Karma Philosophy for a Brighter Future (five-part series) VID 20241110 115230

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Let us all recite the syllable Om together. And especially when we draw the Om, the middle sound in it, let us try to focus on that middle sound.
And let us recite this three times together. Take a deep breath. Once more a deep breath.
Thank you. Once more. Take a deep breath.
Thank you. Gradually open your eyes. So, in the first session, we talked about how our impressions, the samskaras, shape our responses to stimuli.
And sometimes they may act as in ways that are out of character with our character. So, now we will talk about self-observation as a tool for understanding what kind of impressions we have inside us. And in one sense, journaling is a tool of self-observation and introspection.
It helps us to have a mirror to look at our inner self. We normally have mirrors to look at our physical self. So, before we go out, we look at how we look.
But we would also like to look at what is going on in our inner world. So, I have sent some diagrams, some sort of drawings in the WhatsApp chat. So, if you look at the first, I sent three images till now.
The first image, you can start from the bottom. You will see that there is an attached and detached. So, basically, the soul is there and the mind is there.
When we are very attached to something, the soul and the mind, they are almost fused. What that means is some thought, some desire, some idea comes up within us. And without even thinking, we just act on it.
It is this image attached over here, the bottom image in the bottom two images. So, when something is too close to us, it is like the thought comes and instantly the act is done. That is how sometimes when somebody is addicted to something, some people are addicted to a phone, then they do not even realise how much time they are spending on the phone.
And it just, it is almost as if there is something in the phone which is pulling their face and their eyes towards it and it is glued to it. So, if we are, if there is unhealthy attachment to something or even if there is attachment to something, one way to understand what we are attached to is to consider what do we think of when we have nothing to think of? What do we think of when we have nothing to think of? So, say if we are driving a car through a crowded road, then we have to think about the traffic. Who is coming from here? How will I go there? It is a long clear road.
Then at the physical level, there is no stimulus coming in to occupy our attention. We are always thinking, thoughts are always going somewhere. So, if there is no physical stimulus that is demanding our attention, then where are our thoughts going? They are primarily going where our mind is taking it.
So, attachments are impressions, but they are especially strong impressions. There are many samskaras within us, but those samskaras are very strong. Generally, we call them as attachments.
So, they pop up inside us and they push our thoughts and our attention in particular directions. So, somebody may be very fond of sports, somebody may be very interested in celebrity gossip, somebody may be interested in stock market prices, somebody may be interested in latest fashion products. So, whenever we have nothing to think of, where do our thoughts go? That is an indication of what our impressions are, specifically the prominent impressions like attachments are.
So, like the mind and the soul are so close to each other that we do not even think about what we are thinking. Some thought pops up and immediately our thinking goes in that direction. So, one way to better understand this mind-soul dynamic is to treat the mind like another person.
Now, if some person is very close to us, if they say, let us go for a party, then if we just implicitly trust that person or we like that person so unconditionally, say, you just go to a party, it is like your wish is my command. And now that may not always be good. Like somebody, that person is suggesting, let us go to a party and immediately go.
So, the mind, if we are too attached, the mind and soul are so close and the mind gives a suggestion from the impressions, a suggestion comes up, let us watch TV, let us look at some sports, let us go to social media. The suggestion comes and immediately we go in that direction. So, that is the state of being very attached.
Now, when we are detached, say, if some person we do not know very well, that person comes and let us go for a party. Then we will say, what is the party about? Who is going to be there? How long will the party go on? How long do we have to travel? We will ask so many questions. So, we will basically evaluate.
Does it make sense? So, to some extent, when there is internally there is some detachment, then there is a distance between us and our mind. And when some idea pops up, if we are detached, we will evaluate it on merit and then decide whether to do it or not. So, for example, say, if we are trying to be vegetarian and if somebody takes us to a place where there is a vegetarian food available, we may eat a lot.
But say, if we are trying to be vegetarian and somebody takes us to a place where there is meat, we think, do I really want to eat this? How important is my vegetarianism for me? There is that particular resolve that we have made, we have created a certain distance from that dietary choice, that at least some evaluation is there. So, the idea is that in some ways, self-observation requires this distance between us and our mind. If it is too close, then we cannot observe our mind at all.
We just act according to whatever the mind says. So, if we put it this way that in one sentence, I will put it that look at the mind before you look with the mind. Look with the mind and say, right now, say you are sitting and hearing this talk, suddenly some problem, let us look at the scenery, let us look at who is there, let us look at who is there.
Is that really important right now? Maybe it is, maybe it is not. So, the mind is like a screen in front of us. Look at the mind before we look with the mind.
Look there, do this, look that. But to do that, to look at the mind before we look with the mind. It is like often we say look at the lens through which we are looking at the world.
Is my lens coloured? That often talks about biases, but our lens could be such that it just takes our attention somewhere else. So, introspection is essentially about increasing our capacity to look at our mind. We will always look through our mind because that is the tool for perception that we have.
If I have lens and there is dirt on it, I need to clean it, there is dust on it, I need to clean it. But to be able to clean it, I need to have an awareness that it is unclean. Like in the previous session, I gave an example, that only when there are certain acceptable parameters for behaving and when we go off those acceptable parameters, then we start noticing, hey, something is off over here.
Like that say, if I know how you look and if I am looking at you and you look weird to me, then either there is something wrong with you or there is something wrong with my glasses. Then I look at my glasses, okay, let me clean them. So, like that, look at the mind before we look with the mind.
And now if you go to the first image in that, when we do some articulation, articulation means we try to put things in words that itself creates a distance between us and our mind. So, for example, we may get angry and we may start yelling at someone. But if we have created a habit of say conscious inner talk, now I am feeling angry.
Now, as soon as you put those thoughts into words, what happens is, just to put thoughts into words requires some intelligence. So, that articulation creates a distance between us and our mind. And how does it do that? That is what is kind of in the middle, the two things that happens.
In identifying the emotion, emotion is just one thing I am talking about, in identifying the emotion, we activate our intelligence. And that is how, for example, we are talking with someone, you know, you are looking very depressed. We may not even notice that, you know, our faces, we have long face, our whole body language is shrunk and negative.
Somebody say that? Yeah, okay, you know, I was upset by that, but I am not really depressed or I do not want to be depressed. So, just somebody speak some words and if those words are accurate, you may still evaluate them. Are they right? They are not accurate? Say, is this, if they are accurate, is this the way I want to feel? Is this the way I want to conduct myself? If they are not accurate, say, okay, what exactly am I feeling right now? So, what we are trying to do is that we try to create this distance between us and our mind.
And how do we do that? Just by articulating what we are feeling. So, the articulation of emotions is only one thing, but I am talking about here the capacity of putting things into words to create a distance between us and our mind. Going back to the example of somebody suggesting, let us go for a party.
I could just say yes, let us go. But if I just decide, okay, can you tell me where we are going, who all will be there, how long will it take? If we ask some questions, then some perspective comes in, some distance comes in. So, many times we think in terms of control or self-control.
No, I do not want to get angry. I do not want to get depressed. I do not want to be so worried.
So, controlling emotions is quite difficult. It may be possible over time, but it is much easier to ask questions. So, we are not trying to control our emotions, we are just trying to identify our emotions.
Okay, what exactly am I feeling right now? What is going on in my mind? So, that itself can help in a significant way. I will explain this a little bit more. I am going to talk about two ways in which journaling can help us get a better handle on our mind, a better handle on our emotions.
So, there are two diagrams over there. Let us go to the third one first. You will see the soul, mind and body are now put vertically at three levels.
So, essentially, in our mind, sometimes a storm rises because of whatever samskaras that are there, impressions are there. Sometimes we might become panicky, sometimes we become angry, sometimes we might become completely dejected, sometimes we feel lonely. At one level, these emotions are just natural, they are a part of being human, but sometimes they become overwhelming.
So, when a storm of emotion is coming in our mind, at that time, trying to stop the storm is almost impossible. In the Bhagavad Gita also, it is said, Arjuna says that, it’s like a stormy wind, we can’t stop it. So, then what can we do? If there is a stormy emotion coming in our mind, it’s like the mind is here, the soul is here, the body is here.
So, we can get out of the mind. So, the stormy wave is going through the mind, but if we are at that level, we will get caught. Say, sometimes in the ocean, there is a tsunami.
I was in Canada a few months ago, there I met one person, he said that actually he was a scuba diver. In 2004, there was a big tsunami which hit the Indian Ocean, it came. So, that morning, he had gone for scuba diving in the ocean and he was underwater and suddenly he felt himself rising, he pushed himself went down and after he finished his scuba diving, he came up and he came to the coastline and there was no coastline.
On the surface, the wave had come, but because he was deep inside, nothing happened. Now, if say there is a stormy wave, there are two ways, when the stormy wave is there, we cannot fight against the storm, but we can go down or we can go up. Now, go up means if there is a helicopter and the helicopter airlifts us, then we can get out.
So, this is not the only way to deal with the mind, but especially at times when certain impressions gain such a power that they seem to overwhelm us, we cannot fight them at that level. So, we need to get out of their way. So, go down to the level of the body or go up to the level of the mind, sorry, go up to the level of the soul.
In fact, much of mindfulness is this. Say, for example, even when we do deep breathing, say when somebody feels very angry, we tell them, okay, take deep breaths. So, what is happening is the anger is raging in the mind.
But then when we try to breathe deep, just trying to breathe, the act of breathing deeply, it brings our consciousness to the level of the body. And as our consciousness gets focused more and more on the body, then it is no longer available to be triggered by the wave of anger that is coming in the mind. So, we get out of the mind.
And sometimes in mindfulness, I told you some exercises, okay, close your, we will do some exercises like this later. So, I am going towards journaling, but I am talking about the underlying principle the principle is, I said, we need to create a distance between us and our mind, we need to get out of our mind. So, in mindfulness, it may be said that, okay, just close your eyes and think of three sounds that you are hearing.
Let us try this right now. We will do this more in a second session, but just close your eyes right now. And just notice the sound, the smell, the wind, the chair that you are sitting on.
Now, notice, try to pay attention to three sounds, any three sounds that you are hearing. We may hear the river’s flow, we may hear the sound of people who are there in the river, we may hear some beating of some horns, we may hear the rustling of the wind, we may hear some machinery going by somewhere. So, just focussing on the sound, now the sound itself may not be meaningful, but just focussing on the sound gets us out of our mind.
Often we use the word head in this context, get out of your head. So, that calms us. You can gradually open your eyes.
So, when the mind starts manifesting some overwhelming impressions and certain emotions or desires or whatever come up over there, at that time, one simple way to get out of the mind is to come down to the level of the body. The other is to go to the level of the soul. It is like in the ocean, either you go down underwater or you rise up.
So, meditation involves focussing our mind or focussing our attention on certain things. Now, we can meditate on physical reality and that is when we bring our attention down to the physical level. But we can also meditate on spiritual reality.
So, when we do kirtan, when we do japa, when we chant some mantras, what are we doing is that is that sacred sound is connecting us, is providing us access to a spiritual reality. So, we are going upwards. So, either way, now both are not necessarily equipotent, they are not equally potent, we will talk about the difference, but the key principle is get out of the mind.
And journaling is one way to get our thoughts out of our mind. So, for example, if we are feeling angry with something, our urge might be just yell at that person. Now, it may be true that they have really done something outrageous and they deserve a scolding.
But it is quite likely that when we are angry, the words we speak may end up making things worse. So, what we could do is just write down or nowadays you can transcribe also, I have some software to speak and transcribe. Write down why we feel so angry.
Just speak it out. And once we speak it out, once we get that emotion out of ourselves, we feel a certain sense of relief. That does not mean that the issue itself is solved, but the control that that emotion has on us, that is decreased.
Because what happens once we start articulating, if I am yelling at that person, then my focus is on, is this person taking it seriously or not? How much is this person impacted? But sometimes we just want to hurt the person for the sake of hurting the person. But if you just focus on articulating, if you consider a pendulum, there are two ways, unhealthy ways we may deal with anger. Say one is we just express it without any filter.
If you just express anger, the other person will burn. But we could go to the other extreme and we may repress the anger. Where we do not even do anything about it.
Sometimes we may not acknowledge it to ourselves also, we may suppress it also. But either way, there is something very attractive behind it. What is going on? Monkeys.
Monkeys. Oh, really? In the yoga traditions, the mind is often compared to a monkey. Now, I wonder whether that is an insult to the monkey or to the mind.
So, the idea is that the mind can often be quite restless, just going here and there. But just like we observe a monkey to see what it is doing. So, we do not want to become the monkey, but we want to observe the monkey.
So, if we let ourselves be carried away by the mind, then we become the monkey. And goes here, goes there, we start going over there. But we just learn to observe the monkey.
It is actually quite interesting to see what kind of thoughts come up, how desires grow. So, rather than control, the key point in journaling is that rather than control, what we try is curiosity. And trying to not so much control, just trying to learn, trying to observe, trying to understand how does my mind function.
So, we will come to that shortly, but about this curiosity. But this point of just writing things down, I was saying if there is anger and I want to deal with anger, one unhealthy way would be to express it without any filter. The other would be to repress it.
If I express, the other person will burn. If I repress, I will burn. Because what is inside, it will make me suffocate and it will make me burn with rage and eventually I will explode.
So, in between these two sides, express and repress is process. Process means, if I am angry, I am not keeping my anger inside, but I am not directing the anger at the other person. I am just going to write it down.
So, if we write it down and maybe say after 24 hours, we revisit it and then we look through what we wrote. Hey, this is a valid point. This is also a valid point, but maybe I should speak it a little more softly.
Here, I am jumping to conclusions. I am assuming this was the intention of this person when they did like this or they spoke like this. So, we can review and then we can soften, moderate and express ourselves in a way that is more productive.
So, what is journaling doing over here? I said we want to create a distance from our mind. So, one way we create a distance is the journal becomes like an outer record of our mind. What is inside the mind is very close to me.
I am feeling angry and if I just let it out, that is not healthy. But if I write things down and after I have calmed down, I revisit it. Then what is happening is, because it is written down over there, the physical words, then it is like the same mind in the sense that the emotions within the mind are there, the thoughts, the ideas, the hurts, the hangups, all of them are there, but they are put down in people.
And then we can evaluate them better. We can analyse them better. We can come up with more healthy courses of action or actions that are more likely to bring a healthy outcome.
So, the key here is get out of the mind. So, this is one way of journaling, especially when anything is agitating us too much. At that time, get our thoughts out of our mind or get those thoughts out of our mind.
And earlier I said, focus on some physical sensation, focus on sounds, focus on feeling, focus on emotions, focus on sensations. We are getting our thoughts out of our mind, our attention out of our mind. But in this case in Rakyamwada Angad, that is their insight, get those thoughts out of the mind.
And then we can evaluate them more carefully. So, we will do some exercise about this also shortly. But let us, let me talk about one more exercise which can be done on a, if you would like to explore journaling, this takes 4-5 minutes to do as a tool for self-understanding.
So, this is the second diagram. See, many times when people think journaling means, it almost becomes like a diary where I write down everything that I did. That is laborious and that is quite exhausting.
It is like say, if we recorded, if we did a video recording of everything that we did for 24 hours and the next day we sat down to watch it for 24 hours. We would get bored within 5-10 minutes. Okay, it is not that every single thing that I did, I need to watch it.
So, for us, if you want to do a daily review to understand ourselves, we do many activities. So, what we focus on is, in life, we do certain things, some actions are done by us, and some things happen to us. So, like I said, there is a parameter of the samskaras, how do we understand them, and something goes off the boundaries.
So, there are these 4 questions which we can ask ourselves. And if we seek the answers to those questions, say, what was the best thing that I did yesterday? What was the best thing that I did yesterday? What was the worst thing that I did yesterday? What was the best and what was the worst? And not just what, but also why. Why do I think this was the best thing? That will tell us something about our values.
This person got on my nerves, but I kept my calm. I did not yell at that person. That means, either that person is important for me, or my own behaviour in terms of not giving into anger is important.
So, what was the best thing I did? And why do I consider the best thing? Conversely, what was the worst thing that I did? I promised that person that I would buy this for them, I would carry this for them, and I forgot. Why is this so important? I want to be known as a responsible person, or I want to earn this person’s trust, whatever it is. So, what and why? What was the best thing that I did? And why? What was the worst thing that I did? And why? Now, conversely, the same can be applied to events that happen in life.
What was the best thing that happened yesterday? What was the worst thing that happened yesterday? Yeah, I have a question about that. How do I know if this was the best thing? It does not matter. Whatever comes in your mind.
It does not have, it is not like a mathematical precision contest. But I mean more, when I say, okay, my best thing, what I did yesterday was not reacting. I was waiting till my emotions calmed down.
But for the other person, it’s the worst thing I did yesterday. Because he wants to talk immediately. So how do I know what is, I mean, for me, this is the best thing.
But for the other person, it was the worst thing. Yeah, that’s possible. See, at this point, we are focussing on self-understanding.
We are not necessarily focussing on the relationships in terms of what the other person thinks is desirable. Sometimes, there are some issues which do need to be addressed immediately. And some problems have to be fixed, it is an urgent situation.
But some things, they can be dealt with later. And trying to deal with them hastily would create some problems. So now, it could also be that we also understand that this is a difference in values in the two of us.
And okay, this person wants immediate confrontation and hopefully resolution. But I want a little more deliberation and then discussion. Then we can come to a better understanding of even the differences among each other.
And then later on, we may be able to decide that okay, if these issues come up, I can discuss them immediately. But these issues, I need to take time to think. So when I am saying in the inner world, it is not like science, it is more like art.
In art, which is the best painting in this? Everybody does not have to agree that this is the best. It is more subjective. So broadly speaking, what are we trying to do? Like you mentioned about what are the belief systems.
So our value system is also related with our samskaras. So what are my values? I am trying to understand it. So what was the worst thing that happened to me? Oh, yesterday night when I slept, the fan went off and I was miserable.
Okay, why is that the worst thing? I could not sleep. Okay, but why is that the worst thing? Oh, because today there is some very important meeting and I want to be fresh for that. Or I had paid a lot for this lodge and how dare they not provide some basic facility.
Or I should have found out where there could be a, where I should call or whatever it is, maybe I should have planned something, I should have had something ready. So why is this the worst thing? Or what is the best thing that happened? Oh, you know, this person appreciated the work that I was doing. Why is that the best thing? Okay, now this work is important for me and if somebody is organising the work, that is valuable.
Or this person is important for me and their appreciation means a lot to me. So basically, when I said it is like a journaling like a mirror, see a mirror is a readymade object and we can just go in front of the mirror and we can see. The inner world is not like that.
So each of these questions, you could say it is like an inner flashlight. It is an inner flashlight, which is providing us some framework, it is illuminating some part of our inner territory. So now if you do this, even if you just do this for one week, every day spend about five minutes asking these four questions and writing the answers, you will find, you will discover things about yourself that you would have missed out.
They may not be earth shaking things, but they may still be significant things. Sometimes, we all have, I will make this last point and then we will conclude about the journaling and this is where I will go next session, we will talk about bonds and boundaries. First we will talk about self understanding and then there is self observation.
Now one aspect of self observation is to also observe our relationship with ourselves. We often talk of, you know, how is my relationship with this person? This is a healthy relationship. This is a toxic relationship.
So how is my relationship with me? Sometimes, we may be too hard on ourselves. It is a small mistake and we beat ourselves down. Why are you so forgetful? And sometimes, we may be too lax and loose on ourselves.
Sometimes, we may have made a big mistake and we do not even notice it. So like in parenting, the parents should not be too hard with the children, but they should not be too loose with the children also. So now what exactly is the balance between showing affection and having discipline? That will vary from individual to individual.
But by what do I think is the worst thing? What do I think is the best thing? By these questions, we will start understanding the nature of our relationship with ourselves. Say, maybe we made some mistake and we are very upset about it and that spoiled our mood for the rest of the day. And then maybe at the end of the day, when we are journaling, we look at it.
Now what was the worst thing that happened today? Okay, that thing happened, but it was not such a big thing. Did I really need to get so worked up about it? Then maybe we start realising, maybe with this area, I am too hard with things. Sometimes, things do not work out the way we want.
So by self-observation, we can start seeing how our impressions, so depending on how say we have been parented, if our parents were very hard with us, then we might also be too hard with ourselves or we might be going to the other extreme. And because our parents were very hard with us, we might go to the other extreme and just as an act of rebellion, not be trying to discipline ourselves at all. So it depends.
So self-observation can be very helpful. And I will summarise what we discussed. And I will give you a journaling, we do not have time right now, I will give you a journaling exercise, which you can try to think of and do when we meet for the next session after lunch.
But let me summarise and we may have one or two questions after that. So I talked about three main points today. First was that we want to create a distance between us and our mind.
Look at the mind before we look with the mind. So when the impressions are very strong in the form of attachments, the idea, the suggestion comes from the mind and we act even without thinking. But when the impression is a little weak, then we can observe and evaluate.
So having some distance from our mind is helpful. And putting our thoughts, our emotions, our sensations, our experience in words helps create the distance. The distance comes because identifying the emotion as well as identifying the emotion in journaling activates our intelligence and we can start evaluating.
So start observing. That was the first point of words help us create a distance between us and our mind. And the second point we discussed was that when we are trying to journal, what are we doing? That because of the impression, stormy thoughts arise within the mind.
So we need to get out of the mind. Either go below to the level of the body or go up to the level of the soul. And journaling is one tool by which we can say if anger is overwhelming our mind, instead of repressing it or expressing it, I start processing it.
So get out of the mind. So a journal is like an external replica of our mind or at least with respect to that particular issue or emotion. And because it is external and distance is created, we can observe and and analyse better.
And the third was that we could do a daily review where we look at not just our actions, but our assessment of those actions. What are the best thing that I did? Why do I consider the best thing? What are the worst thing that I did? Why do I consider the worst? And what are the best thing that happened? Why do I consider the best? What are the worst thing that happened? Why do I consider the worst? So by these questions, we will start understanding our own value system in terms of what things we consider important. And also beyond that, we start understanding our relationship with ourselves.
When am I considering small things to be very big and getting worked up about them? And when am I considering big things to be small and not being concerned about? So the exercise that I would like is that it could be for the last 24 hours or you could go back to the last 7 days. And out of these 4 questions, take any 2 questions. What was the best thing that I did in the last 1 week? And why do I consider it the best thing? What was the worst thing that I did? And why do I consider the worst thing? And by asking these questions, try to write down the answers or at least articulate the answers in your mind.
And try to see what it tells you about yourself and about your relationship with yourself. And if you would like to share, you do not have to share, but if any of you would like to share what you come up through the journaling, we will start with such sharing. And then we will commence our discussion about boundaries and bonds that can help us deal with the samskaras better.
So any questions at this point? Yes, here we are. I wanted to know from your perspective, what if I feel that there is a difference between my relationship with myself and with Jesus? From your perspective, I wanted to know what if I feel that there is a different relationship between with myself, between me and myself, and between me and others? It’s a different relationship. Yeah, like a very, what does it mean? Or how should I look at it? See, I’m trying to understand what different relationship means.
Are you saying that we are saying we are very hard with ourselves, but gentle with others, or gentle with ourselves and hard with others, something like that? Yeah, how we respond differently. Yeah. It’s relationships of any kind are complicated.
And why we act in particular ways. It’s a, it’s not always rational. That means that, say when two people like each other, we cannot put down the scientific reasons, one, two, three, four, this is why I like this person.
Then we say, okay, these are the reasons I like this person, we may put some reasons. But there could be a dozen people who could also meet those reasons. And yet we don’t like that person.
So when relationships come up, there is a rational aspect to it. But there is something beyond the rationales. And we are not against emotions.
So emotions are important. But the problem comes when emotions become the sole decision makers for us. Emotions should be one input, one resource for decision making.
But when they become the sole basis, like I like you, so that I am ready to give up everything for you. I dislike you, no matter what happens, I will not even look at you, I will not even work with you. No, that level of control by emotions is not good.
So now, many times, our relationship with others is shaped by factors that are not in our control. What I mean is, suppose we are working somewhere, and the boss is paying our salary, that’s what is helping us to put on our table, then we may be a bit respectful or deferential to the boss, even though we may not like that boss. So there is my emotion, but there is also my concern that when my intelligence is to understand this is what is paying my bills.
So I need to subordinate my emotion. We understand what is at stake. I was in Australia and one couple came to meet me and the husband was telling, the wife was saying that, you know, that the husband was looking quite sheepish.
He says, you know, my husband gets very angry. And when he gets angry, I feel scared of him. And the husband said, you know, I never want to scare my wife.
I would never hurt her. But somehow when I get angry, I just can’t control myself. So then I told him that, where do you work? He said, I work in a company.
So do you get angry with your boss? Do you feel angry at your boss sometimes? Yeah. So do you yell at your boss? I said, are you crazy? I cannot yell at my boss. If I yell at my boss, I will be fired.
So here I told him you are feeling the emotion of anger, but you are not acting angry. That means you do have the capacity to control your anger. It is that in this case, you consider that your job is a value and more important than your emotion.
But when we come home, maybe we want to relax, we want to lower our guard, we don’t want to be so much in a rigid professional mode. So we are letting the emotions take control. And you are not considering this relationship that important.
And that is why you are venting your anger away. So we can’t say that I just don’t have the capacity to control my emotions. So regarding different relationships, a person may behave in a particular way at office and a different way at home.
Like that, same way we may behave differently with others and behave differently with ourselves. So we may be very polite and respectful to others. But many times people, they loathe themselves, that is self-loathing, self-pitying and self-hatred.
Because maybe we try to achieve some things and we failed. And maybe our parents had some standards for us and we couldn’t meet them. And in one sense, that is why we may have a very negative attitude towards ourselves.
So it doesn’t matter that there is a difference. What matters is that we move in a healthier direction in all our relationships. If our relationship with ourselves is unhealthy, then we try to move in a healthier direction.
Does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah. It answers. It gives a lot still to wonder, but yeah, it’s very helpful.
Okay. Yes. Hare Krishna.
My question is like related to, like I just, because I’m also very good, I’m a learner of psychology. I always just had a great interest in psychology. So nowadays, if we also like globally, if we just see the psychologists and suggesting people, they are emphasising a lot on the gratitude that you should have a diary, just note down every day things that you’re grateful for.
So how would you define that expressing the gratitude can lead our mind to experience more like healthier way of life? Thank you. Yeah. So I was focussing generally, primarily as a tool for self understanding, self observation.
Now, gratitude is more for, you could say self transformation or transformation of our emotions. In general, our mind tends to look at what is wrong, rather than what is right. And from a biological perspective, that is a very good thing.
Say, right now, there is a very scenic beauty all around. There will be 10 things right. But if you miss one of those things, it will not make much difference.
When suddenly a snake comes in the room, and if you miss that, that could be fatal. So in general, for our survival, noticing the negative is much more important than noticing the positive. And while that is not an undesirable feature at a physical level, but that can be carried over to unhealthy degree.
Therein, at an emotional level, at a psychological level, our mind starts fixating more and more on what is wrong than what is right. Now, when we use the word what is wrong, there are many different understandings of what is wrong. Like, if there’s a life threatening incident, like a snake coming, that immediately you notice.
But different people may have different ideas of what is wrong. For a teenager or a kid, a young person who wants to become an influencer, they put a post on social media and they get a thousand likes. And you think, you know what, my friend put it and they got 2000 likes.
And 1000 likes is a terrible thing for them. That’s not such a terrible thing. So we live in a world wherein there are so many stimuli coming into us, that we may overvalue certain stimuli and devalue certain stimuli, not based on their actual importance in our life, but based on the propaganda, based on the way we, I said the mind can be a distorter.
So that distorted conceptions. So, gratitude is not meant to overlook or deny what is wrong in our life. There are some people saying be grateful for everything in life.
That’s not just ungrateful, it’s not just impossible. It can be actually dehumanising. If somebody has lost a loved one, then be grateful for the loss.
We cannot be grateful for the loss. We can be grateful that we had that relationship, that person was present in our life. So we can’t all, so why I’m telling this is that, I want to start from the opposite side.
Gratitude is good, but any value that is absolutised, it can become counterproductive. Like I know two, three friends of mine, they try to do gratitude journal regularly. And what happens is, they instead of gratitude journal, leading them to feel better.
Actually, they start feeling worse because they don’t feel grateful. Gratitude, there are bad things that happen in our life. And we need to accept that this is bad.
So we can’t be grateful for all situations. But we can be grateful in all situations. That this situation happened, this is a bad situation.
But in this situation, now that the situation happened, you know, I got this way of dealing with it. I got this way of dealing with it. Okay, I lost a loved one.
It’s terrible. But then, you know, I have friends, I have a social support system. And they are there to support me with any, you know, I have hobbies, I have any engagements, and that can keep my mind from staying idle and getting bored.
So I can find things to be grateful for, even a bit difficult. And so we can’t be grateful for all situations. But we can be grateful in all situations by looking beyond that particular situation.
So what gratitude can do is, or the attempt to cultivate gratitude can do is shift our focus from what is wrong to what is right. So another way of analysing what is wrong and what is right is what we have and what we don’t have. Especially now with the age of media and advertisements, the whole consumer industry runs on showing us all the things we don’t have.
And that naturally triggers dissatisfaction. So then no matter how much we have, we just don’t feel grateful. It’s okay, because I don’t have this, I don’t have this, I have this.
And after this session, we are going to have a meal. Now, is there a meal? Okay. Suppose this is a special meal, where every one of you is going to get a different savoury or pastry in your plate.
Everybody is going to get a different delicacy. Now, I may have one delicacy, you have a different delicacy, you have a different delicacy, you have a different delicacy. Now, I could be enjoying the delicacy that is in my plate.
But if I start looking, oh, what does she have? What does he have? And what does he have? What does she have? Then what will happen? I might be having a delicious ice cream. But that ice cream will taste like ashes to me. Because I’m looking at what I don’t have.
So gratitude, trying to keep a gratitude level can help us shift our focus to what we have. And that can definitely cultivate more positivity, more appreciation of life and help us develop more of an abundance mentality rather than a scarcity mentality. Oh, I don’t have this, I’m not tall enough, I’m not slim enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m not this enough, I’m not that enough.
So many things we can think about, I’m not rich enough, I’m not this, I’m not that. Yes, there may be truth to that, but there are many things that we have also. So what we habitually tend to devalue, a gratitude, trying to consciously invest time to cultivate gratitude, that can help us to value the things that we tend to devalue.
There are some things which happen naturally, we feel grateful for them. Because when we get a lucky break in our profession, something good happens. But there are small gifts also in life that we tend to overlook.
So the way I like to phrase it is gratitude for the extraordinary is ordinary. Something extraordinarily wonderful happens, anybody will be grateful for that. But gratitude for the ordinary is extraordinary.
Wow, it’s beautiful. Gratitude for the ordinary, that is extraordinary. And a gratitude journey can actually help us to notice even the small things in our life, the small gifts, they also do matter.
Thank you very much for this beautiful answer. Thank you. Okay, so we’ll go on till one o’clock, about five minutes more.
Yeah, please. Yeah, my question is, it’s not working. My question is, how do we know that gratitude writing is not causing slacking? It is not causing slacking.
Slacking means that it’s not an excuse to, it’s not an excuse, it does not become an excuse to not do enough. Okay, that’s all. Okay, what happened? See, can writing about gratitude make us slack and unambitious or unresourceful in doing what we should be doing? It’s possible, but that comes from a misunderstanding of what gratitude is.
That at one level, growth is natural in life. Now, each one of us were just, at one time, just one cell in our mother’s womb. Now there are millions and billions of cells in our body, we’ve only grown human beings.
So growth is just a natural part of it. And now we can grow from a platform of security or a platform of insecurity. That means that I have these gifts, and I would like to develop these gifts.
I would like to share these gifts. So I have some, say, singing ability, I have some writing ability, I have some managerial ability, I have some engineering ability. Be aware of those gifts, appreciate those gifts.
And then I can grow in, okay, I want to develop this. If I develop this, then I can do this, and I can do some good to others, I can share it with others. So that is, we are starting from a platform of security.
So gratitude helps us to grow from a platform of security. But when gratitude is lacking, then we may be seeking growth, but it is from a platform of insecurity. No, we seek more to fill the emptiness within us.
Because, you know, if I don’t achieve this success, nobody will notice me, nobody will respect me, my life will have no value. And therefore, I have to do this. So that is where a person while working can become obsessive.
Like hard work is good, but workaholism, that can be addictive, that can be destructive. So when a person feels that if I don’t work, I have no intrinsic value, no intrinsic identity apart from my work, then they will become unhealthily dependent on their work. Say, how much is our bank balance is important, but our self-worth is not equal to our net worth.
When there is no foundational gratitude, then what happens is, we latch on to something externally, and that becomes the source of our security. So then, that is an unhealthy stage. Now, if gratitude leads us to passivity, oh, there are many good things in my life.
And oh, everything is fine, I don’t need to do anything. That’s not a healthy way of living. If there are good things in my life, I would like to share them with others.
If I have some ability, if I have some resources, I would like to do something to share those resources with others. So the two both involve growth. But both growths involve many different dynamics.
See, every relationship, let’s come back to this one, but every relationship involves some interaction. Say, I do something for you, you do something for me. But a difference between a selfish and a selfless relationship, or you could say a difference between a materialistic and a spiritual relationship is, as soon as I see someone, the first thought in my mind is, what can this person do good? Then that’s a more self-centred relationship, then the more materialistic relationship.
My first thought is, what can I do for this person? Then that is a little more selfless. So similarly, with respect to gratitude, that if I have certain abilities, then if I want to express my ability, then I expect some reciprocation from it. I should earn something, I should be respected for it.
All those things are naturally there. But what is the primary? I’m grateful for the ability that I have. I value myself and then when I share with others, then there is some effect of that.
And I will measure that effect also to see where I can share most of it. But if I don’t value myself at all, then when I’m going to someone else, it is not so much to give them something, but primarily to get something from them. And then that kind of growth is unhealthy.
So actually, gratitude enables us to grow from a place of inner security. Does that answer the question? Somewhat, yeah. Somewhat.
Then we can talk separately afterwards. But gratitude should not lead to a lack of ambition. Ambition comes not from the motive of exploitation or accumulation.
Even this gratitude, ambition comes from the place of contribution. That I have some things and I’m going to build on that, I’m going to share on that, share that. Thank you.
Yes, last question. I was… So I see that much of your presentation on the emotions and the mind is to create distance. I think that this is very much in common with many psychological endeavours and also spiritual practises that we have.
And then you mentioned that between the suppressing and expressing, there is a process. How do you look at the approach of going through the emotion, releasing it, feeling it, or it seems to be quite, so to say, a necessary trend in psychology as well as in spiritual practises introduced in this age? Yeah, definitely. We’ll discuss this more in our next session.
But I’ll quickly answer this now. Am I audible or the voice is gone? Something is… I need to lower it so that the echo is… Okay. Is it clear now? Yeah.
So see, there are two distinct things. One is experiencing the emotion or going through the emotion. The second is letting the emotion determine and control our actions.
The two are not the same thing. So if I’m feeling angry, you know, anger itself is not a bad thing. In fact, complete lack of anger could be a bad thing.
If we are going by a school area and there is some bullying, terrorising some small child, if we feel nothing while going by that area, if we don’t feel that there’s something wrong over there, then there’s something wrong in here. Isn’t it? So anger is itself not a bad emotion. Anger indicates that something is seriously wrong.
Now the problem is that anger often misdiagnoses and misprescribes. That means what? That, okay, now what might be wrong? We might not read the situation properly. Maybe we are angry.
And then we might act in a hasty way. I’ll go and beat that bully. But then that may lead to an escalation of the situation further.
So anger is, anger as a messenger, it’s important. But when anger becomes the master, not the messenger, but the master, that’s when it becomes a problem. So when we are saying going through emotions, when I said create a distance, that is not denying the emotion, that is not suppressing the emotion.
It is creating a distance sufficiently so that the anger doesn’t, the emotion doesn’t become the controller of our action. So that way we will be able to better understand the emotion, we will go through the emotion. It’s not that we want to suppress the emotion.
It is just that the distance is required so that the emotion doesn’t perpetuate an unhealthy behavioural pattern. Whenever I see something wrong, I get angry and I yell at it, yell at whoever is there. And then I just end up becoming a short-tempered person who just goes off and blows off at anything.
That’s not a healthy thing. But when I am feeling anger, should I just say, I will not get angry? What does that mean? It is, will I not feel the emotion of anger at all? How will I do that? Can I rearrange the world in such a way that I will never feel the emotion of anger? That’s not practical. So it just means that emotions don’t get default or unfiltered control of our actions.
That’s what we are talking about. So for example, if there is a loss in our time, grieving is important. But grieving doesn’t have to be a public emotional display and a very visible breakdown in the public.
It can be an appropriate way to express emotions. Thank you so much. So we’ll continue this in our next half.
And so thank you so much.