To think or not to think – 4 reflections for a happy mind

[Talk at Bhakti Lounge, Wellington New Zealand]

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I spoke on the topic of to think or not to think reflections for a happy mind I spoke basically on four E’s does anyone remember those four E’s education experimentation evaluation and elevation yeah thank you so in education I spoke about how thought has two different meanings some stimulus that pops up within us and something which we systematically reflect on and then I talked about how we have so much advanced knowledge about the outer world but at the level of the inner world we are experiencing a lot of distress so what is happening where do thoughts come from how do thoughts have so much power on us so to understand that I offered a model of the self from the Bhagavad Gita that our existence is three level body, mind and soul like the hardware, software and user so we are advancing and improving the hardware but the software is getting corrupted with negative thoughts, emotions and desires and then I talked about experimentation with the thought experiment where we looked at how we can see the inner screen and we can see what is on the inner screen but we cannot see who is seeing the inner screen so that inner screen is the mind then the we are the soul, the inner seer to the extent we mix these two up to that extent we will get carried away by whatever thoughts come on us but to the extent we understand that the inner screen and the inner seer are different to the extent we can evaluate how this inner screen is normally meant to act like a window to the outer world but sometimes it starts acting like a TV and it distracts us so just as looking at the beautiful greenery and suddenly I saw a gorilla because the screen window had changed into a TV so like that for us it happens and suddenly our mood may change we may get agitated so when this inner screen becomes like a TV showing the bad things that have happened in the past we end up with depression when it starts becoming like a movie screen showing the bad things that may happen in the future we end up with anxiety but if we can get it back focus on the present so that’s what evaluation is this for real what actually is happening for evaluating that I give the metaphor of an umpire the umpire observes all the players who are appealing but doesn’t get carried away by any appeal the umpire evaluates the appeal based on merit, similarly whatever thoughts pop up within us we can learn to evaluate them on their merit and for that we need to be spiritually situated we need to understand that I am a soul different from the thoughts that are popping up and this becomes easier when evaluation becomes easier when there is elevation so meditation is the practice by which our consciousness rises to the spiritual level and we experience peace and joy from the spiritual level of reality and then when we have that inner security and inner satisfaction then disruptive events happening in the outer world or disruptive thoughts coming in on our inner screen they don’t affect us that much and I concluded with the story of this boy who had earlier been suicidal after the breakup but now again when there was a breakup he became spiritual and a depressing experience became turned into an enriching experience so life may determine our problems but we can determine their size by learning to rise to the spiritual level we can face life with positivity, maturity and experience satisfaction. Thank you very much Thank you so much