Tag: meditation

Reliance

Let’s talk about something called Reliance today. We come across a lot of people and information all day long. What should we rely upon to make our decisions? Let’s get into it.

The first so-called reliance is the phrase I am sure you have heard over and over again. Don’t kill the messenger. It is so true. We often get bog down into who brings the message rather than the message itself. Who brings the message has absolutely nothing to do with what the message is. We must rely on the message and not the messenger. I have seen this playing out in the corporate environment quite a bit. There are certain people who are resistant to an incoming CEO and whatever they say, for some reason is wrong because this person is an outsider if you will. In doing so they miss out on opportunities to work together as an organization and make forward progress towards pressing issues of the day. You see we all have these inherent biases against certain individuals or groups of people. Because of those biases, we tend to focus on the messenger as opposed to the message itself. This wrong reliance is detrimental to our own progress.

The next reliance is on the meaning. Rely on the meaning and not the words. This is a little difficult to understand so let’s break this down. Sometimes what the words are trying to tell you is hidden. What we call reading between the lines. What is not said out loud is more important than just the words. One can play with the words but what they are trying to tell us behind those words is more important. This is not an easy skill to develop for sure. This is where perception comes into play. Developing good perception is very important and for that, we need a clear mind. We must learn to develop perception. It takes a lifetime to develop this. Most people in my experience have difficulty reading between the lines. So hopefully all of you youngsters would learn to develop this. One way to develop this is to take in a diverse set of information. If you read or listen to all sides of an argument, you would be better able to develop perception. Unfortunately, we live in this conformation bias age where everyone has a limited number of sources of information and they all just confirm our inherent biases. The social media algorithms also contribute to this problem since they tend to display what you like and have no opposing viewpoint.

The next reliance is intention. This is very important. What we should rely upon is the intention of the speaker and not our own interpretation of what they are trying to tell us.

When we understand what it is the speaker intended to communicate, if we then continue to think about each word and expression, we will grasp the concept much faster. This is similar to getting conceptual knowledge before looking for a detailed understanding.

If we misinterpret what is said and then think of more words, we’ll never stop till we run out of thoughts, but all the while we’re only straying further and further from the meaning. Like children playing, we’ll only end up exhausted.

Even for a single word like “and” or “but”, when taken out of context, there’s no end to what it might mean. Yet if we understand what is meant, then with that the need for the word is finished. Remember the classic, it depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is? Sorry, I could not resist!

When it comes to the meaning, we should know what is provisional and what is definitive, and rely not on any provisional meaning, but only on the meaning that is true definitively. I refer to the example of Yudhisthir confirming that Ashwathama was indeed dead in the epic battle of Mahabharat. Here, Yudhisthir meant Ashwathama the elephant and not the warrior but people took his words literally on their own peril.

Motivation

If you are like most people, you are not able to maintain your meditation practice on a daily basis. Why is that? For the most part, motivation or lack of it has a lot to do with it. I am sure you think there is just not enough time in the day. But with motivation, time would never be an issue. So let’s talk about motivation in detail today.

It is one thing to discuss the motivation for meditation but motivation is necessary for everything you want to do in life. How do you develop motivation? I read something interesting the other day and it really caught my eyes. When you set out to do something whatever that may be, have you noticed at times you are all ready to go and jump right into it until the task is complete? Other times, those things just stay on your task list and you keep postponing the task as long as you possibly can. Why is that? The root cause for this is a lack of motivation.

Next time you are set out to tackle a big item, do me a favor, make a list of 25 reasons why you want to do something. You may say, why 25 reasons? Why can’t I just have one reason? You can, but in my experience, the first few reasons tend to be superficial. They are usually, what you are telling yourself or what you want people to believe. Once you start writing this down on a piece of paper, by the time you come to reasons 15, 20, and 23, the real reason comes out. Your hopes and dreams, your enthusiasm will display themselves. Once these reasons show themselves, motivation naturally comes. There is no more reason to procrastinate because now you know exactly what it is that you doing this for. So when do you get motivated? This is another interesting part. Usually, you will notice that motivation comes once you begin a process. If you look at where a task tends to have difficulty, it is usually, in the beginning, having difficulty getting off the ground and then towards the end getting it to a finish line. In between, momentum usually carries the day. So when the task begins, we need motivation and that is when the list of reasons comes in very handy. Once a task gets going and reaches the finish line, a lot of people wrap up before they get it to where they really wanted it to see. They call it good enough. This is another place you need motivation. At this time, going back to those really deep reasons—reasons 18, 22, 24 come in really handy. Once we get the boost of the motivation getting it to the best possible end is just a matter of time and process.

So now that we know how we can tackle obstacles, let’s use this to overcome our lack of daily meditation practice. If you would make a list of why you want to meditate. Again, at least have 25 reasons to meditate. Once you have developed that list, you will notice that I don’t have time or that life gets in the way or I need to take care of my family and all other superficial excuses will just melt away. In my experience, there is such not having the time it is just a lack of importance we put on whatever that we are not doing. If it is important enough, you will make time. We all have the same amount of time no one has 25 hours in a day. Let’s make sure we put importance on our own peace of mind over the business of life. This is similar to the four-quadrant we discussed a few episodes ago about urgent vs important. Let’s not get the urgency of life get in the way of the importance of keeping a peaceful mind. A peaceful mind will help us carry throughout the day. Hopefully, you will get motivated to develop motivation for your meditation practice!

Ignorance

Today we are going to look at ignorance. But wait, I am a wise person you might say! I am not ignorant. Well, let’s take a look at that really quickly.

If you think about it, all of us are afraid of something or other. Most of our fear is a direct result of ignorance. We are afraid of things or people that we don’t understand. Just because it is not in our experience we tend to stay away from it. Instead of learning about the subject and trying to get over our ignorance, we tend to fight, flight or freeze. This was a good option back in the days when we were still hunter-gatherers and needed to save our lives from the elements. But those days are over and we still have not adopted ourselves! Not your fault for sure—we can blame our genes for that. We are all afraid of terrorism, why? Because we don’t know what type of violent attack will come, where, or when. That unknown is what strikes fear. I guess, if we knew something was coming, we would prepare for that.

When I say we are all ignorant, I am not talking about your intellect. One can be intellectual and ignorant at the same time. How is that possible you might ask? Well, look at someone who is specializing in a particular field. They are formidable experts in that field and know all the nuances and intricacies. But outside of that field, they may not have basic knowledge of day-to-day life. So one could say they are intellectual and ignorant at the same time. Another way to look at this is to know that to be intellectual and to be wise are two totally different things. I know so many so-called experts whose judgment may be questionable. Hopefully, this makes some sense.

Here, I am talking about how we all lack the knowledge about the ultimate truth as to how phenomena exist. We talked about this at length in our emptiness teachings as to how all phenomena are like a dream and they are dependent existence. Some of us may have developed a theoretical acceptance of that concept but it is not certainly in our experience or in our practice.  

All phenomena have dependent existence. This means that everything that we see and experience does not have an independent inherent existence. All of that plays out in our minds as we have discussed in the past. So why is it that we are grasping so tightly? That is where our ignorance comes into play. We grasp this phenomenon like they are rock solid. But if we look back in our own lives, we realize that things are constantly changing. Think about a 12-year-old version of yourself. I am sure you were in love with that person. You held that person so tightly. You could do no wrong and you probably had an inflated opinion of yourself. Now looking back, I am sure you realize that 12-year-old self is no longer there. Who you are today is much more different from that 12-year-old person. Your thoughts have changed, your taste in life has changed, your dreams and aspirations are different, and so on. So can you see your 12-year-old self was inherently existent? If it was, it would not have changed. But it is our ignorance that was grasping that 12-year-old self. If that is the case, why are you grasping your current self? If you can intellectually realize that your 12-year-old self was not inherently existent, what makes you think your current self is? I know, it is tough to take it in but if we are intellectually honest with ourselves, we would not grasp ourselves so strongly.

If we stop grasping ourselves so strongly, we will not take ourselves so seriously and that would open up so much harmony in this world. So how do we develop that wisdom if you will? Well, let’s start by being mindful. In our daily activities let’s be mindful that things are not the way they appear. Just acknowledge that without doing anything else. If we start developing this mindfulness, our attitude towards events and phenomena will change for the better.

Hatred

If you look at all the problems we are having as well as all the problems in the world, there are typically three causes. Greed, Hatred, and Ignorance. Today we will discuss hatred and how it can destroy our lives as well as civilization.

Before we talk about hatred from a personal perspective, I want to talk about hatred in society. If you look at every war in the history of mankind, it has its root in hatred. Every terrorist attack is a result of hatred. That hatred that was towards other people or the people we did not understand has now become against each other. A lot of civil societies are on the verge of being torn apart. Politicians are pitting people against each other creating divisions. Look at Great Britain or Brazil or Argentina or India or right here at home, good old US of A. We are fighting amongst ourselves because the politicians are creating a divide that works for their short-term benefits. We have broken down society in so many little slices that no one thinks about the big picture anymore. It used to be that what’s good for the goose was good for the gander. Now every goose, every gander, every duckling needs their own island and no one wants to share.  

Media is largely to blame because without media being complicit, the politicians would not have a way to distribute this hatred. I especially, remember during Tump’s presidency here in the US—no matter your politics, there was this daily hatred spilled out by major cable networks. If he sneezed, he was spreading germs and if he did not, he was holding something up! It was insanity. But that is what gave fuel to the fire. The same story is playing out everywhere it seems.

Now that we understand societal hatred hopefully we can all think rationally without regard to what the media is spouting out. Hopefully, you recall from our Karma series that there is such as thing as collective karma. You might revisit our Karma videos as a refresher.

Now let’s look at hatred at an individual level. Where does the hatred come from? The root cause of hatred tends to be our belief that our I is inherently existent. We grasp on that I that self so more important than everything else around us. Hatred is also aversion meaning a strong dislike. We tend to dislike things that we consider different from us. We don’t think that is part of us or that we are all interconnected. So we develop aversion towards those beings. Once we separate ourselves from others, judgment comes. This is what breeds hatred. Without judgment, there is no hatred.

So how do we get rid of hatred? Just wishing or determination would not help. The antidote to hatred is loving-kindness. We covered this at length as well in one of our previous episodes. I recommend you might want to check that out. But the gist of this is that we need to develop a loving relationship with all living beings. A wish that says “I want everything for you and nothing from you.” It is that simple. If we begin to develop that wish slowly but surely hatred will disappear from our lives. Now that may not be completely possible. If that is the case, try practicing loving-kindness towards the feeling of hatred you are experiencing. In other words, accept the feeling, be comfortable with it and the hatred will disappear.

There is one other type of hatred that we all have experienced and that is self-hatred. This is one of the worst kinds of hatred if you will. It will destroy you internally. It smashes our self-confidence, brings self-doubt, frustration and we become hopeless. All we are doing is telling ourselves that we are not worthy and that we are not qualified and so on. We are exaggerating our bad qualities. But in reality, it is just a mental image or perception we have of our specific quality. There is nothing behind that mental image to support it. It is something our mind made it up. It is just a hallucination or mental projection.

So how do we solve self-hatred? The first thing we need to do is acknowledge it and realize how harmful that is to us. The next thing to realize is the fact that we are not our thoughts. Our thoughts are just passing clouds in a big blue sky. If we start examining our mind during meditation, the peacefulness that brings will tremendously help in eliminating a lot of negative thoughts. This is not a one-day exercise. It happens over time and requires consistent meditation practice to get in touch with our inner peace. Once we turn our attention inwards, we will see how wonderful it can be. This also allows us to identify with our shortcomings without identifying with ourselves. In other words, realizing that we are not our faults and our faults or shortcomings are passing and we can change those habits that we may have developed.

Hopefully, this is helpful and you can put this into practice in your daily lives.

Greed

Let’s talk about something that all of us are guilty of at some point or another. Greed. It is easy to sneak in and hard to get rid of. Remember Gordon Gekko from the famous movie Wall Street? He glorified Greed. I remember the dialog which goes Greed is Good.

Greed has sipped into our society so much that no one thinks it is bad anymore. We put greedy people on a pedestal and give them the highest of regards. Our best and brightest want to work for wall street and law firms as opposed to go invent the next best thing or cure cancer or help humanity.

We live in a society where everyone is fleshing their possessions on social media like it is some type of competition. When did living become an Olympic sport? We all are chasing this elusive dream that if only we had a little more we would be just fine. Growing up I heard this story that I am sure you all may have heard it. There is this guy who goes to the King. He says, I am measurable and I would like to live comfortably. King was generous so he said fine, I will give you a piece of land. The guy said how big? The King goes, as much as you can take. You start when the sun rises at a specific point. You start walking. The only condition is that you must come back to the same point before the sunsets. All the land you cover during that time is yours forever. The guy was really excited. He was all ready to go come sunrise. He started walking. He was covering good ground. By the lunchtime came about, he thought of stopping for lunch but told himself he could skip lunch one day. The more time he spent walking, the more land he would get. So he keeps walking. By around 2 pm he was really tired. He slowed down. But he did want to stop. He thought he should start walking towards the original point but decided to continue instead to make sure he could cover more ground. He keeps walking and all of a sudden it is 4 pm. Now it is really getting late. So he began to walk back towards the original point. He realized he may not make it back so he started to run. He kept running it was a few minutes before sunset. He could see the origin point. It was all within his grasp. He was going to be rich with all this land in his name. But he was tired. He could not even walk let alone run. He was dragging himself. Out of energy. As the sun was going down, he fell down and stretched his hand. He was maybe a foot short and the sunset. He could not make it. He died on the spot. All he needed was six feet of land for his burial. Greed made him lose his life.

Why do we become greedy? Greed comes from our burning desire for something. We get greedy because we think those things will provide us long-lasting happiness. But the goalpost keeps moving. What you think would give you long-lasting happiness keeps changing with every passing moment. Once we achieve what we set out to achieve, we may get temporary satisfaction but not lasting happiness. Our goals will change again and we will start chasing again. Greedy people are never content with what they have. Greed also shows up as a lack of generosity and compassion towards others.

Let me give you an example. I am sure you have heard this animal rescue advertisement on TV with Sarah Mclaughlin’s song in the background. I was in a seminar with the guy who started that foundation. He has since passed. He told me he was so smart that he started this non-profit foundation and he had his own business that had a contract with the non-profit to provide T-Shirts and other things to non-profit at an inflated price. He thought he was a genius taking money from people in the name of charity and benefiting himself.  When that becomes a badge of honor, something is wrong with our society.

Let me give you another example. Someone called me up recently about some advice. I asked him what he was trying to achieve. He said his goal was to make $8,000 per day. So I asked him a few questions and realized that he was making a decent living. So I told him, why he was putting so much pressure on himself when he was making a decent living and most people would love to be in his situation. I said why not enjoy the remaining time he had with his family rather than chasing this elusive $8,000 per day goal. He said my wife and parents are saying the same thing. I was like, maybe you should listen to her! Anyway, towards the end, I suggested that he should not chase this and just be happy with what he had. So he said, Nirav, I can teach you how to make $8,000 per day! See, he did not listen to a word I was saying. Here I was trying to get him off this drug called greed and he was trying to get me hooked!

It is very difficult to get rid of greed. But fortunately, there is hope. The antidote to Greed is Generosity. More generous we are – with our possessions, our time, etc.; less greedy we will be. We have talked about generosity in the past. I strongly suggest you go back and read the generosity blog or the generosity video on our YouTube channel.