply reflective. So just where, where to find the time, you know, and then and then where to find the content, like, even if you make the make the time, how to concentrate and do it properly? Okay, yeah, that’s a tough question. And I would say that the answers will vary from person to person.
But somehow, you know, I am quite comfortable with digital media, in the sense that the last seven, eight years, I have been constantly travelling, almost nine months a year before the pandemic, I was travelling across the world. So I have, you can say, the only time I touch a physical Bhagavatam is when I’m giving a Bhagavatam class in the temple and I pick up the Bhagavatam. So I’m quite comfortable with the online media.
And I also journal digitally, not just journal on the phone or on the laptop. But I also started extensively using text to speech for journaling. So I dictate my journal.
And I find that extremely helpful. In fact, when you said about where to get time for journaling. So I have done four courses on journaling from different perspectives.
But one of the things which I suggest is that just after every, you can put a timer in your phone. And maybe after every hour or after every three hours, just pause for a minute, and just speak to yourself what you did in the last three hours. That activity is that activity, what happens is articulation activates the intelligence.
Otherwise, we are so caught in doing things, just trying to articulate, okay, what did I do? That itself brings a certain amount of reorientation, refocus. And so I find that even if we don’t have exclusive time for journaling, now there are apps on the phone itself. And most phones have fairly good text to speech.
But I would say that most of your readers, I’m Indian, and my English is Indian accented. But for all of you, it would be much easier for text to speech to catch your English. So I would say that just starting from there, just that spend half a minute to a minute.
Okay, what did I do in the last hour? What did I do in the last two, three hours? That itself brings a refocus back. It makes us think about what we are doing. If you’re going off track, it helps us come back on track.
Yeah. So that’s a simple way to start journaling. And then if you use this model of the impulsive and the reflective self, then you know, did I give into my impulsive self in the last one hour, last two hours? You know, I that person, that friend sent me a link.
And I could have, I was reading my shastra, but I reading scripture, but I just clicked on the link and wasted half an hour. I should have avoided that. So it’s, I find that digital media, it is a source of distraction.
But it can also be a source of reorientation. So if we adapt more, adopt rather adopt more contemporary forms of journaling, that’s quite helpful. I have a I have a follow up to that, because for those of us who grew up bombarded with the digital media, our algorithms run, our mental algorithms run a lot different than the older generations when dealing with digital media, because we grew up on digital media.
So how we engage with it is very different than how older generation tends to engage with it, having not grown up with it. And so like, for us, like, yeah, we can, there’s an app for journaling, and that could be helpful for us. But then I’m wondering, do we lose something in that, like just writing, like with a pen and paper, for example, here, my here, my, my notes, I have here, maybe a distinction between writing, speaking, and typing.
Like writing with pen and paper, and then like speaking into an audio thing, and then typing, there seems like there could be, maybe they’re all valuable in different ways. And I’m intuiting that. So maybe you can speak to that, because I feel like someone like me, who’s kind of caught in between two generations a little bit.
So I didn’t grow up fully digitised, but I’m largely converted to the to the digital world. And so for me, using an app may not be as helpful than like actually writing something down, like moving a little bit slower than I’m accustomed to doing, because of the way my mental algorithms are. Anyway, I was wondering if you could speak to that.
Yes. In my journaling seminar courses, the first thing I say is that journaling is a very individual activity, right? So each of us has to find out how journaling works the best. So for me personally, because I said that, for me, I just love to be in touch with words, so anything can be an excuse for me.
So, so I don’t, I don’t mind it. But I know several other friends who journal, they say that they can’t do it unless they have a physical book to journal. And then I find it not very convenient, because if a physical book, then if I want to retain it, I have to scan it, then the scan doesn’t not be editable text.
So in one sense, I would say I am utilitarian in my approach to journaling. But it depends. I’m sure there are others who feel that physical journaling is the best.
And some who feel that digital typing is better than speaking. So I would say that each of us to discover. But so there are two different things over here.
One is just starting the activity of journaling, which was the earlier question. So I said, we could start with technology itself. Just start speaking about journaling, speaking about speaking to not just record what we have done, but to maybe a little assess what we have done.
So as we become comfortable, as we start become habituated to journaling, then we can find out which is the way that works best for us. Just, you know, Prabhu, you were saying that when you write things down, the thoughts themselves become clearer. I really, really find that like, whenever I have some difficulty in my life, like some serious thing that is there, then I find that if I write, especially when I write to someone, then it really, really helps me in that regard.
But actually, just and I think for me, because you’re saying like use speech to text technology, I love voice notes. Like I love sending people voice notes. That’s really like something that is one of my favourite activities.
I think that’s probably the shape that it takes for me in one sense, almost automatically, because I like also just, you know, relationships and when you share with people, they appreciate and so on. So maybe I’m already doing a sort of journaling just by sharing with friends. But I guess, you know, it’s also like there are, I think one thing which is very helpful about journaling is that it gives us the ability or it gives us the space to say really intimate, like private things or like dark, heavy thoughts that we wouldn’t want to necessarily express to others.
And that’s a very unique space in that regard, because it’s like a very private, reflective activity. Yeah. So, you know, somehow, till now, I have never felt worried about the privacy of my journals, because I use digital journals, and I keep passwords and other things.
But yeah, that is a major concern for many devotees. But overall, I have many devotees, many people in general. But yeah, it is in journaling, two things happen, basically.
First is that we can voice thoughts, which we dare not voice with anyone else. And secondly, you know, we can assess them. So I just like to share my screen once again.
Yes. The same thing, slightly different here. So when you told me that you journaling can help deal with difficult issues.
So I have a model for that also. Now, of course, what I do is, if there is a difficult issue, the inner dialogue. So if I’m worried about something, so you could say broadly, there are the three voices inside us.
There’s the voice of the dreamer, there’s the voice of the realist, and there’s the voice of cynic. And say, if I decide that I’m going to read the whole Srimad Bhagavatam in the next one year, and the voice of the cynic will say, you’ll never be able to do it, you have so many things to do, you don’t have the discipline, too many excuses, whatever. So now what happens is, that when I journal, so I don’t always journal by dictating.
There are times when I type also, especially when dealing with serious issues. So one of the things I do at those times is that just if some issue is burdening me, just write everything about that issue, write it out. And then just that release, like you talk about the private space, just releasing things from inside.
See, as long as thoughts are inside us, they congest us. Just actually, thoughts are meant to help us think, but sometimes too many thoughts going round and round, they stop, they paralyse thinking. Yeah, I call it this thing you’re talking about as psychic evacuation.
That’s a great one. Psychic evacuation. Oh God.
Yeah, it’s actually, it is also known as a psychic excavation. It’s at one level, we evacuate what is crowding, but then we go deep inside also to bring out what is hidden. You really are kind of a wordsmith, I’m really appreciating this.
Yeah, just to complete this. So what happens is, just get it out. And then just that gives a sense of release.
Then maybe after a day or so, and relatively in Sattva Guna, come back and look at it. And then whatever I’ve written down, I try to put a label to this. This is the dreamer speaking, this is the realist speaking, this is cynic speaking.
And then that itself gives a sense of relief. Now, there are times when we need to be, maybe cynic is a strong word, I could use the word critic over here, but cynic is also fine. But there are times when we need to listen to the critic within us.
There are times when the dreamer is to be listened to, there are times in the realist. But what happens is, as soon as we understand these three voices are there, and we can see to some extent that is which voice is speaking what, then we don’t get carried away by that voice. So, when Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that wherever and whenever the mind wanders, get it back under the control of the self.
So, one way to do that is to identify, hey, this is the dreamer speaking. Okay, let me come back to the ground. What can I do right now? So, identifying the distractor, it actually, it takes the power out of the distraction.
So, I say that don’t identify with the mind, identify the mind. So, don’t identify with the critic, the cynic, identify the cynic. So, when I do that, then sometimes it may be right also, but at least I don’t get involuntarily carried away with it.
So, I find this threefold framework, it is a very powerful tool for analysing different difficult issues, and come to a reasonably grounded understanding. So, in some situations, we may decide, yeah, I want to dream, I want to do something ambitious over here. Nice.
I have sort of two categories. I have another category of questions I want to get into, specifically revolving how you’ve used journaling to help men, to mentor men. And I kind of want to get into that.
But before we do that, I do have a few other questions in this just sort of introductory phase of this conversation. Yes, I also just want to say at this point, Prabhu, while you’re sharing these very helpful, like little tools and schemas with us in the realm, perhaps if there’s any other particular little tools that you think you could just inform us about, just in a very educational way, maybe that could also be a good time to do so right now. Yeah.
And I had a question about a tool in that regard, because one thing that the conversation between the reflective self and the impulsive self, I’ve personally found in the past when I’ve journaled for periods of time, that the conclusions, taking the conclusions of the reflective self and transforming them into action. And when that doesn’t happen, it like discourages the journaling process. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Like, in other words, you’ve kind of identified the two selves, so to speak, and you’ve come to certain decisions by reflection, as is, makes sense. That’s kind of the function of the intelligent. But if it doesn’t transform into action, then somehow it’s discouraged my journaling process.
Like, what was the point in reflecting and coming to conclusions, if I haven’t transformed them into actions? So I don’t know if you’ve experienced, I doubt that you yourself experienced that, but you must have seen that. And I guess my question is concerning how to transform the conclusions of the reflective self into action. And when it doesn’t happen, how to remain encouraged in this still very helpful practise? Oh, yeah.
Now, of course, I have experienced it all the time. In fact, I would say that every day I journal, it’s almost like I can count more times when I got carried away by my impulsive self. Because in one sense, we become more aware and more alert.
But having said that, one of the things which is I feel vital is choosing our battles, that there are some areas in which, in which the impulsive self might just be too strong right now. And if that is the case, then I feel that we need to be kind to ourselves. So, you know, many times, devotees and those who are coming to spirituality, they get discouraged when they get caught in the internet.
In the internet now there are so many distractions, and especially sensual distractions are there. And devotees are trying to move purely, they feel very disheartened by that. So one thing which I see is that, you know, in today’s world, probably in 15 minutes, we can see more obscenity than what people in the past could see in their entire lifetime.
Right? Absolutely. So now the point I’m making to this is that, actually, maybe our technology has become too strong for our morality. Right? Maybe the human moral muscles are just not strong enough to deal with such technological such levels of technological distraction.
Right. So if something like this happening, my suggestion is that if some temptation or some distraction is too difficult to overcome, just be kind with yourself and focus on other areas. Focus on areas where we can catch the impulsive self and we can restrain ourselves.
So maybe I can’t, once I get on my phone, I just spend some time surfing and I can’t avoid it no matter how much I try. Okay, but maybe when I’m, when I’m eating, maybe I can regulate my eating and I can avoid overeating. Maybe when I’m talking, and I tend to gossip, and notice I’m gossiping, maybe I can avoid that.
See, in the inner journey, unless we encourage ourselves, Oh, no, he’s about to drop, drop the bomb. We lost. So, so I said that, I said that, actually, unless we learn to encourage ourselves, yes, right, there’ll be hundreds of, there’ll be hundreds of reasons to be discouraged.
So that’s why now, I would like to share one more slide in this connection itself. Now, what I say is that, for all of us, we have had certain relationships that have nourished us. Maybe it is a, so this dialogue between the reflective self and the impulsive self, for it to not become too critical to ourselves, I suggest that we model this dialogue on the most nourishing relationship that we have had.
So, so if the most nourishing relationship is that of it, if I had a teacher who was very encouraging, inspiring, then envision the reflective self as the teacher, and the impulsive self as the student. And generally, this is helpful, when we want to be educated, when you want to clearly understand certain concepts. Then another relationship, which can help us grow is a parent-child relationship.
If we had a loving parent, and then we could envision the reflective self as a parent. So in one sense, when devotees have journaled, and now the students in the journaling course have journaled, they said that after some time, if they model it, they can say, they can hear their mother speaking to them through their journal. So, or they can hear their teacher speaking to them through their journal.
So we consider the reflective self as the parent and the impulsive self as the child. This is largely when we need some, you know, maybe loving care, tender loving care. And, of course, there are times when we need to be pushed.
And usually it is our boss who pushes us. So, and sometimes, sometimes, you know, we need some taskmaster to get us out of our lethargy and to get things done. So if we had some authority figure who really pushed us, but who made us do things, which now we look back and we feel happy about, we feel proud that we at least did something, not proud in an arrogant sense, but proud in a grateful sense that we were able to do some service, then we could envision the reflective self as the employer and the impulsive self as the employee.
Okay, so how did you spend your time today? So I would say that depending on the phase we are in our life, we are sometimes in the phase when we want to achieve things. So during that journaling, say, if I’m writing on a book, and I have a deadline, they try to complete a 50,000 word book in the next one month, then I would largely envision my journal, my journaling as a dialogue between the employer and the employee. Now, how much how do you how much did you write today? How was your quality of writing? Well, how did you get distracted? Now, there are times when, when we are wounded by life, you know, that that time, maybe the parent child mode of journaling is much better.
And you’re just trying to heal, you’re trying to process what has happened. And this first one, I recently just completed a seminar on journaling to study scripture better. Wow.
So what I did in that is that we do exercises that take up a scriptural passage. And if you have 15 minutes to of time, read it for 10 minutes, and write your thoughts about it for five minutes. And there is a quote of Prabhupada where he says that every day, write something, what is your realisation? Write it.
In fact, there are many quotes of Prabhupada. But this is one quote, which is, I find very infrequently used, or this is a very powerful tool. And I find that writing about what we are reading, we don’t have anyone that actually brings us so much closer to scripture.
For me, the Gita daily articles that I’ve been writing, you know, that you mentioned that about 1700 articles, that was about five years ago, now I have 5000 articles. So, actually, they started as in my notes on the Gita. And I would read some words and I would find, hey, this is a good point.
And I would try to articulate in my way, my words. And I started sharing that. So I find that among all the scriptures, I can say I have the closest relationship with the Gita, not so much in the Bhagavatam.
I’m trying to develop it now, not so much with Chaitanya Charita Amrit. So if you want to be educated, if you want to understand some concepts, the journaling can help us in that also. So I would say these are the tools for the some of the tools which could use in journaling.
That’s absolutely incredible. Um, you know, what’s coming up for me, I realised, when bringing the inner world, this is a realisation. So one can take it or leave it.
But I realised when dealing with the inner world, there’s a language that I use to articulate what’s going on, which is why journaling is why we have this topic. And then there are other there are three other things I noticed happens that would help me to bring my inner world to order the stories that I’m telling myself, you know, because I’m using language to build a story, where I’m the main character of the story. And depending on how I build a story, it’s going to impact how I feel and how I respond to things.
So I feel a story. And then the third one I have, and which is why I’m bringing up this question is the imagery or images or imagination, which is kind of similar to story storytelling, but it’s a little bit distinct, because you were saying how you can see the reflective self as like a caring nourisher, when you need to be like uplifted and encouraged. And if you need to be pushed, you can imagine the reflective self as, you know, someone who’s challenging you and helping you to meet those particular goals.
So it seems like these images are like a really important aspect of journaling. And so far as, you know, you’re building all this stuff with language in your head, ultimately. And then the last part is what you also already mentioned, it’s just like philosophy, or like, there’s a metaphysics that governs the stories that you tell yourself, the language that you’re using, and the images that are invoked.
There’s a metaphysics behind that. So all these factors become really critical, and helping to govern and discover things in the world. I’m curious about this image, because, and this is maybe if, unless Karuna has some more questions around the tools, this might be a transition question to what I the other part of this conversation.
I find that the images of men today is very demoralised, like we at least here in America, we don’t have a lot of good images of men that we can look up to. You know, all the images of men are like either superheroes, who are literally not grounded, and they’re just flying around in the air. So they don’t really teach us so much about how to exist on the ground, and in a sort of normal way.
Or they’re like images of like, fathers who are like, either not there, or who are foolish. And so I personally found over the years that the demoralised image of men has also demoralised that image of men that I embody to whatever degree. And so when I look towards a nourisher, for example, in that particular example of the reflective self, you know, the first image that comes up may be like my mother, which is not bad.
But I’m also wondering if we don’t have positive imageries of men to help push us forward. Is something lost in that? And this is intended as a sort of transition question, because I want to hear about how you’ve used journaling to help those you mentor, you mentor men also. And I was curious about how you journal.
But before we get into that, just kind of the demoralised image of men and how that impacts our own self image as men, and how that would impact our journaling about it. Also, that’s kind of what I’m asking here. This is, I would say, one of the most distinctive differences between say, the East and the West.
I don’t think that that accusation of toxic masculinity or anything like that has come into the Indian psyche so much. And India is largely aspirational. So I didn’t face this challenge in my outreach in India.
It’s mostly people have too many ambitions. And it’s not that they don’t have, they don’t have good models. They often have too many ambitions to choose from.
And, yes, in the West, but I’ve noticed that the huge problem. And I would say that’s one of the reasons why say, the Jordan Peterson phenomena is so wide prevalent. He is speaking, although now when females attend his talks and you can see the comments on his talks by females also, but it’s mainly men.
So my understanding is that one of the things I talk about in journaling is that, you know, start with where you are. Start with where you are. So, you know, in the Bhagavad Gita 17 chapter, Krishna talks about austerity of the mind.
And there he says satisfaction, manah prasad, austerity of the mind. So what it means is that satisfaction is not just an emotion that we feel. It’s also a decision we make.
It’s also a decision we make. So, okay, I mean, I don’t have good male models, but whatever I have, let me start with that. So certainly I would say that the demoralisation has definitely been there.
And because I would say that I haven’t experienced it so closely firsthand, either in my life or the lives of those immediately around me. I noticed it in the young people I interact with in America, but I won’t be able to say too much about it. Okay, let me ask you in this way.
I’m going to ask it in a way that I think you would have a lot to say about it. I’m reading an interesting book. I have a quota this year to read 30 books just to get myself back in the habit of reading a lot.
And also, honestly, like you, I do appreciate words. I like discovering new words and I like using, you know, cool vocabulary. So I’ve been getting into reading a lot of, and I like to read older books, not ones so much from present time, but like, you know, 19th century, early 20th century book authors.
So I’m reading this one book called The Sickness Unto Death by Soren Kierkegaard. And we got it from another guest on Arise Rasanath, who used this book as some part of the template for building his business. So it made me interested in the book.
In any case, it talks about despair as the main topic, but he has a statement, which I really appreciate it. And it’s relating to the question that I’m asking. He says here, imagination, okay, what feelings, understanding, and will a person has depends in the last resort upon imagination, how he represents himself to himself.
Imagination is reflection, so the reflective self, the self’s representation of itself in the form of the self’s possibility. And I really was like, I don’t know, I really resonated with that definition of imagination, how the self, I guess, reflective self, it represents itself to itself. And so how can journaling be used to improve the image of oneself? So I’m keeping it general, my question was more specified to men, but just maybe keeping it general.
How can journaling be used to improve the self image? Because it seems that a lot of us represent ourselves to ourselves in ways that are not very helpful for us living happy lives. So how can we use journaling as a tool to uplift the self image so that we can do respond better and not do things that aren’t worthy of us? And yeah, do things that are worthy of us because we have a healthy self image. And I want to say here, and I do want to bring in this angle because I can hear we have a largely devoted audience, and so I can hear this angle, you know, or we’re not the body, we’re Krishna’s servant, you know, that should be enough, you know, understanding what the truth of the actual self is, that should actually be enough and the truth’s potential and divinity, that should be enough.
But we are, this show is about the intersection of our potential and our reality, the things that we’re actually dealing with. And so it does seem that this could be something useful, some useful thoughts behind journaling as a way to improve the self image, even the conventional self image, you know, scaling it up to the spiritual self image. How might we use journaling to do that? This is just a different way of asking the same question and broadening the terms a little bit.
Yeah, okay. Thank you for generalising the question. So just to play with the word self, I feel that journaling is the self having fun with the self.
That’s what I see journaling as. Journaling is the self having fun with the self. So I think Einstein said something like that creativity is having intelligence, is intelligence having fun with itself, something like that.
So, but, so one of the things I find with journaling is that when you talk about this negative self image, so that is the cynic speaking within us. Right. So the way to deal negative, the negative self image is to ascribe that image to the cynic.
Now, when I’m ascribing to the cynic, I’m not saying it is wrong. There are times when the cynic is right also. And it could be that 90 times out of 100, the cynic is right.
But just recognising that this is cynic’s voice, that’s very helpful. Because just to take another metaphor for this point, if you, when I do try to write regularly, now, sometimes writers experience a writer’s block. And one of the reasons, or not just one, but the main reason, there could be underlying reasons behind it.
But the main way in which the writer’s block comes up is that we could say there’s this creative side within us, and there’s a critical side within us. Am I frozen or am I visible? You’re visible. Am I audible? You’re audible also.
Okay. Okay, thank you. So there is this, so there is, you could say, there is a dreamer within us, the creative voice within us on one side.
And then there is the critical voice, the cynic within us. So generally, when writer’s block happens, that is, as soon as the creative side speaks something, the critical voice, the critical side starts critiquing it. It doesn’t allow it to develop.
Right. So one of the ways to get out of the writer’s block is a simple formula. First, get it out, then get it right.
So that means if I were to write out a topic, just no filter, no sensor, just get it out, whatever you want. So we say in writing that you can edit a bad page, but you can’t edit a blank page. Right.
So applying the same, what we apply to writing, to journaling. So now it could be that I might, and I get it out, I might write 5,000 words. And out of the 5,000 words, I might just get about maybe 200 words are what are good.
And everything else is okay, mediocre or not really usable. But at least I got the 200 words. So when I started writing this Gita Delhi articles, my primary writing inspiration and guide is Jayadvait Maharaj.
So I asked Maharaj that, that many times I don’t feel what I’ve written is very good. So should I keep writing? Maharaj told me something at that time. He said that, say, if you write an article every day, 30 articles you’ll write a week, write in a month.
So out of those, maybe five will be things which you feel embarrassed you wrote them. Maybe 20 will be okay, but five you will be happy about. However, if you don’t write those 30 articles in a month, you may not write even those five articles that you are happy about.
You may write only one or two articles. So the point I’m making here is that, that once we identify this is a cynical voice, we free the dreamer from the cynic. That means, okay, I have a negative image of myself, that is true.
But in spite of that negative image, what can I do? What can I do right now? So once we, so that is basically the dialogue between the realist and the dreamer. So generally, even if we start doing small, small things, one of the biggest causes of discouragement, I find is that we devalue our small successes. We devalue our small successes.
So if I decide that I want to read every day for one hour, and I succeed for 30 days, instead of appreciating, now appreciating means we’re not like simply patting ourselves on the back. But it’s more like the reflective self appreciating that the impulsive self didn’t get so much in the way. So instead of that, what happens is I did it for 30 days, but will I be able to do it for the next month? Then on the 31st day, if I don’t do it, I forget the fact that I succeeded for 30 days, I beat myself up for the fact that I failed on the 31st day.
So I find that valuing small successes. So that is critical. And if you could just get the cynic off the back of our back enough to value small successes.
Now the cynic may be true in the sense that we maybe we are in a position where we have not had any big successes. And maybe the cynic is true in the fact that we made a mess of many things in our life. But that doesn’t mean that everything we did was bad.
That doesn’t mean we have made a mess of everything in our life. So we can’t silence the cynic completely. And maybe we shouldn’t, because the cynic is always correct us when we need to.
But if you can just silence the cynic enough to value even our small successes, that will start nourishing the dreamer within us. OK, I could do this. Then I can do more.
I can do more. So I find this quite often. For me, the cynic’s voice comes most prominently when I think I have given a very good class.
And sometimes after the class. I’ve already could tell I can relate to this. And then I give a good class and nobody after the class appreciates it.
So so one of the things that one of the incidents that made me realise this is that once I was speaking on a particular topic and I was very absorbed when I was preparing for the class, I would say one of the most absorbed phases of my Krishna consciousness. Then I delivered the class also. At least I felt I was very absorbed.
And then after that, when nobody was appreciating, I was feeling so annoyed. And then it struck me. It struck me at that time, you know, does it really matter? Does it really matter so much? I came here to be Krishna conscious and I was Krishna conscious when I was preparing the class.
I was Krishna conscious when I was delivering the class. Now, I’m not saying it doesn’t matter. Now, maybe there’s something which we could do to improve our presentation and we could do something to connect with the audience.
But just that, you know, OK, I can do something more to connect with the audience. But in the past, it was all good. When I was absorbed in preparing, it was good.
When I was absorbed in delivering, it was good. So what happens is that if I had not caught the cynic at that time, all the good that was there in that, it would have been completely lost. So the cynic is true.
Maybe my class was too philosophical. So I thought it was very good, but maybe it was too intellectual for the audience. So they didn’t appreciate it.
So I can simplify my content. That’s fine. But I was absorbed.
So what happens is the cynic takes one bad thing and paints everything in black. So that’s why I think the negative self-image, we have to start by preserving whatever little positive is there, whatever positive is there within us. That’s why the simple step is value small successes.
Value small successes. And one way I try to do it is to not become egoistic. Maybe I’ll talk one more thing about using journaling for praying.
Yeah, I do that a lot. I’ll come to that. But one thing is that we could just say, thank you, Krishna, for enabling me or blessing me to do this.
So if you don’t want to say simply think that it’s egoistic to appreciate ourselves for what we have done, appreciate the success that we have got. Thank you, Krishna, for enabling us to do it. So we could put it that way also to make it more Krishna conscious.
But valuing the small successes is so important. Otherwise, there is in Krishna consciousness, we often have quite high standards. And we all are struggling with those standards at different degrees.
So if we just focus on the areas where we are off, it’s very easy to become discouraged. And in one sense, Arjuna at the start of the Gita was discouraged. And we could say that he was un-Krishna conscious.
So and by the end of the Gita, he became encouraged. So rather than thinking of discouragement as there is so much wrong with me, there’s so many ways I’m not Krishna conscious, that’s why I should be discouraged. But that thinking itself is a lack of Krishna consciousness.
Yes, there are so many things wrong with me. But still, Krishna is giving me an opportunity to practise bhakti. Still, Krishna is there in my heart.
Still, there’s an opportunity for me to move ahead. So one of the biggest dangers I find in journaling this I cannot cannot warn enough about it is sometimes journaling can become a way to reinforce our negative labels about ourselves. That means if I find that I’m lazy, and every day I journal about all the ways in which I was lazy, better don’t journal then, stop journaling, don’t journal at all.
So I feel that although journaling is a tool for us to get out of our mind, that the mind itself can use journaling to gain more control over us. So that would be a broad answer about the negative self image. Nice.
Thank you. Um, I have a I have a few other things here. I don’t know if you were thinking of anything specific that or a particular angle you would like to go Go ahead, bro.
I’m just having, I’m just having a great time hearing this profound discussion. I was, um, just because you brought it up journaling as prayer. It struck me that it’s kind of like a form of viknapti.
So in bhakti, we hear about the different angles of bhakti and one of them is the viknapti one, which is like, which translates as submission. And I heard about it that submission means like submitting a report card, you know, like you’re making a submission means like you were submitting a report card. And then there are three types.
You know, one type is basically a prayer asking for bhav bhakti or love of God. One type is danya bodhika, like a humble submission of one’s danya, like wretchedness. And then another type is kind of after you awaken love, you’re like praying for something very specific in a relationship with Krishna.
Yeah. So that it struck me that journaling was, could be like a viknapti practise. And so when I started journaling, I used to always just start my journals as dear Krishna.
And I would use it as an opportunity to like submit the things that were going on with me, mostly internally, but also externally, this happened, that happened. I’m going through this right now. I don’t really know how to process this.
Maybe you can give some. And I would kind of journal like this as a sort of viknapti practise. Yeah, I guess, is that useful? I guess.
What do you think about that? Because, you know, the question is coming, why are all these seminars about journaling now? Where is it mentioned in our bhakti shastras and so on? So I kind of connected journaling to this viknapti practise. I’m just giving a submission to Krishna regularly. But one thing I did notice when doing that is that, and maybe this is the cynic voice that you’re talking about, you know, journaling, I would do like freehand where you just kind of just write, you know, sort of psychic evacuation.
I don’t think I did a lot of psychic excavation. So it just became kind of repetitive. And I’ve heard this thing come up for a lot of people.
Like when I journal, it just starts to get a little bit repetitive. And in my head, the cynic took the form of Krishna. And it was like, bro, again, same thing.
You’ve already for two weeks been writing about this. Like you want to submit something else. And so then that kind of maybe slowed me down a little bit.
So yeah, when you’re doing journaling, if one is trying to approach journaling as a regular practise for informing their inner life, how do they get around this? It’s getting repetitive. It’s just the same thoughts, the same things coming up, or, or they just got to do a variety, you got to write a scripture, sometimes you got to do this, like, what’s, what’s your thing or not? Okay, that’s a very important question. So I would say that, you know, journal is a very personal thing.
So broadly, there are various things we could journal about. So you could journal about events. Sometimes some events are traumatic, they’re transformational, they’re disorienting.
So the way I differentiate between events and decisions is, events is where we don’t have much agency, it just happened to us. Decisions is where we, we have to make a decision, maybe which ashram I’m going to be, who, with whom I’m going to be in a relationship, who I’m going to be initiated by, whatever, we have so many decisions to make, what career do I want to go in. So the events, decisions, and even if nobody journals anything, I strongly recommend doing this journaling of vision and mission at least once in one’s lifetime.
Okay, where would I like to be in my relationship with Krishna in my contributions in this world, after one year, after 10 years? Now, we may say that, how do I know? Life is so unpredictable. That’s why the question is not where I will be, where would I like to be? Where would I like to be? So, so I feel this gives us a lot of stability. So in general, in life, plans may not work, but planning works.
So, plan, do this, do this, do this, it may not work, but planning overall gives us a sense of direction. Or even if, okay, I could not do the 10 things I planned, but at least I kept moving in this direction. So this is very helpful, mission and mission.
And then this about people, this is helpful, especially, I would say in two extremes. If there is someone in our life, who troubles, who’s troubling us big time, for whatever reason, then it’s a, it can be very, it can fill us with a lot of resentment and negativity. Absolutely.
So, you know, one of the senior leaders in our movement, he, he journals regularly, and I talked with him. So he said that, you know, I have a full of physical journals. And I have written that I have written in my will that all these journals should be burned with me.
So I asked him, why is that? So he told me that I have used my journaling largely to process my anger. Right? Wow. That’s very helpful.
A lot of anger towards a lot of people in my journals. And so I wouldn’t want them to read that. So I find that just journaling about people, especially people who are whom we can’t, say, get out of our life for whatever reason.
But if you have to still work with them, journaling helps us to see that, you know, maybe the last 10 memories were 10 interactions and terrible. But before that, I did have some good interactions with them. There is, I can’t see anything good in this person right now.
But there is some good. So we can find ways to work with people. You know, it’s what happens is, broadly speaking, journaling, what it does is it, we have a particular image, like we talk about images, we have an image of people.
And especially if somebody has dealt with us harshly, that image is largely negative. But when we journal about that person, we start noticing, you know, maybe this is too harsh, what I’m writing. This person is not as bad as I’m writing over here.
So it at least balances our negative attitude toward people. And then, of course, there are issues. In issues, we’d like to talk about habits.
Now, we have certain anarthas we are trying to overcome. We’re trying to develop some good habits. So we could journal about habits.
So if I decide that I want to read scripture every day. So just after, if you spend one hour reading, just journal five minutes about how the reading experience was. And maybe we could highlight the days when our reading experience was very good.
And revisit those on the days when we don’t feel inspired to read. So that could be about issues. And this last part is about creativity.
So this is especially for those who are like I like to write. So, you know, I just if I get one idea, I just let my thoughts flow about that idea. And sometimes the idea is not good enough, not too good.
But while explaining that idea, I get some other idea, which is much better. So this is a whole universe in itself. But there are many ways in which you can journal.
So I would say the monotony in journaling comes when we think of journaling simply like a report. But when we do focus journaling, then I feel the larger the monotony goes away. And all these are, I would say, significant issues to journal about.
But something which you could start with, if somebody just wants to keep a daily journal, this is what I recommend. Two things. You know that you could just note four things in a day.
So what was the best thing that happened during the day? And what was the worst thing that happened during the day? And not just note that, but note why I consider it the best and why I consider it the worst. Just note, doesn’t really help that much. But why did I feel so strongly about it? That helps us understand ourselves.
And then, so this is in general in our life, we interact in two ways with the world. The world does some things to us and we do some things in the world. So the other part of this is we journal about the best thing that I did in the day and the worst thing that I did in the day.
And why did I think this to be the best thing? And why did I think this to be the worst thing? So I feel that this way of journaling helps us get a sense of closure at the end of a day. Okay, this is how this day was. And also, it helps us feel that not only we get a closure for the day, but we come closer to ourselves.
Okay, I understood myself better. So I find this form of journaling, because each day in its own way is new. And the good, the best thing and the worst thing is not usually repeated exactly the same way.
So this can also be another way to journal format fresh. So I mean, if I were simply writing what happened in the day, I would be bored to death while journaling. I can’t do that.
So as we keep exploring, you know, I just gave some tools, some ideas. But as we keep start, as we start journaling, we will ourselves find what are the ways in which journaling works best for us. Wow.
I feel like I feel like this is less of a podcast and more of a workshop. Yeah, with all the PPTs and just the clarity of the presentation. And yeah, anyway, that’s a compliment.
You know, it’s just like, I feel like I’m just in a workshop taking I’m like, okay, guys, notice that I got to note this down. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I’m just experiencing Prabhu that you’re that you’re sharing so much value. And there’s like, there’s so much intellectual compatibility between you and Jai Jagannath Prabhu.
And it’s like, you know, just he’s really facilitating that very nicely. So I honestly, I feel I should just be as quiet as possible to just give you the space to share as much value as you can. And definitely those that are with us are appreciating very much.
Just to reinforce that, not reinforce, maybe echo that point, that somehow journaling has helped me maybe tone down my intellectual content a little bit also. Because somehow, maybe I don’t just have intellectual ability, I have intellectual conditioning. What that means is that, right, that if something is explained simply, I get bored with it.
I get, I immediately get bored with it. But there are sometimes when I hear classes, and the class is very simple. The only way I can survive in that class is by re articulating, by re articulating in my mind, that same point in a more intellectual way.
So do you do the same thing? Are you relating to this? I am definitely relating to I honestly, I definitely gotten better at just appreciating simplicity of presentation. But yeah, probably in 20 like between 2010 and 2015, especially I was very, like very much the same. That’s why I’m laughing about it so, so much.
No, no, no. I was telling this is that actually journaling helped me to identify my intellectual conditioning. There is a British author, I forget his name.
So he won some award for one of his books. And then there was a very abstruse passage in his book, which the award giving committee, they asked him, what do you mean over here? And then he read that passage once, and he read it a second time. And he read it a third time.
And he said, when I wrote this, God, I knew what it meant. Now, only God knows what it means. Oh, God.
Now, why I’m telling this is, I experienced the same thing with my journaling. I look at my journal, what have I written over here? So, you know, if I can’t understand what I’ve written, how do I expect my audience to understand what I’m writing or what I’m seeking? So, so in one sense, sometimes something is an ability, but say that same ability can be a conditioning also. So, like some devotees do kirtan, and they sing in such complex tunes.
That kirtan is not participatory, it’s performatory. Just observe them. So, I would say that it’s not a bad thing.
But it’s just that, even if we have some conditions, I think journaling helps us identify that. So, that was just reflecting on the point you made, Karunatha Prabhu, about intellectual side. Yeah, that’s great.
I, you know, another reason why I’m why I’m actually keeping quiet is because Chaitanya Charan Prabhu, I’m very fascinated by you. You’re just like, you’re just a really fascinating individual. And I have all these like super personal questions that I’d love to ask you, but it’s just not the time and place.
And, you know, I just, I hope that one day we’ll we’ll get to meet in person and we can have a conversation. Jai, do you have anything else you wanted to bring topic related? Yeah, my, I mean, my, my final thoughts were just how do you use this as a tool for mentoring? Because, you know, that’s something that, you know, some of us do, or either like intentionally, or just by circumstances, you end up in the position where you’re kind of like a mentor for others, or your father, or father, even a mother, and you’re taking you’re kind of taking care of dependent, and you’re trying to help them to grow and come into their themselves in a healthy way, and so on. So I was just curious, how do you administer all these tools to someone you’re mentoring? Like, is there a technique of distribution, so to speak, of giving, yeah, administering the medicine in general, so to speak? Or is it just, I mean, I know, it’s very personal, but I was just curious of a general approach that you usually like to take when mentoring? Okay.
To be honest, I would say that I haven’t used journaling in mentoring at a personal level so much, I’ll explain why. I’ll also explain what I have done. No, I, I was a mentor counsellor when I was in India, when I was in one Brahmacharya ashram, but there are things where the whole council system and everything was very structured.
So there was not much room for innovation. So I couldn’t use it there. And then after that, mostly, last few years, I’ve been travelling extensively.
So I’ve been more of a teacher than a mentor to people specifically on a one to one level. But having said that, so I would say that I’m not a mentor for many people. But for those who, with whom I have done that I found two, three things.
First is that if they’re battling with some issue, then there is a particular way of mentoring. So generally, I ask them to keep a track of not just, you know, how they messed up with that issue. Because that is very depressing.
And but still, you have to keep track of it. Because otherwise, you know, we may not understand how deep we are in the water. So sometimes keeping track of how that issue is troubling us is helpful.
But also, while keeping track, we all know, okay, if I have this weakness, I have this strength also. Okay, that, you know, I when I am faced with this provocation, I just can’t I just get overwhelmed. But say this is my source of strength.
If I hear classes, I feel very enlivened. If I, if I associate with XYZ devotee, that strengthens me. So while dealing with the issue, if somebody is keeping track of their weakness, I very strongly recommend that keep track of how you are engaging with your strength also.
And I find that the more a person starts engaging with the strength. So rather than saying that, you know, I will not, I will not spend time on the social on social media, or I’ll not do this, I’ll not do that. I’ll not serve the net at random or whatever.
No, make a more positive. That okay, I will read scripture every day for this much time for half an hour, one hour, two hours, whatever I can. So keeping track of the positive resolutions is relatively, is relatively easier, easier on the heart, we don’t feel burdened.
Yeah, I did this, I could do more of this. So that’s with respect to issues. Specifically, if they’re dealing with issues.
And another major thing is decisions. That’s the time when I find people need the mentoring the most. And example, which ashram I’m going to go into, or which spiritual master I should be initiated by, or whom if I’m going to marry, whom should I marry? What career should I pursue? These are serious questions with big consequences.
So at that time, I recommend the process. That is that first, get all your thoughts out, just write things down. And if you have a particular time frame, where if you have three months in which you have to make a decision, then in general, if we are in the mode of passion or ignorance, and if we think about big issues at that time, all it does is burden us down.
Right? Because in the mode of ignorance, you just can’t think about big issues. So I found that indecision paralyses so many devotees. So one way to deal with that is to compartmentalise the time for deliberating on decision making.
That means, say, once I just write down everything, maybe it takes me three hours, four hours, six hours, write everything down, keep it right, keep it at one place. And then decide, every week, I’ll spend one hour deliberating on this. And then during the week, if we get a thought, if you start thinking about it, we quickly analyse, is this a new thought? If it’s the same thought, stop thinking about it.
If it’s a new thought, something I didn’t think about, this particular issue, note it down. Don’t think about it at that time. Because as I said, thinking about big issues in the mode of passion and ignorance, simply disempowers and frustrates us.
Serious issues need to be thought out in a mode of goodness. So then, and during that one hour, when we are spending on deliberating the issue, maybe just pray for some time before, chant a few rounds, do something which brings us to the mode of goodness, do that for 10-15 minutes also, and then engage seriously with that issue. So then, okay, reread what you have written.
Maybe you will want to nuance it, edit something, place it in different ways. So again, you could use the framework of the three voices, the sceptic, the cynic, the dreamer and the realist, whatever way you use it, but try to process it. So the way I see it is that like first, when we just get everything out, it’s like a snapshot of our mind.
And our mind is a mess. So the snapshot is also messy. But each week we revisit it, we start placing things, okay, this goes here, this goes here, the snapshot starts becoming clearer and clearer.
And then do it every week, maybe spend one hour. And at the end of three months, you will have a much clearer picture, much clearer picture. Okay, this is where I am at.
Now, this process doesn’t guarantee right decisions, nothing, there is no guarantee of right decisions in the world at all. But what it guarantees is two things. One is after we have taken the decision, we won’t constantly keep second-guessing ourselves.
Because we wrote down, you know, okay, these are the reasons why I’m doing this. We won’t keep second-guessing ourselves. And if you start second-guessing, you can look back at the reasons.
I did all the analysis and I find second-guessing can be very, very damaging. Especially, you know, at least in India, there was quite a vibrant Brahmachari ashram, still a they often feel maybe I did something wrong. And if you’re thinking that and entering into Grahastha ashram, it’s very damaging.
That’s also ashram, that’s also a place where we get ashray of Krishna. So, second-guessing at that time is, second-guessing an irreversible decision like that, that can be immensely self-destructive. So, if you have the reasons and that helps us avoid second-guessing.
And then secondly, sometimes things really change in life. You know, I decide to do a particular service or I decide to go to a particular place and then I find the reality there is very, very different from what I thought. That if we decide that, okay, this decision was not right and I have to change it, then we don’t do it impulsively.
We don’t do it out of frustration. We realise, okay, this was the information I had at that time, based on this, I took the decision. But now I’ve got all these things have changed.
This new information has come up. So, we may correct at that time, but don’t do it through frustration. We do it through a proper process of deliberation.
So, that way I find that decision-making, it’s almost not just a burden, but it can be an agony. So, the agony of decision-making can be substantially decreased through journaling. So, I think those are two ways I found many devotees have told me it’s been very helpful for them, dealing with issues and arriving at decisions that they can at least live with, if not live for those decisions.
Right. At least live with, if not live for. Hare Krishna.
I think you like words also, you know, that kind of thing, you notice that. It’s just funny. Your word ciphering is funny to me.
Well, I mean, that’s all I got. Thank you very much, Chetan and Charan, for this illuminating seminar. Yeah.
I’m just going to listen to it many more times, actually. I feel like that so many people, yeah, so many, myself included, but so many people in my life that I feel I can really, that really need to hear this advice and get these practical tools. Yeah, Kaminiya Devi is one of our, she’s one of our regular listeners and thank you so much for so nicely, yeah, just giving us a solid synopsis of the session in the comment section.
We really appreciate it, Kaminiya, thank you. Okay, Chetan and Charan Prabhu, we are very, yes. So, in case, you know, I’m going to do a, if somebody would like to explore journaling a little bit more, with the Bhakti Centre, I’m doing a journaling course for journaling to study scriptures better.
That’s going to be immediately after, immediately after Rath Yatra festival. Yeah, I think those dates, okay, June 21st, yeah, those dates might change slightly, but that’s a, so the yoga of writing is what, I’ve done four courses on journaling till now. First is the introduction, the yoga of writing, the journaling for self-understanding.
Then second is journaling for self-transformation, which is like journaling about issues. And third was journaling for better study of scriptures. So that is the one which I’m going to do with Bhakti Centre.
And the fourth course which I’m doing with the Govardhan Eco Village, of course, all these are online, so anybody can join. This is, this is probably among the most devotional courses I’ve done till now. It’s journaling to make our memory our treasury.
So, to make our memory our treasury. So basically, I’m going to talk about two things, you know, how to process our bad memories and to, even if we can’t get rid of them, to put them aside. And then how, more importantly, how to cherish our good memories.
Even in Bhakti, we have had many wonderful experiences, but somehow our mind just pushed us in the background and we forget them. Maybe we were part of a, we went to a holy place, maybe we had a very good class, we were part of a kirtan, we had darshan. So how to cherish those memories? Because Bhakti is ultimately about remembering Krishna.
So how to make our memory our treasury? So both these courses are going to be soon on my Facebook page, you’ll get the information about the courses also, in case you would like to join. So, thank you very much for this opportunity for sharing. And, you know, it’s a, I feel that a podcast directed specifically for thoughtful, introspective individuals.
There are many podcasts going on across. Now, I think podcast platforms have taken off, but your podcast often goes deep into things. The podcast with Hariparshat Prabhu and several other podcasts, especially the podcast on the position, role of women also, it was quite, uh, stimulating.
So I’m grateful to be here. Thank you for this opportunity to share something. Hare Krishna.
Prabhu, we have one, we just have one question from, from Kamaniya here. Might you plan to offer it again for European friendly time zones? Okay. Yes, certainly we can plan that.
You know, I just had a discussion with Tapa Prabhu from London. So he also wants to do something like this. So probably if we do it from London, one of the forums, then that will be European friendly.
Yes, I’ve got that request before. I’ll definitely plan to do that. Thank you.
Very, very nice. Thank you so much, Prabhu.