Understanding, identifying and managing the mind

[Talk to Yoga students at the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago, Chicago, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Jai. Jai Guruji.
Jai. Jai Guruji. Jai.
Jai Guruji. Jai. Jai.
Jai Guruji. Jai. Jai Guruji.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
One aspect of yoga is the physical aspect for shaping and healing our body. Our existence is three dimensional. The yoga texts from ancient India such as the Patanjali Yoga Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita describe that we have three levels to our being, body, mind and soul.
We could understand this with a simple comparison with a computer system. We can have the hardware, the software and the user. The hardware is like the body.
The software like the mind. And the soul is the user. And in today’s age of scientific progress, we have worked phenomenally to improve the physical aspect of reality.
So I come from India and in America, in the western world in general, the level of material progress is huge. And while we have improved the physical aspect of reality, somehow the psychological aspect has not kept pace. Rather it seems that while the physical aspect has improved, the psychological aspect has regressed.
Martin Luther King put his finger on this almost half a century ago when he said we have guided missiles and misguided men. We have developed the ability to guide and control things in the external world but somehow in our inner world there seem to be a lot of misguiding forces and these hurt not just other people but most of all they hurt us. We all may have experienced sometime or other of some people who are always very negative.
Some people find solution to every problem. And some people find problems with every solution. Now if we are with such people, they are critical of this, critical of that, critical of that.
They are so negative that just being in their presence after sometime starts draining our energy. How many of you have encountered any person like this in your life? People who just drain your energy. Yes, thank you.
It is said that some people bring happiness wherever they go. And some people bring happiness whenever they go. So some people who are very negative, we try to avoid their association.
However, the Bhagavad Gita tells us that there is a source of negativity inside us itself. And that is our mind. As I mentioned earlier, mental health problems are increasing rapidly although we are having enormous amount of material progress.
In fact, mental health problems seem to be more where countries are more materially progressive. And there could be many reasons for this. But going back to the software metaphor, the software is the mind, the hardware is the body, the soul is the user.
If we have a very good computer system, but in which we do not have the software functioning well, if the software is corrupted by viruses, then we would not be able to function. The device would become useless. And something similar has happened for not just one or two, a few thousand, but millions of people where their own mind, and it’s not just some strange people out there, you can say our own mind, our own mind works against us.
When we talk about negative emotions, they can be of a wide spectrum. The two broad category of mental health problems that people face in today’s world are depression and anxiety. When we have anxiety, worry, stress, tension, whatever be the name we use for it, that refers to primarily the fear of what all may go wrong in the future.
And worry is like the interest. We pay on loans we haven’t yet taken. The problem may never come.
But our mind goes on a hyper drive and makes us fearful, paralysed, paranoid. So what exactly is this mind? Why does it give us negative emotions? And what can we do about it? So I’ll talk about this in three main parts. First is understanding.
Second is identifying. And third is managing. So understanding, as I started this three level model, body, mind and soul.
So just as if we have used a particular computer, a particular phone, to visit a particular website repeatedly. Somebody has visited sports.com repeatedly. Then say today they come for a spiritual programme, and they say I want to know a little bit about spirituality.
And they go on their browser, they type spirituality. They start with SP. And what does the browser do? What will it do? Sports.com. Now why? They wanted to go to spirituality.
But because they visited sports.com so many times in the past, that becomes autocomplete. Whatever choices we have made in the past, they become stored in the computer’s memory, and they come up as propositions, as autocompletes. Our mind works according to a similar principle.
Whatever actions we have done in the past, they get stored within the mind. And they come up as propositions. That’s why if we may decide, if whenever we face some difficult situation, if we may have a tendency to get very worried, or very fearful, or depressed, or provoked, angry, and we may say this is not a healthy response.
I don’t want to feel like this, think like this, act like this. But that response will come up. Why? Because it is stored as a preference from our past choices.
So it’s a three-step process. Whatever action we do, that becomes stored as an impression in the mind. And that impression comes as a proposition.
So action, impression, proposition. So the Bhagavad Gita states that we need to observe our mind and learn to discern which of its propositions to accept and which of its propositions to reject. uddhared ātmanātmānaṁ nātmānaṁ avasādayet ātmaiva yātmanobandhur ātmaiva ripurātmanahā So elevate yourself with the mind, don’t degrade yourself with the mind.
That means the Bhagavad Gita is urging us to identify the mind as something different from us. And then to identify whether what that voice inside our head is saying is beneficial or non-beneficial. And then act accordingly.
So to get a sense of how we can identify the mind, let’s do a simple thought experiment. So wherever you are, you can sit comfortably and close your eyes. And with your eyes closed, you can take three deep breaths.
One, three. Now with your eyes closed, as you feel around your body, you can notice which part of your body has the maximum tension, the stress. Maybe it is your back, your hand, your leg, your shoulders.
Just notice it and get it to relax. While you are doing this, you may notice that as you can find one part of the body, relax it. Then look at some other part of the body which is also tense and try to relax it.
Now when you, if you find that say your foot is tense and you are trying to relax the foot, you feel the sensation coming from the foot through your body. But with your closed eyes, you can also visualise your foot. Now when you visualise something, it may be your foot, it may be your hands or anything else, you see that visualised object on something like a screen in front of you.
As you look at the screen, you may see this room on it, you may see your home, your loud one, your car, your phone, whatever it is that you specifically see on the screen. Sometimes this image on the screen, right now when you try to focus on it as a visual object, it may come as a stream of images coming and going or it might just be a dull haze of colours. Whatever you see, you see it on that screen.
Now try to take a step back and catch sight of who is it that is looking at the screen. Repeat, you can see a screen inside, there is somebody who is looking at the screen. So try to take a step back and look at the seer of that screen.
No matter how many times you try to step back, the seer steps back with you. What you are looking for is what you are looking with. You who are that seer is the soul and the screen is your mind.
You can take one deep breath and then you can open your eyes. So this inner screen which is in front of us, right now when you are looking at me and I am looking at you, this screen is functioning like a window. That’s how you are able to see me and I am able to see you.
Normally whenever perception occurs, these three things, the outer scene, the inner screen and the inner seer have to be in a straight line. If right now suddenly a thought comes in, where did I put my car key? I can’t find it in my pocket. Did I lose it somewhere? A thought comes in your mind, it comes on your inner screen and immediately a movie may start on your inner screen.
What if I lose my car key? How will I go back home? And then if this stream of thoughts starts coming up, then you will not hear anything that is spoken. Although you will hear, you will not hear. Sound will enter into the ears but it will not reach you.
So basically the mind is the medium through which the outer world connects with the inner seer. And this inner screen which is meant to act like a window can at any moment start acting like a TV. And the moment it starts acting like a TV, it can show us any movie.
A few months ago I was in California at a friend’s place, a devotee’s place and he had a big house and in the background there was a lush greenery. So we were sitting and talking about the Bhagavad Gita and looking through a window, a big window and looking at the greenery. And then suddenly I noticed some huge dark shape was coming in from the distance.
I looked closer and I saw that it was a huge ape, something like what you might see in the Planet of the Apes. And that ape then raised its fist and about to smash the window. And I got a little alarmed and looked at this friend.
And he was grinning. And I looked at him again and I noticed that he was fiddling something in his hands. And then I saw that he had a remote and he smiled at me and he pressed the remote and the ape disappeared.
So then he explained to me that he had designed that window in such a way that by pressing some buttons, that window could change into a TV screen. And he had arranged just for entertainment that whatever was the background to be seen outside in the window, in that same background he had created a video footage with a giant ape seen over there. So that can seem like a technological miracle that a TV screen and a window appearing in the same thing.
But there is a far greater miracle inside us that our mind is versatile. It can sometimes act like a window and sometimes it can become like a TV screen. And normally when we watch TV, the TV affects us in two ways.
One is through the sight and through the sound. So similarly, inside us we see various images and we hear various voices. And based on the kind of actions that we have done in the past, certain kinds of movies start off very rapidly.
Certain kinds of movies just require a small stimulus and then start off. So if somebody has had a lot of bad things happen to them in their lives, then as soon as one thing starts going wrong, then immediately a movie starts inside them. Oh no, things always go wrong.
This goes wrong, that goes wrong, that goes wrong. Life keeps treating me badly. And this inner screen which starts showing a movie of all the bad things that have happened in the past, that ends up making the person depressed.
Last year I was in Central New Jersey and speaking at a mental health care centre to the mental health care providers. Because they also need care. When taking care of everyone, they get drained.
So one of the professionals over there became a friend and he was telling me that he is a suicide helpline counsellor. If people want to commit suicide, then they call him and he has to speak some words to give them some solace so that they may not commit suicide. So he told me he got a call once from a girl after she had taken the pills.
She took it and said, I don’t want to die. Fortunately, they rushed an ambulance in time and she was saved. But afterwards, when he was talking with her, he asked her, what happened? She said, why did you attempt suicide? She was in a relationship with a boy and she had called that boy and that boy did not pick up her phone call.
And because of that she attempted suicide. I said, this is ridiculous. So many times we don’t answer anyone’s phone, people’s phone, even people whom we know.
We might just be busy. But why would anyone commit suicide just because of an unanswered phone call? That’s because the situation itself might seem unprovocative. But the mind took that as a trigger and started a movie.
So, in the past also your relationship didn’t work out. He doesn’t pick up my phone call, that means he’s probably left me. Maybe he’s with someone else already.
Maybe I’ll be alone. Even if I form future relationships, people will also leave me again. And I’ll always be alone.
All my friends will be in healthy, happy, steady relationships. And I’ll be alone. And they will all have pity on me secretly.
What a pitiable life I will have. Why live such a pitiable life? Better end my life. So, the mind, when it starts off a movie, it can be extremely dangerous.
It can not only decrease the quality of our life, it can literally end our life. So, in terms of this TV metaphor, when the inner screen becomes a TV that starts showing us all the things that may go wrong in the past, then we get depression. Depression can of course be a clinical condition which may require medical treatment.
But those are rare cases. Most depression is not biological. It is just psychological.
Conversely, this inner screen can become a TV that goes into the future and shows us all the things that may go wrong in the future. And when that happens, we get overcome by fear. In Mumbai, from where I come, the prominent medical college, and there was a girl over there who was the university topper.
First in the university for all 7 of her 8 semesters. And in the 8th semester also, she studied very well and she was on course to be the topper. But just a few days before the exam, a thought came in her mind.
What if I don’t come first? What if I don’t come first? I have built such a reputation. Everybody respects me as a university first rank holder. I am going to be the gold medallist.
If I don’t come first, it will be such a disgrace. And just that one thought went on and on and on and on. And on the night before her exam, she ended up committing suicide.
For no reason at all. She was well prepared. But that is the dangerous power of the mind.
So negative emotions can have not just negative consequences, they can have fatal consequences. So how do we deal with this? I talked about understanding the mind and I am talking about identifying. Identify means, when we are analysing these tragic incidents, this is not just to give a litany of horror stories.
It is just to explain how when the mind starts working, we need to identify the mind instead of identifying with the mind. When the mind says, Hey, this went wrong. That will also go wrong.
That will also go wrong. Everything goes wrong in life. Your life is rotten.
Destiny is against you. Nothing is going to work. Now, when this sort of messages start coming to us, we need to identify them as coming from the mind.
Not identify with them. I gave two examples earlier. Like if a person is very negative, then as soon as we start feeling our energy getting drained by the negativity, we distance ourselves from them.
Similarly, if you understand that just because the mind is saying something, that does not necessarily mean it is true. Thoughts can have terrible consequences. Thoughts can have terrific power to change things for the positive or the negative.
But initially, thoughts are simply thoughts. That means thoughts themselves don’t have power till we give them power. We give them power by giving them our attention.
By giving them our focus. What do you mean? What do I mean when I say that thoughts don’t have power till we give them power? That means that there is a physical reality and there is a thought. Now, the physical reality is there.
Like say, for this girl, the boy had not answered the phone call. That is the physical reality. You might say that is a very frivolous example or a very extreme example.
But we might say somebody has got some disease. And now when they got the disease, the disease is a physical reality. But the thought that might arise, Oh, I got this disease now.
Will I ever get cured? How much is it going to cost? If I don’t have the money, I’ll become bankrupt. Oh, will my loved ones be with me or will I be alone battling with this disease? So many thoughts may trigger. And the thoughts may be triggered by the situation.
But the thoughts are different from the situation. And sometimes these thoughts may be useful. Sometimes the thoughts may not be useful.
But thoughts in themselves don’t have power till we give them power by our attention. And some thoughts can be completely untrue. And more important than whether a thought is true or untrue, we have to focus on whether a thought is beneficial or unbeneficial.
If somebody has got sickness, somebody has got some disease, a debilitating disease, then that’s a fact of life. But when they focus on that disease, they keep thinking of that disease, then that drains them out completely. When I was about one, my parents, I was in a remote place in India.
My parents took me to a doctor to give the anti-polio vaccine. And somehow the doctor had been a little careless. And the vaccine was not preserved care properly.
So the vaccine, instead of protecting me from polio, the vaccine ended up giving me polio. So since then I have had difficulty in walking. So over the years I got used to it.
And after I became a spiritual teacher, I was once invited to a group of physically handicapped people to give a talk to them. I talked with them and after that, I gave a talk and then I was talking with them after that one-to-one. And when I was talking with them one-to-one, the first thing that struck me was many of them were still fighting battles that were already lost.
They were fighting battles that were already lost. That means that they had some physical limitation. And these were not people who were born with some physical handicap.
Most of them had got some accident because of which they had become limited in their mobility. So they were still resenting why did I get this accident? Why did this happen to me? Why can’t I move naturally? That’s already happened. Can’t be changed.
So now it’s true, you have this disease. You have this limitation. But dwelling on it, it’s true, but dwelling on it is not beneficial.
You have to accept it and move on. So just because a thought is true does not necessarily make it beneficial. It’s true.
For me, because my parents never made me feel in any way inferior although I had the handicap. They encouraged me to develop myself intellectually. They would tell me that whatever you lack physically, you have more than that intellectually.
So for me, I have to use crutches for walking but that’s just a fact of life that I hardly think about. Just like some of us wear glasses. Now without glasses, we are not going to see properly.
But if you hardly think about the glasses. So just similarly for me, crutches are like that. But I realise for many of the people who are physically handicapped, now crutches are little less common than glasses.
They are much more noticeable and much more limitations come because of the physical handicap. But the point is that if we are fighting battles that are already lost then we have very little energy left to fight the battles that can be won. So the point I am making here is thoughts get energy to the extent we give them our attention.
So if something bad has happened in our life it could be a disease that limits us. It could be a professional situation by which we have lost our job. It could be a relational upheaval by which some loud one is going away from us.
Whatever it is, that may be a fact and a thought may arise out of it. But the more we dwell on it if it has already happened, if it can’t be changed thinking of it only drains our energy. That’s why before identifying with the thought we need to identify the thought.
So for all of us, if we do some homework, we can find out what are the typical movies that our mind shows. The mind doesn’t delude us in infinite ways. Just like we have visited a few sites in the past and those come as auto-completes.
So for some of us, it may be depression. Some of us, it may be anxiety. Some of us, it may be loneliness.
Some of us, it may be self-pity. Some of us, it may be guilt because of some mistake that we have made in the past. For some of us, it may be just anger.
For some of us, it may be craving. So whenever some stimulus comes up immediately a chain of thoughts starts off. We start seeing a movie and we get carried away with that.
So as soon as this sort of thoughts start I am feeling so lonely. At that time, if we could just preface the statement not I am feeling so lonely but the mind is saying I am feeling so lonely. Preface it with this.
The mind is saying I am feeling so lonely. It is like I go in front of a computer and the computer has opened up sports.com. So it is not that I wish to visit sports.com. The computer has opened it up. Now let me decide whether I want to open it or not.
So if we can spend some time in calm reflection and identify the typical movies that the mind starts off and as soon as we start feeling self-pity things always keep going wrong in my life. Nobody cares for me. I am always made the victim by everyone.
This is the mind speaking. The mind is saying this. The mind is starting the self-pity story.
So when we do this we will find that we will be able to identify the mind. And then the last part I am going to talk about is managing the mind. Managing when the negative emotions come up.
Identifying alone is not enough. As I said there is the body, the mind and the soul. The soul is a part of the whole.
The soul is a part, the soul is finite consciousness and there is infinite consciousness. That is the whole of whom we are part. And this whole is known in different traditions by different names.
I am a part of the Bhakti Yoga tradition which centres on directing the power of our emotion to establish a connection between the finite consciousness and the infinite consciousness. So Bhakti is devotion. Yoga, the Sanskrit word means connection.
So Bhakti Yoga is the connection established through devotion. When in Bhakti Yoga we focus on connecting our consciousness with the divine then that connection gives us stability. Suppose we are in an ocean and we fall in the ocean and waves are coming.
A wave comes from the left, from the right. Waves just keep coming and tossing us. Here and there.
At that time if a helicopter comes from above and from the helicopter a rescue rope is thrown down and we catch hold of that rescue rope. We have not yet come out of the ocean and the waves will keep hitting us still. But if we hold on to that rope the waves won’t shake us.
The waves will come, the waves will hit us but by holding on to that rope we will be less shaken. So that rope connecting us to the helicopter is like Bhakti Yoga. Bhakti Yoga practise is meant to connect us with the infinite consciousness.
So this can be done in various ways. It can be done by studying sacred texts. It can be done by chanting sacred mantras.
It can be done by coming in spiritual association which helps us to centre our consciousness in the divine. And by such practise to the extent we can internally connect our consciousness with the divine we will get stability amidst instability. The ocean is not going to stop producing waves.
And similarly externally situations will keep coming which will provoke us. And internally our mind will also keep coming up with emotions that will toss us up and down. But if we are connected with a higher reality then that will give us stability.
So in our tradition we chant the mantra Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Ram Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare This is a mantra that is a spiritual affirmation. The mood of the affirmation is O part return to harmony with the whole O part return to harmony with the whole We are parts. A lot of our mental problems come because we think that we are meant to control everything.
And if anything we are not able to control we take that as a personal failure. Why is this person behaving like this? Why is this happening like this? Why is that happening like that? Actually we have some control but there is much that is out of our control. In the materialistic vision there are only two options for us.
Either things are in our control or things are out of our control. But in the spiritual understanding there is another option that opens up. The things that are not in our control are not out of control.
They are working by a higher plan. Even if we don’t understand that plan right now there is a higher plan. And this is not just some sentimental imagination.
If we consider our own body right now there is so much happening in the body which we know nothing about. We eat food and we get energy. But there is a whole you could say universe of things that happen for that food to get converted into energy.
One of my friends is a medical researcher who focusses on digestive issues. So he told me some time ago that just as we have various health problems and we try to create some artificial issues to deal with that. Say if somebody has a leg that doesn’t work we have prosthetic limbs.
If the heart doesn’t work we have pacemaker. If the kidney doesn’t work we do dialysis. So if the digestive system doesn’t work can we have some artificial machine that can digest food for us? So when they tried to make a machine like that they found that we will need not a machine but a factory.
Not a factory but a chain of factories. It’s an extremely complicated process. In fact we hardly do anything in the process of digestion.
Just eat and if we consider work as force into displacement the amount of work that is done for digesting one morsel of food is actually more than the amount of work that an average human being does throughout the day. We are not doing that work. There is some higher intelligence which is working even without our knowledge.
So understanding this gives us some stability. When I talk about that connection upwards it is not just something sentimental. It can be intellectual and it can also be experiential.
I am talking about the intellectual aspect right now. That there is a higher plan to life. When we go in a plane we worry about whether I have taken the boarding pass I have got my ID proof but we don’t worry whether the plane has enough fuel or not.
We don’t worry whether the pilot is drunk or not. We know there is a whole system to take care of that. Similarly when we develop this spiritual understanding we focus on the things that are in our control and we learn to let go of the things that are not in our control.
If something is not working the way we wanted that is not necessarily our fault. If it is our fault we will work to correct it. But if it has gone wrong already there is no need to beat ourselves up with it.
It may have gone wrong right now but something good will emerge out of it. We focus on that which is in our control and what is always in our control is our capacity to raise our consciousness to connect the finite consciousness with the infinite consciousness. So I will conclude with one story and then if you have any comments or questions we can discuss.
A few years ago when I first came to America I went to a university and I gave a talk there on regulating our mental health. I spoke at a vegetarian society and there after the talk one boy came and told me just before this class I was contemplating suicide. I told him what happened.
He said I was in a relationship with a girl and she just suddenly broke up. And I was dazed. So I was gloomily walking along the campus and suddenly I saw a poster of this programme.
So I decided to come here. Now I understand after hearing the talk that it is not I who wanted to commit suicide it was my mind that was telling me to commit suicide. I told him this is a precious insight that is literally life-saving for you.
I encouraged him to read the Bhagavad Gita. I also write on the Bhagavad Gita every day a small reflection at gitadaily.com I encourage him to read that and then whenever I would come to America once or twice a year if I would go to that university I would meet him. So last day when I had come again I met him and he told me I had been in a similar situation.
He said I had been again in a relationship with a girl and she just texted me that I am breaking up with you I am blocking you. Don’t try to contact me. So in the meanwhile he had been he had joined a local bhakti yoga club in that university he had been practising bhakti yoga and that bhakti yoga centres on establishing the spiritual connection.
So one way to make that connection is through musical meditation. So we chant mantras in a musical way that is called kirtan. So he liked to play violin and he had developed a habit of singing the Hare Krishna mantra that I had chanted earlier.
So when he got that message he was devastated. He just went straight to his room he closed the door he closed the windows, pulled down the drapes and turned off all the lights and he just picked up his violin and started singing he started singing pouring out his heart calling out and he told me for 6 hours continuously he was singing and he said at that time I felt as if I was being comforted by some divine presence I felt as if my being was illumined by some divine light I felt a kind of presence that I had never felt in my life before. What could have been an extremely depressing experience became an extraordinarily enriching experience for him and it all happened because he was able to connect spiritually so the storm came and we had tossed him but he had developed the habit of kirtan so he caught hold of that rope and by that rope, catching hold of that rope although the stormy wave came it did not shake him it did not batter him that much so for all of us we too can develop our spiritual connection and to the extent we raise our consciousness to the spiritual level to that extent even if negativity comes upon us externally through bad things happening in our life or negativity comes upon us internally by our mind starting of a horror movie we will be able to transcend it and we will be able to persevere in a positive purposeful direction whatever life may get us to our spirituality can get us through whatever life may get us to our spirituality can get us through I will summarise, I spoke today on overcoming negative emotions, I started by talking about how although we have progressed materially but mental health problems seem to be increasing and we have guided missiles but misguided men and one misguiding is where we hurt ourselves so if there is a negative person in our life we keep a distance from them so there is a negative person inside our head itself that’s our mind, talked about the three level model of the self in the yoga tradition, body, mind and soul hardware, software and user the software when it’s corrupted can make the device useless similarly when the mind gets afflicted by negative emotions we can become dysfunctional and to understand the mind we gave the example, we did the thought experiment of we see an inner screen but there is an inner seer so the mind can start off a movie at any moment and that can go off in various directions and what movie it will start off depends on what we have thought in the past just like if I have chosen sports.com even if I want to go to spirituality.com, sports will come so our actions become mental impressions and then they become future propositions so when we have to for whatever reason if we have had negative impressions in the mind to deal with them we need to identify them instead of identifying with them so during our introspection we can think what are the typical movies that our mind shows I talked about two stories about how when the mind goes backwards and starts telling about all the past bad things that have happened in our life we get into depression and when the mind becomes a TV we start showing a horror movie about what all may go wrong in the future then we get anxiety I talked about that girl who by just getting one unanswered phone call attempted suicide that is the mind going backwards all the past relations didn’t work this also is not working but then I talked about also the girl who just one thought came in her mind what if I don’t come first in the uni because of that she committed suicide so the mind can go into the future and start a horror movie so when these sort of thoughts start we identify them oh this is the negative mind telling itself pity story this is the mind telling its depression story I am feeling lonely the mind is saying I am feeling lonely thoughts have no power till we give them power by dwelling on them and even if something is a reality that does not mean necessarily the thoughts associated with that are productive if somebody has got a physical handicap if they keep dwelling on it that will only drain them there is no point in fighting battles that are already lost so if we identify the thoughts of the mind then we can distance ourselves from them instead of being overwhelmed by them and then to manage it I talked about how we need to rise above the mind we are finite consciousness and there is an infinite consciousness the bhakti yoga helps us to develop a connection through devotion and just like a person who is being tossed in the waves of an ocean if that person holds on to a rescue rope from a helicopter they will get stability similarly amidst the turbulences from life and from the mind if we can develop our spiritual connection through our personal spiritual practise then we will get stability and I conclude by talking about the boy who had earlier been suicidal but then when again a similar breakup happened he became spiritual and what could have been a depressing experience became an enriching experience for him so whatever life may get us to our spirituality will get us through thank you very much if you found any point which spoke to you especially feel free to speak that also even if you don’t have a question it could just be a reflection of what you will be carrying home with you yes please it reminded me one grandfather was teaching his grandson a story that there is a battle going on in our heart and there is a good wolf and there is a bad wolf and the grandson gets worried and he asks the grandpa which wolf is going to win and the grandpa says which ever wolf will win yeah beautiful I had heard there is a good dog and a bad dog good wolf and a bad wolf our thoughts whichever we dwell attention on that is what is feeding the word thought thank you for this reflection the word thought we often use in two different senses without actually thinking about it one is I got a thought that refers to a idea popping up inside us but we also say sometimes I have given this a lot of thought which refers to systematically contemplating on something so the dogs barking inside us is like I got a thought but feeding the dog is like I have given this a lot of thought so a problem might come that will go wrong but when we dwell on it yes this will go wrong in worrying about what all may go wrong we go wrong certainly we may have to prepare for the future but preparing for the future is different from worrying about the future when we are preparing for the future we are calm, we are in control and we consciously take our thoughts towards the future if this happens what all can I do if this happens I have to figure out what can I do I will consult this person I will think more about this so when we are in control and we take our thoughts to the future and plan and prepare then by such contemplation we feel more equipped to deal with whatever comes up but when we are worrying it is not we who think about the future it is our mind just takes us to the future and we are just passive observers this may go wrong, that may go wrong and the more we think about what all may go wrong we just become overwhelmed so the dogs will keep barking, the thoughts will keep popping up but we can choose which thought to give our thought to give attention to thank you any other comments, reflections or questions thank you very much for your attention