OASIS – Five reflections for self-improvement

[Talk at BIMS Medical College, Belgaum, India]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So I’m grateful to be here amongst all of you today and I’ll be speaking on the topic of how to accept ourselves and how to change ourselves. The topic is given over here.
I’ll explain first of all what is the mind and how it shapes us. Can we decrease the volume a little bit? There’s an echo over there. Is it better now? Yeah, I think the echo has gone down.
Little more? Yeah, is it better now? Okay, thank you. So, when we look at people around us, we feel that some of them are better than us and we are better than some of them. And especially in today’s world where the media and the advertising industries bring before us models of the best in every field.
People who talk very smartly, people who look very good, people who are very elegant in their carriage. When we see such people, often we feel that I’m not good enough. We feel I need to do something to change myself for the better.
And this definitely is something which we all want to do and need to do. We all can become better. At the same time, surveys have found that the greatest cause of dissatisfaction among people is comparison.
Comparison can lead to inspiration which can lead to improvement. But comparison can also lead to dissatisfaction and distress. Everyone of us is unique.
And this uniqueness is an asset. It is not a liability. So, within us, there are aspects which we can and should improve.
At the same time, there has to be an acceptance of who we are. So, I will talk about this theme using an acronym OASIS. O-A-S-I-S I’ll talk about these five aspects in the journey towards self-acceptance and self-transformation.
So, first O is observe. All of you are medical students and I will use a medical metaphor to drive this talk. When you have to diagnose a patient, the first thing I have to do is observe.
Okay, what are the symptoms? What are the symptoms which indicate the health is good or the health is bad? I may use a stethoscope to find out the condition of the chest, the heart, the lungs. You may have other parameters by which you observe. You may do a blood test to find out what the blood is.
But it all begins with observation. And observation has to be done objectively. We all can do subjective observation also.
Subjective observation means that when we are very emotionally involved in something, when we see something, our emotions come in the way and they block what we see. But when we objectively see, that means we are able to see what the facts are. So, just as we observe the world, just as we observe people, we need to observe ourselves.
Quite often, instead of observing ourselves, we are either boosting ourselves or beating ourselves. What does it mean? Boosting ourselves means, yes, I am good, I am great, I am going to prove to the world how great I am, how good I am. And otherwise, we are beating ourselves.
You fool, why did you do that? Couldn’t you have answered that properly? Couldn’t you have spoken like this over there? Couldn’t you have remembered to do that? So, what happens with these two attitudes? Either we are trying to prove how good I am or we are beating ourselves, what a fool I am. With both these, we don’t actually observe ourselves to understand who we are. What do we mean by who we are? All of us have a certain set of gifts, a certain set of talents, a certain set of interests and a certain set of limitations.
So, this observation, self-observation is the beginning of tapping our strengths. Now, when I talk about self-observation, what do I mean? Why we often may look at ourselves in a mirror to see how we look. We are actually just observing our appearance.
We are very conscious of our appearance. But when I am talking about self-observation, it is not just looking in a physical mirror. It is about looking inwards to understand what are my likes, what are my dislikes.
What am I actually? What is my substance? What is my substance? To the extent we learn to observe ourselves without judgement, then we can have a valid starting point. Now, with respect to the mind, what exactly is the mind and how does it play a role in self-observation? I will speak about a model of the self that is given in the Bhagavad Gita. And I will explain how it correlates with our day-to-day observation as well as scientific inference.
So, basically the Bhagavad Gita explains that our current existence is three-level. There is the body, there is the mind and there is the soul. This is akin to a computer system where there is the hardware, the software and the user.
The hardware is like the body, the software is like the mind and the soul is the user. The soul is the source of consciousness, the source of energy. So, all of us, right now when you are looking at me and I am looking at you, how is this happening? The eyes are getting the visual data.
From there it is going to the optic nerves. From there it is going to the brain. And what after that? In the brain, the information is processed.
But where is it integrated? Where is it integrated means, let us say, if a parrot flies by over here. When the parrot flies by, actually there are four distinct perceptions that are happening. There is the shape, there is the colour, there is the motion and maybe there is the sound.
Now, if you consider the brain, the areas that process these four stimuli are different. The area of the brain that processes motion, that processes colour, that processes sound and that processes shape, they are different. Now, where in the brain does the integration of all this happen? Researchers have probed the brain exhaustively.
And I was just a few months ago in Canada. So, there I spoke at an auditorium that is dedicated to Dr. Wilder Penfield. He is a Nobel laureate neurosurgeon, considered to be the father of neurosurgery.
And he did 40 years of research in the mind. And at the end of it, he wrote several books. One of his books is The Mystery of the Mind, in which he concluded that the brain is like a computer.
But it is programmed by something outside itself. It is programmed by something outside itself. The source of consciousness is extra-cerebral.
It is outside the brain. So, basically the, now when I say the integration of shape, colour, motion, what sound, what do I mean? Sometimes if you have some homemade videos. So, people use their own camera or their own phone to record a video.
And sometimes they may have some other device for recording the audio. And then they use some software like Adobe Premiere or whatever to integrate the two. When the video is not very well made, then the two stimuli do not get integrated.
Then they may be showing somebody fighting and one person punches the other person. But the other person, even before the fist reaches the other person, you hear the cracking sound. How is that happening? That means the two are not synchronised properly.
So, synchronisation is a skill. So, in our brain, where does the synchronisation happen? That synchronisation actually does not happen in the brain. There is no one physical part of the brain which is connected to all other parts of the brain.
Which could receive all the information and integrate and synchronise it. So, just like in a computer, especially if you have a computer which is used for security purposes. Then, sometimes in one computer you may have, if there is a high security building, there are ten doors in it.
And there are ten cameras which are put near all the doors. And then the inputs from all those cameras come and it is integrated through a computer. And you can see all those ten windows open on the computer.
Or let us assume five windows are there. The five windows are open on the computer. And then the person is observing.
Oh, who is this suspicious person over here? They click on that and then that window zooms open. Zooms up and occupies the screen. And they say, okay, who is this person? Where is he going? What is he doing? So, similarly, the Bhagavad Gita explains that our senses and the information that comes through the brain is integrated by the mind.
śrotraṁ cakṣuḥ sparsanaṁ ca rasanaṁ grāṇam eva ca adiṣṭhāya maniṣṭhāyaṁ viśvāyāṁ upasevate. In the 15th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, in the 9th text, we say that we have these five senses. The eyes, ears, the nose, the tongue and the skin.
And from this, we get information. So, this information comes to the brain and from the brain, it comes to the mind. So, the mind is like the computer that integrates and gives us the information.
And then, say, right now, you are hearing what I am speaking. And suddenly, some screeching sound comes from behind. What happens? We all turn.
Oh, what is that sound? Why does that happen? Because in our brain, say, now, right now, you are looking at me, that window is open. Okay, what is this person saying? But suddenly, other stimuli comes up and we see something very jarring over there. Then our attention goes to that window and then that zooms up in our consciousness.
And we focus on that. So, now, all of us, based on our own interests, our own talents, our own limitations, certain windows zoom up more quickly. And certain windows don’t zoom up at all.
So, for example, some people are very cleanliness conscious. As soon as they go into a room, they say, this is uncle, this is uncle. Some people are, say, very, I am myself, very grammar conscious.
As soon as I go into any place, the first thing I look at is notices. If there is a big picture, first I will read the caption, then I will see the picture. And if I see the caption, there is some mistake over there.
It jars me. So, although all these windows are open for all of us, but which window is zero in on, which we focus on, that varies from person to person. Some of us may like to be alone more.
We are introverts. Some of us may like, are extroverts. We like to be with people.
So, it is not that introverts dislike being with people, but introverts get strength when they are alone. Extroverts get strength when they are with people. This is all basically the way the computer is arranged, so that certain things we naturally gravitate towards.
And certain things we don’t get interested in. There is, now, one more feature over here. If you are familiar with using computers, and then if there are certain programmes which we open automatically, or in a website, we just visit a particular site repeatedly in our browser, then that site starts opening up automatically.
It becomes like a default setting. So, we all have our default settings. So, some of us may have default setting that as soon as we have some time, we’ll want to see what is the latest cricket score, what cricket match is going on.
Some of us, we may say, whenever I have some time, I just go and look at the politics. What is the news? Someone may want to go to Bollywood. What is the latest movie coming out? So, all of us, based on the way we have conducted ourselves, what we have chosen in the various windows in the mind, whatever we may have chosen, that becomes like our default setting.
So, now the default setting is just our starting point. But that is right now our starting point. So, the observation is just to understand who I am.
That means, what are my default settings? What are my natural inclinations? What do I go towards? When I am doing nothing, where do my thoughts go towards? So, by such observation, we understand ourselves better. And without such observation, we may just keep trying for doing some things, which we may not be good at. Einstein said, don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree.
Don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. A fish’s expertise is in swimming in water. Now, if the fish starts saying, oh, this monkey is climbing so high up in the tree, I can’t climb up.
It doesn’t need to climb up. It can swim in the water. So, by observing ourselves, we understand what our strengths are.
So, without observation, we just stay in illusion. Maybe I should do like this, maybe I should do like that. We see some model, we see something on the TV, we say, here’s something on our friend, I should become like that.
I’ll do like this, I’ll do like that. So, we remain very externally driven if we do not observe ourselves. Oscar Wilde is a British playwright, and he said that fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to change it every six months.
Normally, we think of fashion as something beautiful, not ugly. I want to have fashionable clothes, I want to have fashionable hairstyle. Now, why we call it ugliness? Because the same thing that is very fashionable now, after six months, it becomes old fashioned.
And for a person who is very fashion conscious, there is no insult more intolerable than being called you’re old fashioned. No, I’m not old fashioned. And people just spend so much time, money, energy, trying to just stay up to date.
What happens by this is that we get distracted. So, we all, if we do not look inwards and try to understand who we are, then we look outwards and try to look good according to the world’s image, according to the world’s mirror. And the world’s mirror will say, if you have this smart phone, you are smart.
But then, after six months, another smart phone comes. And it says, if you don’t have this smart phone, then you’re not smart. So, in this way, we just keep chasing after one thing after another after another.
It can be our own image, our own looks, our possessions, whatever it may be. So, this way, if we don’t observe ourselves, we don’t understand ourselves, we want to have a healthy sense of self-worth. Either we can get it by observing ourselves and understanding what we are good at and developing that.
Or we just look outwards and try to see, okay, how can I look good? How can I appear good? And then we just keep aping external trends. And that is an endless path. Endless path.
Where, actually, a person gets deluded. We just get bound by hundreds and thousands of desires. Should I do this? Should I do that? Should I go here? Should I go there? Just don’t know.
So, then the second step, I talked about the first one. I’m going to talk about the acronym. Does anyone know which is the acronym? OASS.
So, first I talked about O, that is Observe. Second, A is Accept. Now, acceptance is vital for any kind of change.
Just like in future, all of you as you become doctors, you’ll treat patients. When a patient has a serious disease, often the patients stay in denial. Somebody has cancer.
No, I don’t have cancer. They’ll go from one doctor to another doctor to third doctor. Maybe the third doctor will say, no, you don’t have cancer.
It is a wrong diagnosis. No, there has to be acceptance. Once there is acceptance, acceptance does not mean pessimism.
Acceptance is realism. Say, for example, if there is a glass of water over here, and the glass is empty, and I request somebody, can you please fill this glass of water? And they say, actually, why are you so pessimistic? Just think that the glass of water is full. Well, if I try to imagine the glass which is empty is full, what is going to happen? That is not optimism.
That is stupidism. Yes, if I think, oh, the glass is empty, and nobody is going to provide me water, and my throat is parched, and I will die of thirst. That is pessimism.
If I unnecessarily start imagining all sorts of negative things, that is pessimism. So, okay, somebody has got cancer. You think, oh, cancer means I’m going to die.
No, that’s not necessary. Maybe treatable also. So, accepting reality is foundational for changing reality.
If it is changeable. That is later. We have to accept ourselves.
So, just as there is acceptance of disease, which is vital for going forward, similarly, we all have to accept ourselves for what we are. So, that means, as I said, after I observe myself, I try to understand, okay, this is what, this is the ability I have. I’m not so good at this.
This is something which I can work on and improve. This is something which I can’t do. So, now, this is just objective analysis.
And by accepting, okay, this is what I’m good at, this is what I’m not good at, what happens? We stop imagining that we are someone else. I stop longing that I should be someone else. If God had wanted you to be someone else, he would have made someone else.
He has made you, you, and he has made me, me. And we all want to improve, but the improvement is vertical, not horizontal. Improvement doesn’t mean I have to become you, or you have to become me.
Improvement means I should become the best I, and you should become the best you. So, this is acceptance. Now, acceptance also is centred on a spiritual self-understanding.
Einstein was one of the greatest scientists of the last century. And last year in America, I was at the university where there’s a whole centre dedicated to Einstein studies. So, Einstein himself was a brilliant scientist, but he lived with a dilemma.
The dilemma was, if you just accept completely the scientific worldview as the complete description of the human person, now, science describes some things about us, and as doctors, you use science to treat. We all use it to treat ourselves. We’ll use it to treat others.
Science describes our physical self. But if we assume that science describes everything about us, then that leads to a serious problem. This idea that science can give us all knowledge about everything, that is not science, it is scientism.
Because there is no scientific experiment which can prove that all knowledge about everything can be obtained only through science. Now, what was Einstein’s dilemma? He said that what science observes is that things act according to laws. For example, if I raise this flower, now, if I drop it, it does not have any free will whether to fall or to not fall.
It is just going to fall on its own. Matter, material particles, they behave according to laws. And while behaving according to laws, they don’t have any free will.
And if we ourselves, if we ourselves are actually just products of matter, if that is all that we are, and matter simply behaves according to laws, then that would mean we have no free will. We behave according to the way our brain is programmed, if we use a programming metaphor for describing the brain. And we just can’t do anything about it.
So, this is a very profoundly problematic idea. Because why? Suppose, if I come to one of you, I give you a slap. Why did you slap me? My brain’s programming told me to slap you.
You’ll slap me back. My brain’s programming told me to stop you. The very fact that we ask a question, why did you slap me? What does it imply? It means you had a choice whether to slap me or not.
And you chose to slap me. So, the idea that if we have no free will, then all sense of accountability, all sense of morality, all sense of justice, it will become pointless. As most of you know, Einstein was a Jew who lived in Germany, and then because the Jews were persecuted by the Nazis, he had to flee and he took asylum in America.
So, now, he recognised the dilemma that if he accepted the scientistic, not scientific, scientistic. Scientistic is the adjective of scientism. Scientism is the ideology that everything that is knowable can be known through science, alone.
Everything about us as persons is described by science. So, this idea is actually a profoundly… So, what happens is, that would mean that the Nazis were programmed to kill. And the Nazis killed 5-6 million Jews and 5-6 million other people in the Holocaust.
So, it would mean that they were just programmed to do that. Can we, if a murderer goes and kills someone, we hold them accountable? So, without free will, no relationship would sustain, no government would sustain, no system of justice would sustain. So, the existence of free will is implicit to our very basic understanding of ourselves and our understanding of others.
So, the materialistic world view tells us that we are simply like programmed machines. And the way our programming is, that is the way we will function. However, the spiritual world view tells us that we are not programmed machines.
We are owners of programmed machines. I am not the computer that is programmed in a particular way. I am the user of the computer.
Yes, my computer is presently programmed in a particular way. That means, my mind, my body, they think and act in a particular way. But, although it is programmed, it is also programmable.
So, we can change our programming. So, it is the spiritual world view which gives us an intellectual basis for understanding that we all can improve, we all can change ourselves. So, second point I was talking about accepting.
So, accepting does not mean just fatalistically thinking that this is the way I am, I cannot change. No. Accepting means that this is the computer that I have, this is the programming that I have.
And by default, I will function in a particular way. But, that does not mean I always have to function in that way. I can change.
So, by understanding the kind of programming I presently have, I can decide which programming I need to change and which programming I can use as it is. So, this acceptance, just like if you have a patient who comes, he has multiple complications, then you may look at, this is acute complication, this you have to treat right now. This is chronic, you can treat it afterwards.
And sometimes the patients have some incurable conditions, then you accept that this is what you are, but other things you can improve. Sometimes when patients develop some incurable conditions, what happens is very critical that whether they come to terms with accepting it or not. Once they accept it, initially say if somebody was, I have a friend, he lived a normal healthy life till the age of 18 and suddenly he got some brain problems and he lost his eyes.
For a person who has had eyes for 18 years, suddenly to lose the eyes, it is very disorienting, very distressing, it will be life shattering. But, some people just become so disappointed, so frustrated, they go into depression, they may become suicidal, but he just accepted it. This is what has happened to me.
I can’t see that’s a big problem, but that doesn’t mean my life is ruined. And he accepted that, he learned braille and now he is doing very well in his career, he’s got a very good job in a bank, he’s got his family. So it all began with acceptance.
So basically I talk about three things, acute, chronic and incurable. So like that, if you look at ourselves, there are certain things which are good about us, certain things which are not so good. And among the things which are not so good also, some things need urgent action.
Some things, yeah, we can work on it gradually. Some things may be very difficult to change. And they need not be changed also.
What need not be changed? Say for example, some people, you know, lifelong they crave, if only I was taller, why am I of this height only? Well, height is largely genetic. We can’t change it. And we accept it and we move on.
Our complexion, we can’t change it much. And there is no need to be craving for something which is largely unchangeable. So acceptance is realistic.
And then with this acceptance, we can learn where to focus my energy. See, without acceptance, our motion, our mind is always moving. Even when we are physically sitting at one place, the mind is thinking of this.
Now if you consider the wheel of a bike, when the wheel of a bike moves, the bike can go over a considerable distance. But if the wheel of the bike is moving while the brake is pressed, what will happen? There will only be friction, noise, and no motion. So our mind keeps moving constantly.
But when we move our mind, when there is no self-acceptance, then it is like we have pressed the brake. Why am I like this? So the mind is moving. But all that movement simply causes friction.
It simply causes frustration. And we don’t get anywhere in life. So we have to release the brake.
And releasing the brake, which is stopping our motion, releasing that brake is self-acceptance. This is how I am. I may not be able to change this, but that doesn’t mean I can’t change anything else.
There are many things about my life that I can change. This is acceptance. So O-A, I’ll go to S. S is strategise.
Strategise means, if I want to change, how do I go about doing it? Whenever any doctors are to treat, doctors have a plan. If this is a complicated disease, first we will say, get your, if you have diabetes, we’ll control your diabetes. Then we’ll do a surgery.
Then we will do this. Then we will do that. Strategy is required.
So like that, we all, when we are working on ourselves, we usually go to two extremes. One is, we try to improve ourselves. I’ll try to do like this.
I will maybe, I will make my life more planned, more organised. I will do this. I’ll do this.
I’ll do this. We plan. And sometimes what we do is, we plan to improve.
For example, all of us may feel that, I want to become more organised in my life. I’ll plan. I’ll do this in the morning, this in the afternoon, this in the evening.
And tomorrow I’ll do this. And we try to make plans. And then we go into micro-controlling.
And then when things don’t work according to our plan, just throw away the planner. See, nothing works. And then we just, and we just become completely disorganised.
And then when the exams come, or some urgent deadlines come, then we find a hundred things on top of our head. How am I going to do it? So, strategising means, that we have to learn what to focus on. We can’t control everything in life.
But just because we can’t control everything in life, doesn’t mean we can’t control anything in life. So, our mind is conditioned, it goes between these two extremes. Either I will control everything, and I’ll get everything right.
And if I can’t control anything, just forget it. Whatever happens, I’ll just do it. So, either there is, we try to have complete planning, which doesn’t work, or no planning, which also doesn’t work.
So, we need a balance. What do we mean by balance? In life, plans often don’t work. But planning works.
What is the difference between plans and planning? Plans are specific. In the morning I’ll do this, afternoon I’ll do this, evening I’ll do this. Now, we will plan like that, but suddenly some emergency comes up, something ad hoc comes up, we may not be able to do it.
But planning means, we have a long-term orientation. In this week, I will do this, one, two, three, four things. Now, when exactly I’ll do it, that may be variable.
So, planning overall gives us general sense of direction, where I want to go. And with that general sense of direction, we can decide specifically when we move in that direction, when we slow down. It’s like when we came here today, there’s a lot of traffic, because of which we got a little delayed.
Now, if I’m going along a particular direction, if there’s a lot of traffic, I may go slowly. If the traffic is not there, I can go faster. So, like that sometimes in our life, a lot of traffic comes up.
And when the traffic comes up, we may have to go slowly. We may have a plan, but we may not be able to do it. But at least, if we have done some planning, then after the traffic clears, then we can move faster.
If there’s no planning, then the mind chooses the path of least resistance. So, often the path of least resistance is, okay, I may have some studies to do, but I’ve not planned it. So, then, oh, today the period is off.
So, what do I do? Now I have one hour. What should I do? Maybe I can study. Maybe I can watch some movie.
Maybe I can see some sports. Maybe I can read some news. Or maybe I can just sleep for some time.
And what happens? Most of the time, we just choose the path of least resistance. So, strategising means we identify what is important for us and focus on that. Just like in treatment, there’s acute, chronic, incurable.
Focus on the acute. So, like that, we strategise. There is an American sociologist, Barry Schwartz.
He did a very interesting survey, and he categorised people into two categories. They’re optimisers and maximisers. So, what is an optimiser and maximiser? So, maximiser means whatever they want to get, they want to get the best in that.
So, for example, if a maximiser wants to purchase a new cell phone, they want to make sure that they get the best value for their money. So, they will look at all the models of cell phones that are there. They look at as many reviews as possible.
And then, at the end of it, they find, okay, this much money, this much specifications, this is the phone. They get it. And they actually get it.
And they found that optimisers, on the other hand, are people who decide, okay, I want to buy a new cell phone. Okay, in the next three days, I’ll look at what cell phone models are available and I’ll purchase one. So, they optimise.
I have many things to do in my life. And I will optimise. Optimise means balance everything.
Maximise means I want to get the best in everything. So, in general, surveys have found that the maximisers get better value for their money. Naturally, they spend more time.
But the maximisers are less happy than the optimisers. The optimisers are happier with what they purchase. Why is that? Because the maximisers spend so much time and energy and thought in trying to get a product.
So, there is enormous amount of expectation from the product. So, because their expectation is so high, and no product actually lives up to that expectation. So, they spend, sometimes some people spend six months to decide which phone to buy.
After six months, when they buy the phone, by that time, what has happened? They got a good phone, but some other model has come up with some new features. And this is not that good. One small problem comes in the phone.
Oh, what is this? So, first problem is they have too much expectations. And second is they always have the nagging fear. If I had explored more, I might have got something better.
So, because of these two things, because of too much expectation from what they have got, and the fear, maybe there might be something better out there. They are never satisfied. On the other hand, optimisers, okay, this is the phone, I have got this phone, it has these features, and if it does not have, fine, this is the phone I have chosen, just take it and move on with life.
So, strategising is also like that. Sometimes in our life, we may have certain weaknesses, certain problems, we just obsess over them too much. Why am I like this? Why am I like this? Just forget it.
If you can improve well and good, if you cannot improve, move on in life. It is not that one limitation defines us or destroys us. We all have certain limitations, we can move on with it.
So, we all need to, strategising means not becoming maximisers. It is not necessary that we have to get the best in everything. Overall, we need to bring out our best.
We do not have to necessarily be the best in any one particular thing. Now, being the best is not as important as being our best. Being the best means I want to be the first in the class in the subject or in this thing.
We may or may not be. But, if we are our best, then that is what is going to help us grow. So, strategising means deciding what is important and what is not so important.
And, such strategising often requires a certain amount of external support. External support means what? That, if we want to change ourselves in any way, want to improve ourselves in any way, it is not just internal. There is an external aid required.
Suppose, there is somebody who is an alcoholic. And, that person is trying to recover from alcoholism. If that person’s house is right next to a bar, then for that person to give up alcohol is going to be extremely difficult.
Why? Because, what has happened? Our habits, I will give another example to illustrate this. Say, if this floor is inclined like this, then if water falls on that floor, it is naturally going to move in this direction. Just if I say, I don’t want the water to move in that direction, my willpower is not enough.
My willpower is not going to stop the water from moving in that direction. Why? Because, the floor is inclined like that. So, similarly, we could say our mental floor, the floor of our mind is also inclined in particular ways.
Some of us may be inclined to thinking negatively. So, for an alcoholic, the mental floor is inclined in the direction of alcohol. So, now, if I don’t want the water to flow in this direction, there are three things which I need to do.
First is restriction. I might build a small wall which blocks the flow in this direction. So, similarly, if there is something which we decide, I don’t want to do this, I want to give this up, then we need external support for that.
We need to have some blockage externally. Without that, it’s almost impossible to stop ourselves because the inclination has become like that. Nowadays, with devices, with the phone available for everyone, sometimes people just become addicted to their phones.
And it may be just surfing for news, surfing on Facebook updates, or seeing obscene images on the net, or whatever it may be. Just get addicted. And this kind of device addiction is actually far more dangerous than any other form of addiction.
Because for all other forms of addiction, if somebody is addicted to drugs, to drinking, to smoking, or whatever else, you have to go somewhere and get that object. But with respect to the internet, that is right there, wherever we are. So, rather than we going to the temptation, the temptation is right where we are.
And that’s why some kind of restriction is extremely important. So if we find that I want to study, I want to do something constructive, and I’m spending too much time on on just on surfing on the net, on doing this, on social media, whatever, then we might just use some external support. Have a wall.
That is, we have an internet filter by which we cut off access for some time of the day or whatever. So the idea is we need support. We can’t do it just by willpower.
Willpower alone is not enough to stop the water’s flow in a particular direction when the floor is inclined. Like that sometimes we may just feel I don’t have willpower. It’s not a question of willpower.
It’s a question of strategy. Unless we have a good strategy in place, willpower is not going to help. I’ll come back to this point of complementing willpower with other things a little later.
And the O-A-S-I I is second last point I’ll take. This is internalise. Internalise means we have to ourselves become convinced this is what I want to do.
Sometimes we decide I want to wake up early in the morning and I want to study. Now the alarm rings we wake up. And in the wake up something inside us says go to sleep.
Go to sleep. And what happens? Just knock down the alarm go to sleep and then we wake up after one hour. Hey what did I do? I was supposed to wake up at this time.
So what has happened is we have not internalised the conviction. So strategise is about external actions. They’re important.
But we have to internalise. So without internalisation no matter how much we do externally it’s not going to help. We have to be ourselves convinced.
There is the principle that a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. So our mind is like that. I may decide this is not good.
But unless we have accepted it we may verbalise it we may say it but we have to be internally convinced about it. Duryodhana in the Mahabharata says that He says I know what is Dharma I know what is good but I don’t feel like doing it. I know what is bad I know what is Dharma but I don’t feel like giving it up.
So now what has happened when he says I don’t feel like giving it up it is that we have our emotions and we have our intentions. We have our emotions which are our feelings. I feel like doing this I don’t feel like doing this.
And we have our intentions. This is what I want to do. And commitment or dedication Dedication means to subordinate our emotion to our intention.
Whether I feel like it or I don’t feel like it I am going to do it. People who are achievers in any field they need to focus. And that means whether they feel like it or they don’t feel like it they do it.
So to the extent we recognise that inside me whatever I am feeling it is not necessarily my feeling. See everything inside me is not me. This is very important to understand.
Say I sit on my computer and I have gone to a particular site to read something on that site. And suddenly some other window pops up over there. Now that pop-up has happened on my computer.
But is that something which I wanted to go to? No. It has popped up on my computer but it is not what I wanted to go to. So when it has popped up if I am not very careful I will click on it and I will go there.
But if I am careful I am not interested. Just cross it off. So like that just as if externally something pops up on our computer we choose whether I want to go here or not go there.
So like that things pop up in our mind. And what pops up often are feelings. I don’t feel like doing this.
I don’t want to do this. Yes, we feel like that. But our feelings come and our feelings go.
So we cannot let our life be determined only by our feelings. When we are feelings driven we will not be able to do anything substantial in our life. In many romantic movies they show about how when a boy sees a girl as soon as they see each other they feel as if some electric current has passed through their body.
And they say there is love at first sight. Now yes, there may be some attraction that may be there. And the two boy and girl are attracted to each other and then they say you know I cannot live without you.
They fight against the whole world. I cannot live without you. And then most of the movies end with how both of them fight against the world and they unite.
And movies claim happily ever after. But if you look at their life after one year, two years what happens? The same two people who said I cannot live without you. Now they say I cannot live with you.
What has happened? I cannot live with you. What has happened over here? It is simply driven by feelings. The same feelings that make them feel yes, this person is so irresistibly attractive.
After some time the same feelings what they say this person has this fault this problem that problem. So from a distance people look very attractive but when they come close to each other then they start seeing their faults. And then the mind just goes to the opposite.
So even relationships can’t be sustained if they are driven by feelings. Now feelings are important in relationships no doubt. But if our relationships are based only on our emotions they are not sustainable.
Because today I will feel I like this person tomorrow I will feel I don’t like this person. Our emotions are very flickering. And that’s why if we want to have a sustainable relationship what matters is not just emotion what matters is intention.
This is the relationship which I want to cultivate and yes this person may have some problems may have some limitations may have some defects but I overlook it. Because of that I dislike it. But I overlook it and I focus on the good in the person.
So there are emotions which come but there is intention. Often people think of love only in terms of emotion. And I feel love for you.
I don’t feel love for you. But love is not just a feeling. Many of you you will grow up you will get married you will have children.
Now if a baby wakes up early in the morning or late in the night the mother may not feel like getting up. But whether she feels like it or she will get up and fondle the baby caress the baby comfort it maybe sing a lullaby put the baby to sleep. Why does she do this? Because there is that intention.
This is my baby I have to take care of it. So in any field of life if we are to grow we have to learn to subordinate emotion to intention. To subordinate emotion to intention.
Otherwise nothing can sustain. Whether it is our career whether it is our relationships any aspect of our life our mind and its feelings will just drive us here there and everywhere. Ultimately we will get nowhere.
And this is where the last point what is spiritualization. So internalisation means internally we have to develop the intention. This is what I am going to do.
Whether I feel like it or I don’t feel like it. Spiritualization is where we connect with a reality higher than ourselves. Sometimes you may see that some person is cycling and that person is going at a particular speed.
But if they catch on to a truck now don’t try this it is dangerous but if they catch on to a truck what happens the truck is moving along and the truck’s momentum moves them along. So what has happened they have linked to something which is stronger than themselves. Their strength of their feet and their pedalling can get them to move at a particular speed.
But when they link with something stronger a truck which is moving faster they move faster and they move with lesser effort. So similarly we all can work to improve ourselves and we should. But we have access to a power that is far greater than ourselves and that power is the power of God.
That God the Bhagavad Gita explains is present in our own hearts and He wants to help us to overcome our obstacles. He has given us certain talents and He wants us to develop those talents. He wants us to be the best that we can be and He can help us overcome whatever negativities are there within us.
So if this room if say this programme was at night and suddenly the power goes off when the power goes off I can curse at the power I can curse at the darkness I can punch the darkness I can kick the darkness I can maybe get a knife and stab at the darkness none of that is going to help. What do I need to do? I need to get a light source somewhere. I can use my own cell phone to turn on the light.
So when there is darkness there is a process for getting light and once the light comes in I can see even in the dark I am moving and there is a step over there and I stumble and fall and there is a bench over there I stub my toe on the bench I injure myself but as soon as the light turns on then I can see ok this is the direction I should go this is the direction I should not go. Like that at present our inner world is shrouded with darkness and when certain emotions come up within us I feel like doing this I don’t feel like doing this now whether those emotions are good for us or not so good for us which ideas coming from within are to be accepted and which are to be rejected that we are not able to distinguish but when we turn towards God when we devote ourselves to him when we pray to him when we meditate on him this turns on our inner light our inner world becomes illumined with knowledge the darkness of negativity the darkness of anxiety the darkness of insecurity all this goes away how does it go away what exactly happens by spiritualization and talk about it in two terms one is that the inner darkness can be in terms of fears what if this goes wrong what if that goes wrong what if that goes wrong we all have so many fears nowadays some of you may have known that terrorists in Europe especially they are using vehicles as terrorist weapons driving into crowded places and killing people just a couple of days ago in Barcelona an attack like that happened so now I just met one person the person was telling that after they saw a TV a video of a person walking of a vehicle being rammed into a footpath crowded footpath and people getting killed that person become so paranoid that whenever I am walking on foot on a street I feel fearful now fear is healthy fearfulness is unhealthy fear means when there is danger it alerts us to danger but fearfulness we constantly live with fearfulness this may go wrong that may go wrong that may go wrong how will we live? we will become paralysed so what happens when we start becoming spiritual we understand God is ultimately in control now if there is a patient and there is a doctor on the patient’s perspective you know I am getting this cough over here I am getting this pain over here I am getting this fever things may be going wrong but if the doctor is prescribing a medicine properly doctor knows when you are taking this treatment sometimes these symptoms may still appear so the patient’s point of view patient may think I am sick things are out of control from the doctor’s point of view things are still in control things are not healed but things are in control same way we understand that when we spiritualise our consciousness we understand this world is like a hospital and all of us are patients and God is supreme physician who is in control things may still go wrong but but things are in control things are working according to a plan sometimes the patient may just not have enough specialised knowledge to know exactly how the medical plan is working the doctor has that knowledge so when we spiritualise our consciousness our fear goes down because we understand that there is some power higher than my power which is in control of things sometimes things may go wrong but if we stay connected with God God can bring good even out of the bad bad things may happen but worse than bad things happening is our bad reaction to those things if we learn to react positively then we will be able to prevent the bad thing from becoming worse so many times if you look in our life when a bad thing happens it is it’s a bad thing but it’s our reaction to it that makes things much worse so when we understand that God in control instead of trying to how can I deal with this just turn towards God pray to him connect with him how do we connect with him many different ways one of the most powerful ways to connect with him is through mantra meditation mantra meditation we chant this mantra Hare Krishna mantra Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Ram Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare so what happens by this mantra meditation is that our consciousness gets protected from negativity just like if there is an infected area where a disease is an epidemic you take a vaccine what the vaccine does is it protects us from the disease so like that when we spiritualise our consciousness through the meditation on mantras we become protected so if you just start chanting this mantra with proper philosophical understanding you will find that the anxiety will go down the anxiety the worry the insecurity will go down so first is anxiety about what may happen and I said what may happen that is not in our control how we react is in our control so that is the second part in which I will conclude this part of spiritualization how spiritualization helps us see when we become when somebody insults us we become very angry we shout back at that person we become verbally abusive physically abusive and afterwards why did I do that we just become so angry and we can ruin our lives even in sports we see this sometimes sports players just lose their head at a critical moment they get angry and they just lose so anger is very undesirable so how do we control anger when we spiritualise our consciousness when we chant the mantras what will happen is our inner world will become illuminated that means after we get angry then we understand this anger was bad I should not have become angry but if at that time we could understand this is not good let me calm down let me delete this afterwards if we could react that way it would be so much better it is not that we have to accept abusive behaviour but we have to respond in a way that makes things better not worse so suppose we are walking along the road and a snake bites us in America people still have that conception that India is the land of snake charmers and American tourists are given the warning if you are going on streets of India be careful that a snake will come and bite you actually statistics show that the number of people who die in America in road accidents is more than the number of people who die in India because of snake bites but still that fear is there in people’s minds snakes will come and bite but suppose if somebody is going along the road a snake bites snake bite is very painful suppose I see snake snake how dare you bite me I am going to kill you snake is running after the snake I catch the snake and pound it with my feet even if I succeed in killing the snake what is going to happen I am killing myself the poison is flowing more and more through my blood and it’s killing me so when a snake has bitten me my first priority is not to get even my first priority is to get safe get out of there remove the poison from my system afterwards I can decide how to deal with it afterwards so like that when anger comes within us that’s like a snake that has bitten us so if our inner world is lit properly and spiritual knowledge spiritual practises will light our inner world when that happens then we will understand okay right this stage what can I do to rectify if I try to become vindictive if I try to take revenge it’s only going to make things worse so when that inner light comes in this is not a healthy reaction this is a healthy reaction that intelligence will come automatically earlier I talked about how we have to consciously cultivate the intelligence that is important I talked about the intention but the magic of spirituality is when we connect with God through the study of spiritual wisdom literature like Bhagavad Gita through the chanting of mantras we’ll find that the right intelligence will automatically come within us this is what I should do this is what I should do the Bhagavad Gita says God gives us intelligence from within and then we can make wise choices let me move back now and then let me decide how to act so this way when we spiritualise our consciousness we’ll find layers of power within us which we didn’t even know we had things which we wanted to good habits which we wanted to adapt bad habits which we wanted to give up both of those which earlier we thought were very difficult they’ll become much easier how will they become easier not that they will the struggle will go away but we will become more alert to realise before we do the action not regret after we do the action that inner light which comes by spirituality the inner light that comes by spirituality gives us helps us to realise before we act not regret after we act and that’s how our efforts for self-transformation self-improvement they can become much much more positive much much more productive so every one of us we have a god given destiny and we are meant to fulfil our destiny we are meant to be the best that we can be and we don’t we can be by connecting with god god will help us when we spiritualise our consciousness whatever our talents whatever our abilities are they are currently choked because of the negativity and the darkness within us but when we connect with spirituality spiritualise our consciousness and that darkness gets removed the choking of our inner potential is no longer there and when it is released then every one of us can become the very best that we can so I will summarise what I spoke today I spoke about learning to live with the mind and to change the mind I focused on the acronym what is the acronym OASIS OASIS what is O OBSERVE we all observe ourselves in the mirror to see how good we look but actually more important is our appearance is our substance that means we understand what my talents are what my interests are what my limitations are just like a patient doctor when diagnosing observes the patient so in observation we understand quite often that if we don’t observe we are simply trying to be something which we are not we all want to improve but our improvement is not that we have to become a xerox copy of someone else we don’t have to imitate someone else our improvement is we want to become the best that we can be so observe observing ourselves objectively is the first step in that otherwise we are simply trying to boost ourselves oh how good I am how good I am or beating ourselves how bad I am how stupid I am avoid both those emotions objectively observe that’s the first step second is acceptance we all have certain limitations and if we keep denying that if we keep resenting that then we waste our energy it’s like we have a vehicle the engine is on the wheels are moving but lack of self acceptance means I press the brake just the energy gets wasted and the vehicle gets ruined because of friction and dissipation of energy so acceptance doesn’t mean it’s pessimism it is realism I accept the glass is empty I can fill it not just like a patient who has got a serious disease unless they accept it if they are denying it they will not take any treatment so acceptance is what helps us to move on and when we accept ourselves that releases our mental energy certain conditions chronic certain acute chronic certain incurable so like that we observe ourselves certain things I need to urgently change certain things I can change gradually certain things this may not be possible for me to change like say our height our complexion certain things we just we can’t change it we accept it and rather than resenting it we just focus on the positives and there are positives within us so I talked about optimisers and maximisers so maximisers want the best in every single thing and because of that they spend so much energy on one thing that they end up neglecting other things and even in that one thing they feel that they they have so much high expectations that they feel disappointed and they also regret that somebody might be better than them some other product might have been better so like that when we are trying to improve ourselves we need to be optimisers maximisers if just one problem I have one limitation I have I have spent all my time and energy you know why don’t I look good why don’t I speak so fluently why don’t I do this why can’t I do that just let that drain our self esteem drain and destroy our self confidence even if we improve still that person is still better than me and we feel dissatisfied no we work in a proportionate way so strategising means we sometimes like I talked about planning sometimes we go towards micro planning and sometimes no planning so rather than have a balance that plans may not work but planning works we have general direction in our life and just like the traffic is more we go slowly like that sometimes the traffic in our life many other ad hoc emergency things come up we slow down but then when the traffic is clear we can move faster if we have not done basic planning then whenever we get some time also the mind will choose the path of least resistance and we will get we will get caught we will slide down so then with respect to this strategising for changing I talked about the spiritual dimension that is important that the materialistic or the scientific world view is that we are simply programme machines and Einstein recognised the problem and the Jews could not be considered responsible for killing millions of people our all relationships systems of justice they are all based on the presumption that we have freedom so spiritual wisdom tells us that we are not programme machines we are owners of programme machines but they are also programmable machines so I talked about how consciousness is not centred in the brain the body mind and soul are like the hardware software and the user so the brain is the centre of perception perceptions come into the brain but they are not processed they are not experienced in the brain so just like a security chief cameras from various places they give their images in a computer and the computer integrates them and presents them to the security chief so like that our five senses give inputs and we the place where the input comes that is the mind and we the soul is the observer and just as a browser may have certain default settings based on repeated usage so we have certain default settings those are our interests those are those are our inclinations now we can change these so in that we talked about there is strategise and there is internalise so like the default settings I said first is that the water is flowing in a particular direction willpower alone is not enough I need some external wall to stop the water like that if we find that there is some habit which we want to give up some good habit we want to cultivate we need external support systems for that say alcoholic cannot stay next to a bar person addicted to internet cannot have free access to the internet and expect that I will be able to control myself we need external support of course external support alone is not enough but it is a must if I am the same people who say I cannot live without you relationships career parenting nothing can be sustained if we just leave it on our emotions determination means that we subordinate our emotions to our intentions and how do we do this? that is spiritualization last is when our emotions come we think this is what I feel like doing this is what I will do but that’s because internally we are dark we don’t understand these emotions are just short term my intention is much more important so spiritualization it illuminates our inner territory and it helps us see this is really important for me this is not so important for me it gives us access to a higher power it’s like a cyclist catching a truck can move faster like that our journey towards self-improvement can move much faster when we connect ourselves with God and I discussed two ways this happens one is when bad things happen or the fear of bad things happening is there that can make us paranoid paralysed so fear is good it protects us from danger but fearfulness disempowers us so when we understand that this world is like a hospital and God is like a doctor in control so even if things are going wrong if the doctor’s plan is there doctor will cure the patient immediately so like that God will bring good out of the bad what is important is we don’t worry about the things going wrong we should worry more that I don’t react wrongly so if a snake has bitten me I can’t get even with the snake I have to get safe from the have to safe from snake I have to get safe from the snake I have to safe from I have to get safe from the snake I have to get safe from the snake I have to get safe from the snake I have to get safe from the snake I have to get safe from the snake I have to get safe from the snake I have to get safe snake I have to safe from have to get safe from the snake I have to get from the snake I have to get safe from the snake I have to get