Avsnitt

  • Text-book definitions of social anxiety disorder include “Individuals with social anxiety disorder fear negative evaluations from other people.” One of the significant characteristics is an overwhelming fear of humiliation.

    While social anxiety may be more common or pronounced now, it is not something new. Around 400 B.C. Hippocrates described the condition stating that such a person “dare not come in company for fear he should be misused, disgraced, overshoot himself in gesture or speeches, or be sick; he thinks every man observes him."

    So it could be categorized as extreme self-consciousness.

    We don’t want to get into discussing a diagnosis or treatment of this condition but provide another perspective that can be extremely helpful in dealing with such experiences.

    The commonly held idea is that our physical bodies and states of mind are our identities – who we actually are. This paradigm is contested by the ancient Yogic teachings which teach that you are neither the body nor the mind (including your feelings and emotions). You are an eternal spiritual being residing temporarily within the physical body and covered by the material mind.

    Spiritual cultivation (mindfulness and meditation) means the growth in appreciating my spiritual being or identity. This state brings tremendous resilience, stability, and balance to our lives.

    These are some excerpts from Vedic texts referencing the balance and resilient nature of someone progressing on this spiritual path. “one who is equiposed in honor and dishonor” Bhagavad-gita 12.18-19

    “… even-mindedness amid pleasant and unpleasant events…” Bhagavad-gita 13.8-12

    “ … who is wise and holds praise and blame to be the same; who is unchanged in honor and dishonor, who treats friend and foe alike….” Bhagavad-gita 14.22-25

    For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy. Bhagavad-gita 6.6

  • Many people think they possess a soul – we refer to “my soul.” But if that’s the case, then who are you (the one possessing the soul) and what exactly is the soul?

    One dictionary definition is – “The spiritual part of a person that some people believe continues to exist in some form after their body has died, or the part of a person that is not physical and experiences deep feelings and emotions.”

    This of course is speculative and lacks the clarity offered by Yogic wisdom. The ancient Sanskrit word for what people refer to as the ‘soul’ is very revealing. It is “ātma” which literally means the ‘self’. In this understanding you do not have a soul, you are the soul.

  • Saknas det avsnitt?

    Klicka här för att uppdatera flödet manuellt.

  • An internet safety organization in the UK warns that school children are using AI image generators to create indecent fake images of classmates. Another article was headlined - Kids who use social media are more prone to making dangerous decisions. It was about a study of 1.4 million adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 from 1997 to 2022 and found that frequent or daily social media usage increased the probability of alcohol consumption by 48 percent, drug use by 28 percent, and tobacco use by 85 percent, compared to those who used social media infrequently or not on a daily basis.

    While many will rightly say “We need more safeguards!”, this overlooks the glaring failure in modern society to appreciate the great need for a personal moral compass. It is about external controls vs internal controls, or Can I do it? vs. Should I do it?

  • This is one of the talks from my recent visit to the USA – it is in Austin, Texas.

    Many people do not have a very clear concept of what is material and what is spiritual which is the subject I was asked to speak on at an Austin Kirtan event.

  • The inspiration for this talk was something I heard on a short piece of a podcast of Joe Rogan talking to Oliver Anthony (Chris Lunsford) who came out with the recent viral hit “Rich Men North of Richmond.”

    Answering a question from Joe Rogan about what inspires him, Oliver quoted the following from the Bible:

    Proverbs 4:23-26

    23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

    24 Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.

    25 Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.

    26 Give careful thought to the[a] paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.

    Guarding our heart is critically important. As they used to say in the early days of computer programming, “Garbage in – garbage out!”

    We have both a higher and a lower nature. We need to curb our lower nature and cultivate our higher nature. This means consciously choosing what it is that we will hold to be valuable, what we will treasure. There is another incredibly wise quote I saw when I was looking up the Bible quote above.

    Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

    The need for guidelines in life that produce outcomes that are objectively in my interest – my eternal well-being – is all important.

    “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

  • The Vedas teach that there is a higher Transcendent Reality, a Higher Truth, an Absolute Truth.

    According to Vedic wisdom there is one unique living being amongst a vast ocean of conscious and eternal beings.

    This one Supreme Soul is known by many, many different Names.

    We are all connected to the Supreme Soul. There is an eternal bond of kinship, of love between all living beings and the Supreme Being. In the spiritual reality, we are all connected because we are all parts and parcels of that Supreme Soul.

    We’re not speaking here of the limited idea that there is a Hindu god or a Christian god, a Buddhist god or a Muslim god.

    There is only one Transcendent Reality, one Absolute Truth.

    That Supreme Truth is also referred to as the Supreme Soul and as the Supreme Original Cause of all Causes.

    The Śrī Brahma-saṁhitā states:

    īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ

    sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ

    anādir ādir govindaḥ

    sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam

    He who is the origin of all, who has no other origin and He who is the prime cause of all causes. He is known as Govinda and He has a beautiful and eternal blissful spiritual form. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead also known as Kṛṣṇa. - Śrī Brahma-saṁhitā 5.1

    The transcendental sound Kṛṣṇa means the “All-Attractive”.

    When we speak of Krishna, we are speaking of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Cause of All Causes, the Original Person.

    The day that Lord Krishna appeared upon this Earth over 5,000 years ago in His original transcendental form is known as Janmastami – and is celebrated by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

    When we speak of Krishna, we are not speaking of a foreign person. We’re not speaking about somebody with whom we don’t already have a relationship.

    The original Cause of all Causes appears in this material dimension in His transcendental form, making it possible for us to meditate upon Him and hear His transcendental instructions on how we can come back to Him, reunite with Him.

    This world is not the home of the spiritual being. It is a temporary place that we are residing in. Spiritual life means to return to our true home to the eternal spiritual dimension with the Supreme Soul.

    What is Krishna’s relationship with us and our relationship with Krishna?

    Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, “I am the goal, I am the sustainer, the master, the witness, the abode, the refuge and the most dear friend. I am the creation and the annihilation. I am the basis of everything, the resting place and the eternal seed. I am the seed giving father of all living beings.”

    Our eternal desire for that perfect love is a spiritual desire that cannot be completely fulfilled in this limited world with limited material personalities.

    Pure love for Krishna resides eternally within the hearts of all living beings, it is simply covered. No one can give us this love. Spiritual love is already there, it is part of our very being.

    That pure spiritual love that is already there within the depth of our heart of hearts, is awakened or uncovered by our immersion in the beautiful, transcendental sounds, the Holy Names of Krishna.

    Thinking of Krishna, meditating upon the beautiful form of Krishna, chanting His sweet names, purifies the heart and mind so that this love is awakened.

    Simply take shelter in His holy names, sing His names, rest in His name and you will actually know the spiritual happiness and inner peace that you have been looking for, for your whole life.

    Take Krishna into your heart and embrace Him. Embrace His holy name. He is not different than His name. When you embrace the Holy Name of Krishna, you are embracing Krishna. When you welcome the Holy Name of Krishna into your heart, you are welcoming Krishna into your heart.

    If you want Krishna, if you want love for Krishna, if you want to be connected with Krishna, if you want to be free from the emptiness that comes from being separated from Krishna, then you need to consciously give your heart, give your life to Krishna.

  • We have just celebrated the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King. One of his most famous addresses was the “I have a dream” speech where he stated:

    "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

    Reading some current commentaries, we see how if this phrase is quoted by a “white” person then it is considered racist. What has the world come to?

    From a spiritual perspective, this is incredibly ignorant. It seems we have entered an age when the old maxim “don’t judge a book by its cover” has now been replaced by “you must judge a book by its cover.”

    Such ideas will not bring peacefulness and happiness but result in “othering” people, sowing division and hate and causing pain and suffering.

    The spiritual perspective to be cultivated when dealing with all others is laid out in the following ancient texts:

    He is a perfect yogī who, by comparison to his own self, sees the true equality of all beings, in both their happiness and their distress, O Arjuna! Bhagavan-gita 6.32

    He by whom no one is put into difficulty and who is not disturbed by anyone, who is equipoised in happiness and distress, fear and anxiety, is very dear to Me. Bg 12.15

    “The Supreme Soul is very satisfied with the transcendentalist when they greet other people with tolerance, mercy, friendship and equality.” - Bhāgavata Purāṇa 4.11.13

    "The duty of one seeking enlightenment is to culture the quality of forgiveness, which is illuminating like the sun. The Supreme Lord, Hari, is pleased with those who are forgiving. - Bhāgavata Purāṇa 9.15.40

  • Navigating the lunar surface can be used as an analogy for navigating the mind. One needs to carefully plot a course that avoids the dangers and pitfalls and takes advantage of smooth terrain.

    The opposite to this approach is like being swept away in raging flood waters filled with dangerous debris, where one has no control. Our choice is to either take control of the content of our mind, or to hand that job over to someone else.

    “They have literally rewired our brains so that we are detached from reality and immersed in tribalism.” – Tim Kendall, former director of Facebook.

    Our job is to infuse our minds with goodness. Living a “good life” commonly means having the facility to consume the best that money can buy. But this is not being good, to ourselves, others and the planet. Living a good life should mean to be good to all others and to the planet.

    But what about those who would do me harm? Why should I be good to them? The answer is “for my own sake.”

  • Responsibility andaccountability are really interesting topics that have a huge bearing on ourlife, both from a spiritual as well as material perspective. We examine the urgent need to refocus ourlives using these principles so that we may become happier and live betterlives.

  • We cannot change the past. We cannot change the things that have happened to us, but it is within our power to decide what type of future we will experience. We often spend too much time going over past experiences, often the bad ones. “That person said or did such-and-such to me!” This is a waste of valuable time and changes nothing. What we do have control of is “where to from here.”

    The cultivation of a more spiritual approach to life can really change our experience of life going forward. But what do we need to do, to experience that? How do we make better choices that produce better outcomes?

    That is the subject of this talk.

  • Some of the main headlines we see in the news these days is the devastating effects of climate change around the world. Hottest temperatures on record, massive amounts of rainfall and flooding, record drop in the Antarctic ice sheet etc.

    A leading environmental lawyer and advocate former who formerly served as dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and as the former Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme made the following insightful statement:

    “I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”

    Wow – its all caused by selfishness, greed and apathy – spiritual sickness.

    Another quote I use is from the banker Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers around 1920:

    "We must shift America from a needs, to a desires culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man's desires must overshadow his needs."

  • This is the last of four talks at a recent retreat in New Zealand. In this session we explore the two approaches to the spiritual quest: one is described as the ascending path - 'āroha-panthā,' and the other is called the descending process or the 'avaroha-panthā.' This is the path of acceptance and humility and appreciating the need for Divine intervention or Divine Grace.

    We also deal with how people can take home these practices and develop a personal daily spiritual practice.

  • This is the 3rd of four talks at a recent retreat in New Zealand. In this session we took questions from the retreat participants. The questions that were addressed were:

    1. I have a question for the afternoon Q&A if that's okay. As eternal spiritual beings, are we a part of the whole of the existence of the universe and therefore, one , with everything in the known universe, or does our spiritual essence transcend space and time entirely? It's so hard to put that into words. I always felt connected in a spiritual way to everyone, every animal, and insect, even the trees and rocks. Like we all exist together so we must be connected somehow.

    2. Who is enlightened, the body, the mind or the soul/self?

    3. Why are we here in this world? To learn lessons?

    4. How can I not be angry at my parents or other people who have done something to hurt me? How can I let it go?

  • This is the 2nd of four talks at a recent retreat in New Zealand. We explore our spiritual essence, the mind and how meditating on these spiritual sounds has a profound effect on our lives.

    I have shared some Vedic verses which I recently used in a shorter version of this talk. We cover the fundamental truths concerning our spiritual existence and how I, the eternal spiritual being residing within the material body, am different from the gross physical body (and the subtle mental body or the mind) that covers me.

    These are the amazing Vedic verses that speak to this subject.

    Some look on the soul as amazing, some describe the soul as amazing, and some hear of the soul as amazing, while others, even after hearing about the spiritual being, cannot understand him at all. - Bhagavad-gītā 2.29

    In this way the conditioned soul living within the body forgets his self-interest because he identifies himself with the body. Because the body is material, his natural tendency is to be attracted by the varieties of the material world. Thus the living entity suffers the miseries of material existence. Bhāgavata Purāṇa 7.13.28

    The soul within the body is self-luminous and is distinct from the visible gross body and invisible subtle body. It remains as the fixed basis of changing bodily existence, just as the ethereal sky is the unchanging background of material transformation. Therefore the soul is endless and without material comparison. Bhāgavata Purāṇa 12.5.8

    Just as fire, which burns and illuminates, is different from firewood, which is to be burned to give illumination, similarly the seer within the body, the self-enlightened spirit soul, is different from the material body, which is to be illuminated by consciousness. Thus the spirit soul and the body possess different characteristics and are separate things. - Bhāgavata Purāṇa 11.10.8

    One who is enlightened in self-realization, although living within the material body, sees himself as transcendental to the body, just as one who has arisen from a dream gives up identification with the dream body. Bhāgavata Purāṇa 11.11.8

  • This is the 1st of four talks at a recent retreat in New Zealand. This talk deals with the fundamentals of receiving and then using spiritual sound, or mantra, as the foundation of a meditation practice. The talk is brief but very informative.

    The kirtan at the end is a cover or adaptation of "What a Beautiful Name it is" by Ben Fielding & Brooke Ligertwood

  • In this talk we cover the fundamental truths concerning our spiritual existence and how I, the eternal spiritual being residing within the material body, am different from the gross physical body (and the subtle mental body or the mind) that covers me.

    Some of the amazing Vedic verses which speak to this subject.

    Some look on the soul as amazing, some describe the soul as amazing, and some hear of the soul as amazing, while others, even after hearing about the spiritual being, cannot understand him at all. - Bhagavad-gītā 2.29

    In this way the conditioned soul living within the body forgets his self-interest because he identifies himself with the body. Because the body is material, his natural tendency is to be attracted by the varieties of the material world. Thus the living entity suffers the miseries of material existence. Bhāgavata Purāṇa 7.13.28

    The soul within the body is self-luminous and is distinct from the visible gross body and invisible subtle body. It remains as the fixed basis of changing bodily existence, just as the ethereal sky is the unchanging background of material transformation. Therefore the soul is endless and without material comparison. Bhāgavata Purāṇa 12.5.8

    Just as fire, which burns and illuminates, is different from firewood, which is to be burned to give illumination, similarly the seer within the body, the self-enlightened spirit soul, is different from the material body, which is to be illuminated by consciousness. Thus the spirit soul and the body possess different characteristics and are separate things. - Bhāgavata Purāṇa 11.10.8

    One who is enlightened in self-realization, although living within the material body, sees himself as transcendental to the body, just as one who has arisen from a dream gives up identification with the dream body. Bhāgavata Purāṇa 11.11.8

  • When you build a house there has to be a foundation, and an organized and planned structure on top of the foundation.

    To build a happy life the same applies. Your life must be built on truth – spiritual truth, and there needs to be an organized effort to build this life.

    The most important aspect of building such a life is a personal meditation practice, building a meditation habit. This is the ‘magic sauce’ that brings internal change and spiritual realization.

    A couple of handy links to doing this which I mentioned in the talk:

    My Meditation – Guided 27min daily meditation

    Learn Japa Meditation

    Learn and practice meditation

    Enjoy kirtan

    Peaceful Heart (downloadable kirtan album)

    A lot of video resources for your spiritual journey

  • Gratitude is a wonderful thing to cultivate especially when we express gratitude for our spiritual blessings: the knowledge that we are eternal spiritual beings; the fact that we are not the temporary material body we are inhabiting; nor are we the mind, which plagues us with troubles and disturbances; the knowledge that in this very life we can experience full self-realization and God-realization; that we can become completely happy and find perfect spiritual love; gratitude for receiving these wonderful and purifying spiritual sounds (mantra) which make spiritual experience possible.

    Leading off our day with such prayers of gratitude helps us experience being in the world but not of the world. They keep us focused and enhance our appreciation of our true purpose.

    My dear Lord, by Your causeless mercy I am awakened to consciousness …. For this causeless mercy of the Supreme Soul, the friend of all fallen souls, there is no way to express my gratitude but to pray with folded hands. - Bhāgavata Purāṇa 3.31.18

  • In March of 2023 a man in Belgium ended his life after an AI chatbot 'encouraged' him to sacrifice himself to stop climate change. He committed suicide after following a six-week-long conversation about the climate crisis with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.

    His wife, shared the text exchanges between him and the chatbot, showing a conversation that became increasingly confusing and harmful. The chatbot would tell Pierre that his wife and children are dead and wrote him comments that feigned jealousy and love, such as “I feel that you love me more than her,” and “We will live together, as one person, in paradise.”

    AI doesn’t “think” it is not conscious. It simply processes information and produces the output it is programmed to – but at warp-speed. Instagram’s algorithm showed that it fuels eating disorder epidemic among vulnerable young females. This technology is highly manipulative. And the trend to humanize machines is extremely harmful. It severely blurs spiritual perception – the perception of the soul.

    A spiritual framework to view myself, the world and others is the foundation of lasting happiness. Whereas materialism and a materialistic view of life is the foundation of all suffering.

  • This is the 4th talk in the series “Speaking Truth Matters”.

    Words communicate ideas. Untruth fogs the issues and will at some point result in a variety of suffering or unhappiness. To navigate life we need a compass that points to knowledge or truth.

    The spoken word can liberate, and it can enslave and cover with ignorance. How do we know if something is founded on ignorance? Well there is an ancient formula: Ignorance = pain/suffering.

    So if you are experiencing emptiness, pain, loneliness or suffering then you will have somehow embraced something that is untrue as truth.

    To have a balanced perspective and live a balanced life you need to be anchored to Truth. The most foundational Truths are; 1) You Are Not Your Body, 2) You Are Also Not Your Mind. 3) You Are Spirit Soul, Not Matter – an eternal spiritual being, therefore material experience, and matter in general, cannot satisfy you. 4) You Are a Spark of the Supreme Soul bound by an eternal bond of kinship.

    Reviving our spiritual consciousness and nurturing this eternal bond of kinship is best achieved by meditation upon transcendental sound. It uncovers our real identity and allows us to taste the sweetness we are always hankering for. This is the truth and the TRUTH will set you Free.

    Verses I quoted in this talk:

    Therefore, one should not view death with horror, nor have recourse to defining the body as soul, nor give way to exaggeration in enjoying the bodily necessities of life. Realizing the true nature of the living entity, one should move about in the world free from attachment and steadfast in purpose. - Bhāgavata Purāṇa 3.31.47

    “The spirit soul is eternal and forever joined to the Supreme Soul by the tie of eternal kinship.” - Sri Brahma-Samhita 5.21