EP 43: Overcoming Suffering: Mind, Body, Spirit Connection Explained (W/ Guest Keshava Maharaj Swami)

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Martial Mind Power Podcast, where you discover how to cultivate self-mastery towards yourself realisation, inspired by martial arts and philosophy. They feel I am who I am, I am where I am and what I'm going through is what I'm going through.

[00:00:26] And I just got to grip my teeth and get through it. That endeavor is really where the true secret lies. Now that endeavor is not easy because you have to overcome your feelings. You have to overcome those obstacles and challenges that are facing you.

[00:00:42] Some people can become so spiritual that they forget the material and forget that actually in a reality now. It has physics and dynamics and stuff like that.

[00:00:52] And then you get the other side which you put just strictly about this and they don't even think about the other side.

[00:01:02] So welcome everybody to the Martial Mind Power Podcast, and today we have a very special episode because for the first time we are going to do this live type of setting. And yeah, as we start, see for luckily how you think? I'm very well-being here.

[00:01:19] I want to show my part talks today at which we are doing an exclusive Martial Mind Power Podcast for the first time. And for the first time ever we have got a guest, right? So this is, you know, we would like to introduce his holiness.

[00:01:33] Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's an honor to be with all of you. I can't say I was a martial artist myself. I did do a little bit of a screw, I got up to the green belt.

[00:01:44] So I have a bit of a bit of a martial background there, I guess you could say. But yeah, I became a monk just over 25 years ago, but I'm sure we have a lot in common. Well the monastic element is part of that.

[00:02:02] You've got the inner warrior that's always serving through the spiritual outlet. So it's there. And once you've gone down that martial arts class, it never leaves you. It's always there. So it's in your system. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:02:22] But the way we normally do our martial mind power podcast is quite interesting. Because a few years ago I was inspired through my own spiritual experiences and awakening to write a book.

[00:02:35] And I wrote this book and they were kind of a series of what I call divine downloads, messages that I'd get. And I'd start to write them down and then I wrote them down. They kind of formed into this book here.

[00:02:52] And really what I wanted to do was try to help share some of those experiences to help others find it in themselves. But in a lot of historical martial arts style, I decided to go down a co-en route. And Japanese co-en are poems or riddles.

[00:03:12] Very similar to the way you like to work and speak as well. So we've got that in common. And these idea of these co-enges is usually a very short phrase or a coinage of a few words, few with a better.

[00:03:28] But within those words, there's when you hear them. And if you hear them with complete detachment and free from everything, then there's a spiritual experience that happens inside you. And if you are tuned into yourself, you can register that spiritual experience that happens in your esaboman.

[00:03:51] So, and there lies a lesson. And this is why we call, I ended up calling this book, they are thinking about it thinking. Now, we're not trying to plug books here.

[00:04:04] But what we are trying to do is help connect with people, help them connect to their inner self. So what we started to do was, J.T. Let's not do an podcast.

[00:04:15] Okay, how do you do it? Well, in typical fashion, I want to give the book to J.T. And he'll show you how we pick the co-en. All right. Ready? Yeah, so usually we have a Google number generator on the computer.

[00:04:31] But today we haven't. So we're going to just randomly open the book. And wherever page it falls on is what we can do. So we ask if we're going to do it. Yeah, why not? Yes, why not? Just want me to open it.

[00:04:42] If we're going to click the book, it's going to be very clear. If it's got a ticket, we've already covered it. Okay. Oh, there we go. And this is a thing. We have not done this before. So if I take that, this is a thing.

[00:04:58] Whenever we normally have a pre-amble before we do a podcast. And whatever topic comes up when we flick through the book, it comes up. All right. So and you'll understand what I mean when I say this. So I'm going to say that you're going to go and now.

[00:05:16] The idea really is to, when you hear it, just allow the words to fall on your ears and just sink into your soul. And whatever you feel think experience in that moment is the teaching. Right? But the trick is, can you translate that? Can you register that? Right?

[00:05:40] So this is a very meditative experience in a meditative way of working and learning. But we've tried to do it in a playful style and help show people how we do it through the podcast. All right? So you're ready for this? Okay?

[00:05:53] So I am the prison prisoner and prison keeper. Okay? Yeah? All right. So. Yes? It's a typical fashion. Yeah? Through fashion. Yeah. There is back on the money again, right? Yes. So I'm going to put it out to get you over ice first, right?

[00:06:16] It's like, what did that go and say to you? When I heard that two predominant feelings came to my mind, which may seem contradictory. The first feeling that came to my mind was the feeling of being humbled and the simultaneous

[00:06:41] feeling which came was the feeling of being extremely hopeful. Because when I heard that I realized, I'm the one who's caused my current situation in my previous presentation. I was calling out how we often blame others or where we are.

[00:07:05] We blame other people, we blame the government, we blame the media, we blame God. But actually, we're the ones who are the architects, the designers of our destiny. And we're the ones that created the prison that we're living in now. So it's humbling.

[00:07:25] But at the same time, it's incredibly hopeful because we're not just the prisoner, but with the prison keeper. Just as our past actions imprisoned us, our present actions can free us.

[00:07:42] And this is incredibly powerful because most people in the world have lost the conviction and confidence that they can change their life. They feel I am who I am, I am where I am and what I'm going through is what I'm going through.

[00:08:00] And I just got to grip my teeth and get through it. But this beautiful insight reminds us that we should be hopeful and empowered because we can design a better destiny for ourselves. I'm flailing.

[00:08:17] And you know, earlier on we said, you know how when we preamble before we pick a colon, it's normally related to what we're talking about.

[00:08:26] And you've just given us this amazing martial mind part talk and the colon you picked is directly connected to exactly what you just spoke about in the wisdom that you shared.

[00:08:40] And this is the beauty on a share with the world is that magic is happening around for you. We have not orchestrated any of this, this is purely freestyle right because I didn't have a backup. Come on, excuse me.

[00:08:55] But I decided, hey, let's keep it free and open because there's divine forces outside of that guiding us. So the consequence, you know, we're continuing to talk about this today. So how beautiful is that? It is what did you experience in that?

[00:09:14] Oh man, that was a deep point. So in the interview we have this world called Binger. Binger means cage. And whatever refers to is like this body.

[00:09:25] It's like a cage in a way we come in, we've got this cage, we live in this body, we live it out. But it's your cage. And as whatever you do with it, so you had that element of it.

[00:09:36] And then also like you said, the mind, how we attach to our thoughts, how we can become a prisoner of our own thoughts right? And so on until we decide to look at it, this is actually just kind of a mind there was a story ahead once about,

[00:09:50] Actually, practically joke is exactly the joke is as well as a story, yeah. So what happened is that they punished the guy when they got some of these challenges, the punish the guy at the end,

[00:09:59] the premonition is kind of zoo room cut thing and they had to bring all these tasks throughout the day. And the idea is that you're supposed to finish your task and when you've done your task, your punishments over and you can like leave.

[00:10:10] But what they did was they kind of left and he said, they like, it's gone like eight coconut and he said, what's going on? Why is this punishment or finished? And he found someone but he says, guys why is the punishment or finished? Yeah, it's finished ages ago.

[00:10:22] Is that what you mean? So are you going to open a cage for me? The door for me, is it already open? And they never locked it in the first place. So you have to do all that and the door is already open.

[00:10:32] So he created that cage with himself. That's kind of thing that pops up. And that really kind of connects back to Maroise's talk. You know, we have the key to our own prison door, you know, and we have to learn how to unlock it ourselves.

[00:10:49] You know, we've got to make that endeavor. If we don't use that key to open the door ourselves, we remain where we are. There's also a story about this bird in a cage.

[00:11:03] You know, every day the owner puts some food out, some birds feed out for the bird and then lock the door. And one day it's a beautiful sunny day and the owner has got the windows open.

[00:11:17] And she puts some birds feed out, but she forgot to close the bird cage door. So the bird's in there. She lay, she lay, she lay, she lay, she lay, she lay, she lay, she lay, she lay, not. But what if I do what will happen?

[00:11:35] And out of her own fear, she stayed where she was. You know, she could have flown free and be liberated, but she had to make the endeavor. That endeavor is really where the true secret lies. Now that endeavor is not easy because you have to overcome your fears.

[00:11:58] You have to overcome those obstacles and challenges that are facing you. And this is what we call self-marsheries, cultivating your body, your mind, your emotions, your spirit. Now there's many different words for that and self-actualization, self-realization. The highest level of self-realization is God-realization, right?

[00:12:19] Because you now no longer bound by this body. You know, fish one more time. We talked about the bug of our Gita. First chapter in the bug of our Gita talks about, we are not this body. You know, we are spirit soul.

[00:12:33] See if we are spirit soul, then we're trying to liberate that part of it as martial arts. As martial arts, we talk about body, mind, emotion, spirit or body, mind, spirit, they say. Well, let's say there's four aspects to attributes, it's body, the mind, the emotion, spirit.

[00:12:52] But if you're only training in the body, you're missing three quarters of your martial artist. So you only ever going to be twenty-five percent if you get that good. But most people don't get that good because they don't stick to it.

[00:13:06] So do you want to be a sub- twenty-five percent person or you want to be holistic? It's usually said, do you want to live in a totality? Do you want to bring it all together?

[00:13:16] Right? So this endeavor of self-marsheries, the process as we call it, you know, is doing that. What do you think is the true purpose of self-marsheries? Yeah, self-marsheries are interesting term. And what we would say coming from the Vedic perspective is we look at it slightly differently.

[00:13:43] Self-marsheries doesn't mean to conquer over yourself. It rather means to allow yourself to be the master. And I'll explain what I mean by that. Right now, as you mentioned, there are different aspects to our being.

[00:14:02] There's our body, there's our mind and then there's the soul, which is who we are. Most people in the world have allowed their mind to dominate their self. Their mind to dominate their soul. The mind to dictate over the voice of the soul.

[00:14:21] So for us, what self-marsherie means is it means to reinstil the soul in its position where it can actually direct the trajectory of our life instead of our mind. On a cigarette packet 30 years ago, the sign was smoking may damage your health.

[00:14:45] 10 years later, the sign was smoking seriously damages your health. The sign 10 years later was smoking causes cancer and the sign now is smoking kills. Now isn't it amazing how someone can pick up a box which basically says,

[00:15:09] if you touch me, you're going to die and someone still picks it up and smokes. Why is that? Is that the self-making a decision or is that the mind making a decision? And self-mastery means to not let your mind make the decision,

[00:15:30] but to let yourself make the decision. In order to do that, you have to disassociate the mind from the self. You're not on that note. One of the questions I mean people ask these questions so that's why we bring them up.

[00:15:48] How do you differentiate between mind and body and spirit? What's your take on that? Because everyone says they said talk about the mind, are they referring to the brain? Are they referring to something higher? Probably the easiest analogy I use is the analogy of a computer.

[00:16:08] So for example, the monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, that's like the body, the hardware. And then there's the person behind the computer, press pushing buttons, they're like the soul or the spirit.

[00:16:24] But in order for the soul or the spirit or the user to do something with the computer, monitor and all of that, what do you need? Software. You need an interface. Otherwise you can't do anything. So the mind, the intelligence, that's like the software of our existence.

[00:16:44] So for example, another analogy I sometimes use to help people understand the difference between the self and the mind. Is I say think of the mind as an internet browser. Now an internet browser is not a life, but an internet browser has a default page,

[00:17:04] an internet browser has a history, an internet browser has an auto complete, an internet browser has favorites. So according to the person using the thing, as soon as they double click the internet browser, already a page comes up, that's the mind. It has a default way of thinking.

[00:17:24] As soon as someone types, www.a, a bunch of websites come up, the mind's like that. As soon as you see one thing, I see a basket ball ring there, it will trigger another thought. That's how the mind works. An internet browser has favorites

[00:17:44] which always induce you to go in that direction, the mind is like that. But you can reconfigure an internet browser. You can change the homepage, you can delete the history, you can get rid of the cookies. So the mind is like that, it's a browser.

[00:18:03] And what it does is with the help of the mind, we basically make decisions and navigate this world. But we are not the mind, just like you're not the internet browser, you use it. But if you haven't configured it, the internet browser can take you astray.

[00:18:18] So, let's look at that. That's how you put spirituality into your virtual information, management. Well, that was the case. That sounds beautiful. We've declared another piece. Thank you for sharing that. It's very, it's like when we talk about my body's been spoken about in the past as well.

[00:18:45] We refer to the bodies like this where you see the material kind of stuff, and then the spirit is the side you can't see. And then the mind is like the bridge between those two things. It's like an interface or a connect. Yeah, yeah.

[00:18:59] What I loved when I read spiritual books was basically everything I was experiencing day to day. Here was now like a clear explanation of it. Like what I'm saying here is not things that we don't experience all these things every day.

[00:19:18] But what we don't understand is why is it like this? Like what's the mechanics? Like why is it set up like this? So when you read the ancient books of wisdom, it's almost like it helps you to decode what you're experiencing every day.

[00:19:34] And then you're like, oh, that's why my mind is like that. That's why I struggle. That's why I'm negative. Yeah, it's funny. I'm into it myself and we're driving down here today. We were talking exactly about that. We're not really taught how to think. Yeah.

[00:19:48] You know, we just left to our own devices to go through life. Just kind of figure it out. Yeah. So it's like when we taught how to think and understand like I said these concepts or the mind that how it works and your thoughts

[00:19:57] and the attachment or this kind of thing. Now you become the observer like you're saying you kind of see that. Yes. And then you know, be able to actually do something about it right? Yeah.

[00:20:07] Yes, did I was doing an event and someone asked me what do you think about the modern educational system? And there were many things I could say about that. And I don't want to only say negative things,

[00:20:19] but I said to them, modern education teaches you what to think. But they don't teach you how to think. When I went to university, I often feel it's just like memorizing things to then regurgitate in an exam, to then get a piece of paper,

[00:20:40] to then graduate and say you've gone through the whole and how much through all of that process, did I actually learn how to think? You just told me what to think. What's the highest level of thinking or the highest way of thinking?

[00:20:56] Often what we're doing in the world today is we're thinking from our standpoint and then we're trying to see as much as we can see around us. But the highest level of thinking is when we take the vision of the personality

[00:21:15] who has the broadest vision and then we see through them, we often tell this story of a frog in the well. And there were two frogs in the well and one frog decided to go off and try and discover what the Pacific Ocean was.

[00:21:34] So the frog went jumping over and then came back and said to the other frog in the world, I said like, I've just been to the Pacific Ocean is huge. And this frog in the well said, huge.

[00:21:48] Like how huge could it be? Is it doubled around of water in this well? And he said, no, no, it's like much bigger than that. So this frog in the well said, what do you think? Three times as much as water is that's in this well.

[00:22:04] So the other frog is thinking like, this person can only think in terms of, he said, no, much bigger. And he goes like, I mean, it can't be more than five times them out of water. So it goes like this.

[00:22:19] And because we always try to think based on our limited experience, we can actually perceive the vastness of this creation. But when we tap into spiritual knowledge, which is the knowledge of the sages, the knowledge of the saints and ultimately the knowledge of

[00:22:39] divinity. And when we see through that lens, then we see something much greater. Therefore we say small minds discuss people. Average minds discuss events but great minds discuss wisdom. And then what they do is they see events and people through that lens of

[00:23:02] wisdom. And that's why these talks that you have are so powerful because they give a lens a way of thinking through which you can see something much beyond. That's beautiful. Thank you so much for articulating with Sushana Sakuwa. That's beautiful. How can people cultivate that?

[00:23:30] Really, the main question. How can we make it pragmatically accessible for people? What do they need to do to start cultivating them? In my previous talk I was mentioning the opportunity to join the 5 AM club. The opportunity to raise before the sun.

[00:23:54] The opportunity to take advantage of the early morning hours of the day which is still. And in those morning hours, if one is able to connect with spiritual wisdom today, we just read one line.

[00:24:12] And here we are. It led to a stream of thoughts, a stream of uplifting insights that if we then carry with us throughout our day, we live within the elevated state. What we tell people is just spend 10 minutes every day reading,

[00:24:31] wisdom because that wisdom gives you a lens through which to process everything that goes on around you. So I tell people join the 5 AM club before you join the 9 AM reality. What I say today is if you don't join the 5 AM club before you enter the 9 AM

[00:24:55] reality, it will become the 12 PM catastrophe. So we are all in there. Something a tangent out there. Not a lot of us because my she looks right? Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee, where he talks about the mind. I don't know if you know that.

[00:25:18] He says the mind has to be like water. It has to flow. He had it all. He used to send my, put the hair standing on end. It was like it was profound. But yeah, it's beautiful.

[00:25:36] I really appreciate how you bring the body mind and the soul aspect together because in the world today what people try to do is separate those. So on one hand, people just do the physical and then they just like neglect anything spiritual.

[00:25:56] But then the interesting thing is sometimes people do the opposite as well. They look into spiritual wisdom, they practice spirituality, but then they don't care for their body. They don't maintain and train their body and the body is a temple.

[00:26:12] So I've found many spiritual people who don't take care of their health because in some way they think that spiritual. But even though you're not your body, your body is a temple. It's a machine and it's a vehicle through which you can do amazing things in the world.

[00:26:31] So yes, you're the soul but why would you not take care of your body? And that's why I appreciate that you bring both together. That's powerful. Definitely definitely absolutely. I mean we see that all the time because sometimes we get a polarity taking place, right?

[00:26:48] In our thinking as well and we see all the time, like you said, some people can become so spiritual that they forget the material and forget that actually here in a reality that has physics and dynamics and stuff like that

[00:27:00] and then you get the other side which you'll be just strictly about this and they don't even think about the other side. So finding that balance and that kind of middle path as they say is quite ideal isn't it?

[00:27:11] The Buddhist speaker about the middle way, but it's really about a state of mind there. And it's about not being too sad, not being too happy when everything happens.

[00:27:26] It's just traversing that line and at the same time we talk about mind, body and spirit, you know, but you know, you are all of those things as Bruce would say, You are a totality, you know, you are great in the summer of the parts.

[00:27:43] Now if we look at the parts and we do live in and what our approach is that atomized world, we break things down to the smallest unit because that's how we talk to think. We have to break things down to the smallest unit otherwise you won't make sense.

[00:28:01] But if I laid out all the pieces of Ferrari on this floor, you'd look at it and think, what a mess. What is this? Why have I put it together? You're like, oh wow, it's a Ferrari.

[00:28:14] But then when you drive it, you're amazing. If you see more and it starts to emotions and things, right? So it's more than those pieces when they put together on top of that, it would take you somewhere.

[00:28:27] So we do a lot more now, we just take it out like a material example. But we ourselves are in that same way.

[00:28:38] And when we bring all of those elements together, the cultivator, all of those elements to the best that we can, given the best resources that we can. And go out there and search guidance from bona fide masters that have already done that.

[00:28:57] And they can hold our hands and take us to a higher level of elevation. And that's what we're trying to do here. You're deported and deployed your amazing wisdom after over two decades of studying. So you can share that with the rest of the world.

[00:29:20] I mean, that in itself is my environment. You just help in others so they can find it in themselves. I mean, you discover your totality and now you said, hey guys, you can all be, you can all discover this amazing thing. Are you interested?

[00:29:37] You are in quiet with it. Literally. That's exactly it though, is it's the most because someone's been doing it for so long period of time.

[00:29:47] It gives them that authority to teach back because they have got those years of experience and knowledge which nowadays is just like, you know, is it? It's a little Instagram post with no meaning behind it.

[00:30:00] And equally, I think that's very kind of words from both of you. And I think equally. I feel like I'm learning every day. I learn from both of you. I don't feel as though I'm higher than or better than anyone else. Every soul is amazing.

[00:30:19] Perhaps on my journey, I met teachers and contacted wisdom that empowered my life in different ways. Equally, I think everyone on this journey has picked up many amazing insights.

[00:30:32] I have friends from the Christian background, from the Muslim background, from the Sikh background, Buddhist background and I learned so much from them every day. And one beauty I tried to embrace in my life is to look at the unity and diversity.

[00:30:50] And this idea that when we get beyond differences in richer and culture, and that we begin looking at the core of what all spiritual people pursue in the deepest, you know, recesses of their heart. That's all universal.

[00:31:08] And I think if we could have more forums where we exchange openly like that, then we'll actually see we have a lot more in common than we think. And that's really what the world needs. One of my see-fills was to talk me this lesson.

[00:31:26] And it stems of the back of a story that 80 actually taught me, you know, which was, you know, you put a group of martial arts students in a room from different disciplines.

[00:31:37] They're all on your way to a better, but you put a group of martial arts masters in a room. They're all discussed with the commonalities. And it's the common thread, or what we commonly talk about, the universal truths that are the same for everybody is where everything lies.

[00:31:59] And really what we're trying to discover is that not just in ourselves on a daily basis, so that we can make it practically accessible and be able to get into the habit of as you said, learning how to think.

[00:32:11] And that how to think is how can you see that in everyday life? What is the commonality you've got to conflict with someone? Change that around and find out what is common here? How do you relate to one another and harmonize?

[00:32:26] And then you can see things from there, perspective as you said, put yourself into them. The higher thinking, as you mentioned earlier, and all of a sudden, now you start to harmonize because you understand, understanding is really the secret.

[00:32:39] Once you understand, you know why they're behaving, acting, and saying the things they're doing. And then you don't have to respond to that through wisdom. So commonality is really the key.

[00:32:54] The hardest thing to do is to put that in the practice on daily basis, especially when you face to each challenges. And something you mentioned earlier, you've got your browser history, right?

[00:33:10] So if you go, if you experience something that triggers something when you browse history, it's just going to go back there. And it recreates that whole thing again. But to change that, you have to maybe erase some of that or just try and code in something different.

[00:33:25] So we constantly reprogram our consciousness and to reprogram our consciousness, rechanging the way we're thinking, how to think, how to see the world, how to be in the world. And then it's becoming a higher version of yourself. Yeah. That's what we're trying to do.

[00:33:45] So just to add on to that browser analogy, once you've, you know, optimized it and configured it to the best way you can. There's always a chance of pop ups.

[00:34:01] That's really important point because sometimes we think self mastery means that I'm going to be perfect every single day. That not one negative or fault finding thought is going to come in my mind or not one material desire.

[00:34:21] But even in the mind of of someone who is a master, who is very accomplished because we have a material mind, there might be some things that come up a few pop ups.

[00:34:34] But the differences we don't follow the links, we just hit that X and just get on with what we're doing. And just say like, that's not important. I know where I'm going. And I think it is an important point because oftentimes we think we have to become perfect.

[00:34:51] But more than becoming perfect is being perfectly sincere because it's all in intention. You know, we could do something different because we got access to you people. Is there anyone who's got a question that they want to ask? And you're that I can get featured.

[00:35:30] I'm not sure if you're going to ask me what you're saying. It's a question that someone asked me, but no, it's a question. Is there a kind of information possible or is it one thinking or the other?

[00:35:43] One writer says we're not human beings having a spiritual experience with spiritual beings having a human experience. I don't think we become spiritual with all spiritual by nature.

[00:35:59] But as you've mentioned throughout our journey in life, we pick up opinions, narratives, we pick up certain ways of viewing the world that kind of fix us into a vision of life. But spirituality, what I see it as is more than adding or changing,

[00:36:18] it's just about removing that which is covering who I really am. We live in a world in which we're imprisoned into an authenticity. One person says, I'm not who I think I am. I'm not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am.

[00:36:41] That's how disconnected we've become from our own authenticity. And so what I see spirituality as is a crumbling away of everything the world told us to be, the media, pain, success, all the superfluous things that have been impressed upon our switch, have hijacked our inner voice.

[00:37:05] And I think it is possible to do it. But that time to disconnect is really important. And without going on long, I'll probably just end with this point when I was in India, traveling, I met one yogi and I asked him for some advice.

[00:37:24] And he looked at me and he said, every year disconnect for one month, every week, disconnect for one day. And every day disconnect for one hour. And then he looked at me and he said, disconnect to connect.

[00:37:42] And I looked at him and I said, you should be on TEDx. But it was a nice point disconnect to connect.

[00:37:51] And the only way we can find our authentic self is when we take a little bit of breathing space away from all the opinions, the expectations, the narratives, the pressures of the world.

[00:38:06] And we just take a breather away from that, then we can begin to hear the heart. There's two aspects of that as well. One is from the self, if that's something that you need to cultivate in yourself.

[00:38:18] And the other is, if somebody else has those qualities that you're trying to tolerate and you have into exercise patients around,

[00:38:26] the only way in my experience to deal with that is to be the change in yourself, because when you become more patient and more tolerant, then they'll see that. And they might want to ask you, hey, how did you do that? How are you so calm?

[00:38:46] And that's when you get to help hold their hand and take them on that journey. And other than try to ram those teachings down their throat because they, that one will resist it.

[00:38:58] So there's two elements. And when you experience in that yourself, you first start asking the question, why don't you change? Why don't you do something? But our true empowerment is when we actually become this change in ourselves. So we're a normal question.

[00:39:20] It was based on those beautiful words and what came to my mind is at the moment we've got a generation children, young people. And I was so disconnected because they live in a world that's not really, and what is it?

[00:39:34] We all condemn here in some way or take away today, but we can try to help change that mindset of the old people that are living in iPads and my friends. They're totally wired. They're going to the matrix, aren't they? How can we cut those on my head?

[00:39:52] Someone once sent me a message and it was a one line-up. They said, get off Facebook and get your face into a book. That's the book. What we sometimes do with young people is we do digital detox weekends.

[00:40:14] And in the first hour, they're like, you know, it's like withdraw symptoms, you know?

[00:40:20] But what we do is we take them up to the mountains or something and we say, all right, everyone, look, you may as well get rid of your device because there's no connection here anyway.

[00:40:30] And so they do like an amnesty at the beginning of the weekend and everyone just puts their phone into the box. And we just walk, we go for bike rides, we connect with nature, we talk, we play sports, we discuss wisdom.

[00:40:45] And we just interact, we spend time together. I'm just looking out the window here and it's just beautiful to see people playing basketball, you know? And instead of doing it on their PlayStation, you know? It's beautiful. And nature is very powerful, more powerful than we know.

[00:41:04] And I think if from a young age, we can give young people experiences of nature. Sometimes you think like nature was so big deal about that but it's all connected when you, your feet touch the ground, when you drink water from a fresh stream.

[00:41:29] When you smell the flowers in a forest that does something to your consciousness. And most people just don't because we live in urban hubs, you know? In the urban jungle. We never really experience true nature.

[00:41:44] And so that's something you can try out with young people, just let them have an experience. And then they come back to the world and I'm not saying they just become overnight sages or something. But they connect more with the world.

[00:41:59] And they know that that's such a beautiful thing and let me not spend my whole day in front of a screen. But let me interact with the real world which is beautiful. So in the end of their podcast, we read the actual cow and itself. Oh, okay.

[00:42:20] So I think today I'd like you to do the onus. All right, it's a very short one. As most of them really are quite short. Your mind is a prison and your divine being has been kept prisoner within it. If you try and escape, the suffering gets worse.

[00:42:42] Don't strive just experience what you have to. Reveal your true authentic, higher self. Any resistance will just create more suffering. As they say, what you resist persists. Surrender to everything and allow yourself to dissolve in life. So you can ascend the lessons life is serving you.

[00:43:12] And when done, you will liberate yourself. You are the prison keeper after all. And you have the keys to the kingdom. Thank you so much. Beautiful. Thank you so much for reading that out. You know, we were always running out of time.

[00:43:35] We got to, you know, just one thing we don't call back. Yeah. So from long to half of myself and like we want to thank you for taking a time out. We'll be in the future.

[00:43:46] But before we close off, any final thoughts where there's a McCowan or the topics that we've discussed in this interview? I guess I'll pick up on one point you made which I think is deserves to be highlighted. To go on the spiritual path, we have to be brave.

[00:44:06] To go on the spiritual path, we have to be courageous, fearless. To go on the spiritual path means to go against the grain to some extent. To go and get going, the spiritual path means to challenge ourselves, to challenge our thoughts, our desires, our aspirations.

[00:44:25] It can be uncomfortable. But I'll just end with a final thought. They say the pain of that discipline to go on the spiritual path is uncomfortable. But the pain of regret is unbearable. And so while that spiritual journey is not an easy one, it requires discipline and courage,

[00:44:53] and it's definitely uncomfortable if we don't stay true to ourselves and walk that journey, then the pain of regret that will suffer as a consequence will be unbearable.

[00:45:07] And so one of my meditations, as I wake up every day, is let me not live a life in which there'll be any regrets. And in order to do that, you have to live the life of bravery, discipline. Have a strong mind, but also a soft heart.

[00:45:27] Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for the absolute pleasure having you. Thank you so much. You can't make that up, but you know there's an element of that element you're me with talking about in the core. So it would be amazing. Thank you very much.

[00:45:40] Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So keep doing what you did. So everyone, there you go. That was a special motion mind power and like what it is, we're plugging the book.

[00:45:52] And I'm going to say, and to all of you, and to everybody else, so I hope you take value from this. And until next time, let me out. Thank you very much.