Conversations on Compassion with Sri M & Dr. James Doty

well I just want to welcome everyone to a conversation on compassion with Shri M and I'd really love to introduce you to his work because his work and who he is has influenced me in many ways as many of you know who have participated in our conversations on compassion by viewing these conversations we speak about the influence of spirituality in regard to human flourishing we talk about the science of compassion and also discuss how we are finding a connection between who we are as human beings both in the context of how we have if all of as a species and how each of us has integrated spirituality into our lives and it has had a huge effect on many people that being said when you're on this path you don't necessarily need to have a guru or even have a Dogma that you practice and what we have found through our research on the science of compassion is that goodness caring compassion has a profound positive impact on our physiology just as caring for others in the context of almost every religious practice has a profound influence so without further ado we're going to begin our conversation so maybe we can just begin thank you for spending some time thank you thank you I know many of your followers know your history and you've done I guess two autobiographies and more recently we were discussing before we started our conversation on your new book soon-young which as I understand the void boy yes so before we talk about that which I'm very interested in talking about I'd like to talk about your own life and because you began as a member of a Muslim family and in fact Bonnington yes not by choice right okay but you still go by the name Mumtaz Ali Khan in my passport I dropped that on long ago because it has certain connotations uh-huh but Mumtaz Ali is the name in my passport and my visa now you talk about though in the face of that though you also had a grandmother who was interested in Sufism right and you specifically talk about that how did that impact you think as a child to you hmm actually did have a mmm maybe in some way responsible that I turned into the internal aspects and not so much in the outward aspects of Islam because it outward aspects of Islam with one book and one prophet it's not everybody's cup of tea it's like he's only in one direction and you have to follow the Shariat which is all the rules and regs but the Sufis or guys who kind of rebelled and came on and said we need to have a personal communication with whatever you're looking at or worshipping so my grandmother used to tell me beautiful Sufi stories about various people including her relatives her father was a teacher who actually was a in those raised and educated man who did superintend of the jails in Trivandrum and the compassion he had is very interesting in spite of warnings he used to go into the cell and have long conversations cup of tea with life imprisonment or sentenced to death prisoners people want him this is not good for you because but then one day a prisoner who was on the death row maybe three days later he would have been hanged he stabbed and it was on his left knee nobody knew he had diabetes so the only became gangrenous in law you know they had to compute he died because things were not so advanced in this little city there in Trivandrum so I've been listening to all these stories you know perhaps that might have turned my mind into something more serious than the external my grandmother never was she five times a day or anything of the kind but she was a very religious person deeply yes well it's unusual for someone I think you were at the age of nine when you actually had a visitation and it's interesting because I think in your second book I think what was your quote that people think you went bonkers but maybe you went bonkers earlier much earlier actually so what was that experience because you have a manifestation of I think Shri Baba ji and if I may correct it was not a manifestation I actually saw a man it was physical it was not as if he came out of a light or anything of the kind when he was standing at the backyard of my house under the jackfruit tree which was like we are sitting here as a realist you sitting here and but it lasted only for a short while and he I think he walked away from the back door but I'm not sure because I couldn't turn and look so this is what happened but clearly it had a profound effect on you certainly it changed already I was thinking a little of intro I was becoming more introvert but with this he touched me on my head with his right hand and he said as time goes by he will come to this you know what this was I was quite it's only mystery to me but after that I found I was spending more time increasingly more time sitting quietly looking up in the sky and I didn't you know we never know about the human it's in the south of India but always thought the clouds were like this no clad mountain that there was something going on I can tell you this and I started meditating nobody had taught me how to meditate is to lie down at night wake up at midnight and in the same posture lying down I used to meditate here and in this Center and something used to a light used to kind of expand and circulate and it was very blissful and I just continued maybe till early in the morning and I used to kind of wake up as if I was waking up from a natural sleep so yes this thing started happening plus I started reading more of this literature on yoga meditation Vedanta the Public Library which was started by the Maharaja of Travancore it's a big library it's an old place I found a librarian work very helpful so installed I read this now read so this started also happening side by side now that's probably somewhat unusual not because you were Muslim but because that was your family's faith absolute and how did they respond to this behavior because that's the thing I had to pass through a tough time to be honest although my father was educated man and he he was a philosophy graduate from the Maharaja's College so he kind of figured out something my mother she was very fond of me much more than anybody else but she couldn't get what mothers do yeah exactly and what you can get to terms with this is her you know it was happening and then you know what happened if you're probably read out about every age of 19 I know it letters I felt suffocated I felt like I was in a cage it was a very good case believe me gold gilded cage because financially she were quite well-off and I had no problems but I had a problem which was internal I had to go to a place where I could indulge in my interest but no constrains whatsoever so I and I've always read about this - I started reading the autobiography of a yogi' the him Island trips of some of the other Yogi's who existed at that time and so on and I just one day I decided if I don't going on I can't go so I just without informing anybody I just left now by this time though had you already searched out different gurus and interacted with them or was this part of that initial no till the age of 19 I had met many of the spiritual teachers in and around a trend room sitting in the now mother monopolies now I'm sitting in Andhra Pradesh now this is in Kerala I was born and brought up in the capital city of kala tremendo so there were some people not so well known but I used to go and spend time they were very fond of me so nice to spend time and they knew who I was because in a small city where everybody knows everybody knows who owns a car because there were few cars this kind of thing so I did a very fond of me I went and talked to them sat with them ate with them and I learnt many things but I didn't feel they were my teachers I thought there was somebody you waiting somewhere perhaps and maybe it's the same person I met at age of nine for 10 minutes this was kind of eating me up inside and I I just had to do it I mean I just so but I did read some books before that because till age of 19 from 9 to 19 you really read books the 16-17 but this council was closed by the library so is to go and read or racy ously in fact I hardly read for my exams somehow I passed I passed through but mostly I was spending time with books which you don't need for like that anyhow so this is how it was mmm so that period of time after you left how long was it before you met your guru so now you know I had to depend on railway maps and thing there were no Google nothing that point so it's lake up mm exploration really so I had some money so I went by trained and bypass and so I landed at Haridwar which is the beginning of the Himalayan foothills and then from there to Rishikesh and then I used to walk I had around twelve rupees Indian rupees left when I reached heard what I thought that if I keep his money with me then I'm dependent on it can I do it without let's try if you don't eat two days you know going to die so I distributed it to the there were hundreds of sadhus in Hanoi and then I started walking yeah I took a train from her daughter education then I started stayed in the shivanand ashram and various well-known ashrams for a few days here there may be a month at the most and then kept walking and it was sometimes very bad I loved the walk it took me around a month to reach her madly not it's about 200 kilometers it took me about a month I because I had to halt here and there then my legs got all cut and sore but it was still wonderful experience I for the first time I felt like a bird out of its cage you know flying I didn't have any very profound spiritual experience but my mind was so glad and so thrilled and it's you know that it's a beautiful terrain so let me add one more thing that cannabis grows widely in the Himalayas I didn't try any were you motivated to go to the Himalayas because you imagined it or you were guided there or do you still I I don't know if I was guided there but I had my imagination full of the Himalayas but as I went along I found it I couldn't find what I was looking for I thought because you know I thought that the Himalayan snow clad peak started from brushing is not true so till I saw in kadar and padeen and what Rinat there was no snow anywhere so I was a little bit disappointed and I didn't see the kind of yogi that thought I would see in my imagination I met many good people many learning people so much done and of divine life society in Rishikesh was a very learning man very nice man but he told me this I don't think you're going to fit in here maybe you're going upwards and up by - watch out for frauds this is the warning he gave me so anyway so then but there was this irresistible pull to go to the upper him and that of course could be that I was being pulled that time I was not aware now in the respect I think perhaps so because I met my he shall not bother you it was me who do not the Babaji but his disciple from the not sampradaya know there is a very old tradition called the knots starting with our did not gerak not and so on so I met him in this cave in vyasa gufa when I was so disappointed that I won't take my life at that point he came into the picture I mean I met him in the cave and for two and a half three years a little more than three years I spent with him he was a wonderful man because you know he had no banner he had no organization he just had a white cloth line cloth and he was barefoot and so I walked with him even today I can tell you there are places where no tour is no success so this was how it started and when I met him I said I thought it's the same person I met when oh nine because I saw every you know it hip not it I never forgotten those eyes big eyes and so I said I won't leave you ever so he smiled and said in Hindi dekha jaga which we will see what happens so this is what happened this wasn't bad V not it sounds as though though when you met him you have a feel about him but did he have a specific teaching or Dogma or was the nature of his presence if you will for the first time when I saw him I didn't know anything about what he taught but there was something that made me feel that it was like my own my father mother brother sisters you know all put together like also a friend of there was this instant feeling that ah I found this man which I was missing this is what I the thought that occurred to me but gradually as I lived with him I figured out from his own discussions that he belong to this ancient order of the nuts from much indra not downwards but even though he was a nut he came from the tradition but he was familiar with all other traditions and here nothing against anybody that was wonderful bless he was according to him a senior disciple of someone we called sri guru baba ji who was almost a semi-mythical figures every put it this way because nobody knows much about this except what people have painted pictures and talked about hardly people know much but this man was flesh and blood he was not a phantom so he saw and then not simple I am sure you know about this but there was a time but you know they wear these rings here called the call split your throw Yogi's to where these rings here and they have usually mattered here and they always have a fire wherever they go they call it the doing so I was also introduced I also used to ever I took it off because Babaji said when I went back home I sometimes wear when I feel the fancy for it but generally so and his hair was somewhat like this but much bigger darling so you know there was a time in the history of Indian spirituality the vedantins of shankara's order and so on kind of started neglecting the practice of yoga as such saying that if you understand that the world is an illusion and then Brahman is the reality and if we keep thinking about it but what Shankara called as brahma satyam jagat mithya this and then one day you'll arrive that there's no need of doing in yoga they said it is gymnastics is that so this was a time which is not true actually because you may theoretically understand that but you need to adapt your mind and brain and body to understand this as an experience which you need to do something about it this is yoga but this was the trend at that time so that's the time when the Yogi's sampradaya of the knots n-ath as knots starting we believe that Shiva himself was called Adi not which of course is a mythical figure and the next March Indra not was not so mythical and then gorakhnath was a historical person were the people who started this whole lineage of yoga and they saved yoga from being thrown away by the radon tests and and the important text books on yoga except the Patanjali yoga sutra which we don't know who wrote potentially was basically a yogi but other books later and some hit Shira samhita sedessa Dante Baloo there are many such books even the hata pradipika which is a standard for practicing yoga kicks butt all written version nuts I'm not saying because I belong to that because Babaji didn't want me to think that I belong to that some further ayah he said even though I am you don't have to belong to it but it's a fact that these people saved the yogic text books including the Kashmir Shaivism texts which of course Lakshmana was the latest interpreter of it is no more so this is what happened you know it's interesting how you were saying when you met Baba ji how you had this feeling about him and you know I've been fortunate and blessed to interact with a lot of some people may call them holy people but my experience has been that when you meet someone who is at that level of spiritual insight a few things occur one is dogma is no longer important and two is that you have a sense of unconditional love and that when you have this with an interaction with one of these individuals it just puts you in this very calm joyous state and when you're in that state I think that results in this condition that then allows you to gain insights and it sounds as though this is on some level yeah what happened now the interesting thing I think though for some people is that they may have an experience like that but they have not dealt with their ego and then it becomes a way of elevating themselves as I'm important my belief is important my relationship with the person is important and this is a delusion of course mmm if I just probably as pointed out I was pointed it was pointed out to me that that is a danger which one needs to avoid if one needs to expand you're right then what happens is because suddenly you find that you're kind of free and you're not dependent on anybody and there is something wast coming your way you're not still there and then you start having some experiences and you feel that you're better than everybody else now this is a danger which has to be sorted out and I'm I think warnings have been there everywhere in all the teachings mmm in fact you must you know Kabir das was a great we were st. of Banaras who again had something like my history because he was born in a Muslim family he took initiation from ramananda of Banaras and the maram mantra was given to him but he was a meditator he is in his poems you find a lot of descriptions about the Nadi's and the channels and which centers and the location he said something very interesting in Hindi really sounds good he said Mirage Oh dick named Angela burr on Amelia Kui joke Dilek oh yeah op namu DISA bronica that means I went looking for evil you know everywhere I could find it then I opened my heart and here it's at inside me you know the ego this is something I think fame ego and shame are the according to the teachers they're the last obstacles which one has to carefully look at especially when you're suddenly you feel that you have something which others don't have and it may be an urgency which is not visible immediately but something is it can blow up Tillich oh you're right absolutely right I have seen this happen before and do you have to constantly be on guard with yourself to see that it doesn't happen well unless you're I mean you know there's nothing to do well I think one of the other interesting things is and oftentimes the the type of people you're describing they think they have to have proximity to the Guru for their elevation but the interesting thing is a true guru I think appreciates he can learn the greatest lessons from perhaps what is perceived as the lowest person I do ready to and also from in my case I consider my age for not verbally as a wonderful teacher because from the beginning he made sure that I was not dependent on him I said this he said I'm not training you to become dependent stand on your own feet you know and once there were many times when he really did this to me in a way which I realized it deeply one of the earliest was if we have time right in one and a half years after I was with him I was completely different I worshipped him I was and then one day he called me and he said you know I said what Balaji I when do I go because I have burnt my boats and I'm here and there's nothing left for me to go where do I go he said don't get out you've become to depend on me you have to go and be on your own I was 21 years old yeah 20 so I said okay so I wasn't I felt very upset actually so I I took my little bag and my commander which is the water pot and I just walked out and I was alone I walked towards Porter Kashi I wanted to go to kadar not so the other direction no sorry to go Mook so as I was going I felt ah now I'm free it rained I got completely wet and I said well this is our yogi should be you should get wet when the Sun comes you get you know all those things and then I walked and I saw some white peacocks their heads disappeared because of the dams and things that have come in playing or few of them dancing around that it was turned and I somebody came to me one sadhu and said I'm also walking that side so I said please I don't want to talk to you because they keep talking so I said can I shut up and walk you going oh yeah let me go my way you know that kind so and then I was walking through a particularly lonely place it was evening I started off early in the morning I felt someone walking behind me you know so I thought no somebody's walking behind me so I'm not going to talk to them so then they came closer and stopped so I stopped I was a little concerned what is this then I heard the familiar sound but see you know when Babaji initiated me into his his teachings he called me Madhu cannot because the knots have to have a knot at the end so he said Madhu cannot was the name given to me and as a shot from his Madhu so he used to always call me Madhu and motto and sense could also mean honey so when he said Madhu and that sound the voice is unmistakable so I knew a disease bhavati so I really was upset I said why has he come here he said get out so right so I was determined not to turn back but I did and then he said to me put one hand on myself but where are you going I said I don't know you said go I'm going I mean is there a direction to go and go so then he said but also you're going because I asked you to go I said yes then he said serves no purpose for your still debris yeah and then he said okay so if I ask you to come back are you going to go back you know what in my mind I said I was thinking I'm going to say no but when I said I said yes so then he put his hand on my shoulders come on let's go I wanted to try this out and in the three years I was with him two three times he had send me away to different places then I felt better because I had learned how to handle this you know the first experiment was bad it's almost a disaster so I learned this and therefore I say to all my friends who whoever to me the group which joins the satsang to people I said please don't become dependent no for God's sake keep away from this you have to stand on your own feet learn for yourself I can help you open somewhere maybe but finally it has to come from inside because otherwise you'd be just worshipping me and doing nothing that's my understanding please it's interesting I one time I had been with the Dalai Lama for a period of time and then I don't know if you know Eckhart Tolle yes and I was with a car and at both of these things there was a woman there and she was clearly a wealthy woman and I found it interesting because I watched her and her whole motivation was to get as close as possible and so I didn't have been at Stanford and we had a dinner afterwards and she suddenly showed up there and she said I see that you're with the Dalai Lama and he seems close to you I saw you with that car tolay clearly there's something about you she says I want you to be my guru and I looked at her and I said are you serious so she said yes absolutely and I said well but you have to really confirm to me that you're serious about this it's just oh no I'll do anything because you know I have to learn and I have to gain these insights and I said that's wonderful I said then I'm going to give you a task and if you successfully complete the task then we will see what manifests so I said I'm going to give you a list of 100 books and I want you to spend four hours a day reading then I want you to spend four hours a day thinking about what you read and writing in the journal and then I want you to spend two hours meditating and she goes but but you mean I don't get to be with you I said no no do you have to do this as the start and she says oh my god well but after doing this what will happen what will happen and I said well if you're diligent about it and you're serious then you will find you don't need me at all and very few people are that's - people don't know people don't want it's basically a shortcut these people seek I said they don't want to work on this because it is a hard work the thing that there must be something you can grab you know so close and Baba she told me a story I said he said I repeat it in many satsang so there's this young man who went to a guru and said sir I want to become a disciple so he said okay fine so what am I supposed just like you said in a different Indian context he said what does a disciple supposed to do said early in the morning you wake up cut wood bring it here for me go have a dip in the cold waters of the Ganga then clean up the cookies the hut where we live and so on and so on and this guy's waiting to think where is the food coming now no mention of food and then he went on and on and then then what then he said there's two hours of study okay and then then there is one out of many so he is wandering and what do we do next and then he said one minute sir I don't think I can do this is there some way to become a guru so he said you have nothing to do just sit and bless people he said that will make me the Guru so this is similar to disunite it's very strange sometimes I begin to wonder if people are really seriously searching for something or is it a well yeah no I think you're right I think there are people who are constantly searching but they still have delusion and attachment and emptiness not the type of impetus of a boy understand but just an emptiness spirit you need yeah enough and again I think it also gets back to this issue of being superior because oftentimes the Guru is believed to be special or beyond and any real guru will say quite the opposite so I thought it was interesting because I know you go by Shri M or M and I liked I think you made a comment one time that you've mentioned one M which is what yes the second one is the name given Shu by my do connect yes and then the third is this Atman off by now which means a human being you remember so well we've met only for half that's how I do but but I think that's interesting because ultimately when you accept that you're just another traveler and another human being it it keeps you from your own ego getting grounded but yes I don't want to say this in public maybe you can edit it off but I only one city you see so yeah so anyway yes but I you know I think that is important because you see some people who want to be surrounded by people who glorify them and and I think there are some if you will gurus who accept this because it is helpful for some people that they see them in this manner but I think that it's like the person who likes to be surrounded by people who tell them how important they are and how smart they are similar to our president versus you know I would like to believe and I hope that I was try to surround myself with people who are smarter and people who actually confront you because that's I think the place where you learn the most in fact I think in some of the textbooks on the religious practices in India like the Gita and so on clearly lay a stress on treating praise and blame as equal and not getting caught up because if you keep praising somebody you know like flattering somebody after a while the person begins to believe that it is self now this is a danger if you are on a spiritual path otherwise it's okay but it's a four hundred days if every morning somebody gets up and says your God then on the hundred and first day you might really think you're God you know so Baba's he gave me this morning just before I left him when he asked me to go back to the plains he said it doesn't matter what people think about you because now you're going you have some something something in you which may attract people but it's all I want to think about you you have you can't change that because the people can form any opinion about it the moment you start believing what they think about you you're sunk he said what are carefully so I'm absolutely careful about this some people really because especially in India it's a common thing to please nobody likes criticism so I think when you're criticized then it's actually you somebody is pointing out right or wrong that when you're not okay I mean there's something wrong and that's where you can correct yourself right so we should be open to that I think personally because then otherwise we are stuck well of course the word used is to teen inda to the express and Linda's blame they keep everything this is from the Gita he says - till then mone is one who considers - tea and milk as one because he's not dependent on that no sorry no no I I think that they're two issues one is that's the an exercise in non-attachment either seeking praise or seeking blame but treating everything as one and not getting lost in either I think the other aspect which in some ways I think you've alluded to is at least in my own limited experience I have not met an enlightened person I've met people who approximate that and of course as soon as someone tells you they're enlightened you need to turn around and run as fast as you can I think sometimes in this context my daughter called me up day before a study and asked me his word enlightened used so often Papa but are you enlightened people some people said you are enlightened I said sorry you have to find out for yourself well I don't think I am she said no no but this can be but I saw it in one of the video said somebody said to her about enlightenment and they said you fit the picture and you didn't say a word I said I didn't say a word because I couldn't say over not so you can't say everybody's things and it's difficult to define this enlightenment thing how can we define what is it to be defined well I don't know personally I can't define this the moment you start defining it then you're moving away I think well I think perhaps that you become enlightened when you disappear into the void because then there is in some way emptiness but in some ways everything yeah but then it can't be translated into ordinary were examining if something like that happens it's difficult to say what happened words fail yeah no I think that's I think that's right yeah it's failed because it needs nothing no support um I was also fortunate to have a small dialogue with the Dalai Lama I think it was there and on the YouTube many years ago before I started his walk in India I met his holiness in Delhi we were discussing this but Sunita of tippet recently in fact I didn't want I after 10 minutes I said I think I should move there lots of people he said there's nobody here sit down like in normal you know then we discussed and I said though pani should say that it's the truth is that which even the mind cannot reach he said oh no wait a minute wait a minute it probably means the mind cannot define kind of am I yeah if the mine kindly did what is it to me it's there and I'm here and is finished I said perhaps it means not the ordinary mind mind I said that I I can understand that but no and then we were discussing and he said to me something which really struck me he said he met the Panchen Lama after many years 25 years or so owns in the Chinese jleelewis and he was let off and then he's they were talking to each other and he said to him at any time during this 25 years did at any time did you have fear did you fear anything so he said I was myself quite surprised by the answer he said yes I had this fear three times during this period when I was in under arrest in the Chinese prisons I said what was the fear said I fear that I might end up hating these guys you know this is something was like for a second I just kept quiet I didn't say I didn't know what to say and then he himself tapped me on my shoulder and say wake up you were so enthralled by what I was saying yeah because can you imagine somebody being tortured day in and day out and his fear is that you'll end up hating that the guy yes I in fact I actually had a similar conversation with his holiness and in fact in his telling of it to me he was saying that he had tears because again it was a fear that he would lose his compassion and you know it shows you how I think a trained mind it's like Nelson Mandela you know when he was in prison for 27 years when he left he said he had no anger towards his captors and I think being able to have that depth of love and non judgement and acceptance actually that is probably what approximates enlightenment you've met a number of spiritual teachers that are fairly well known neem Corolla in karoli baba shot while in the heart just one was it that was in Brindavan when I met him from a distance and he told me to come and sit on his lap and he gave me a rotten apple to eat I mean that's about it and he kept telling everybody didn't bother Jesus but child about his boy but when this boy and that that's about it man and how was the rotten apple it was quite nicely and he pulled it out from inside that blanket which he always had and for a second I was worried how to eat this thing you know it looked dirty and it was inside the blanket and a half worm-eaten kind of I was holding it in my hand wondering then he said it in Hindi cow so I and that was very short but then I had met some other people like Sudan and so I'm it's in my ananda twice that item and way you know when I was leaving my Easter not watching my guru he had wanted me to meet a couple of people and stay with them and the last one on the list was Jiddu Krishnamurti so so I spent about an year or so more than like three years during the last part of his life or living in the headquarters of the Trishna Modi father's in India and in India the headquarters in India in Nadi are near the Theosophical not inside separate so I think I also Babaji send me to him because there was much to learn from this man you know I've I noticed that there was something about him just I felt he was like a shadow I mean he was not there but I got many value but I would say he swept away many carpets then I realized why I was asked to go there so we were the last person I met after that I didn't have any desire to go and meet anybody and there was nobody on the list anyway so I've had some very interesting sometimes Krishnamurti can I say so sometimes Krishnamurti comes across as being a little impatient and arrogant but really not so since I have watched at close quarters he was ready to admit his mistakes which is a big thing because who would do that at that stature you know he was like gospel truth whatever he said people be but he was ready to say yeah maybe I'm wrong so you know for instance and he never tried to change you know I didn't want to become in course Krishna more tight but I grabbed quite a lot of things from in one of the talks he said that there's nothing in these books of yours this religious books throw them into the sea okay fine so everybody was listening and the third day last day he said he has not read any of these books so I said so when he came back in the evening I would like personally attending on him I was very young at that time and he was almost 90 so I went to him and I was giving him some oil for his knees there was some pain in the knee some I agree tickle I said I want to ask you something ah he said don't bother me then he said okay okay what's it so I said sir I think there's something wrong in this the first day you say that you have not that there is nothing in these books throw them into the sea two days later you say that you have not read them now if you do not read them how would you know they're nothing in them you know it's a very simple common-sense question he said oh just a minute I don't need them I said so that's a different story you don't need them but there may be somebody you need them so when you speak people consider it like gospel truth so I think you should be careful what you say I thought he's going to really send me out you know yeah you know you know nothing you know what he said you're right sir said I think I must be more careful about what I'm saying and I was stunned because I it's he didn't have to say that I will nobody yeah but it's interesting because having met many spiritual leaders and having met non spiritual leaders but profound people many who are not educated but who have a depth of knowing for some people you don't need anything and I think for other people they evolved by learning much and I think that's very true again getting back to what we were speaking about earlier this ego thing of I've had actually people say to me because I'm an atheist I'm a non-believer in anything but in some ways I'm a believer in everything and Who am I to judge but but I've had people come up to me and they say well I see that you're close to the Dalai Lama how is this possible that you're not a Buddhist or I don't know if you know Amma I know Amma and I'm close to her and others but I know nothing about there and my statement is because these people say you know I followed this person for 20 years I've never had a private conversation why is it that you can have this closeness and I said well one is I'm seeking methane I have an open heart and I care and I said if that is what you can embrace then you've learned most of what you need to know and but people forget that they think it's a matter of memorizing an enormous list of dogma which I don't think is that can be beneficial but it's certainly not required and this is we're getting back to Krishnamurti I think and in some ways it's like why are there different religious practices because different people need different things to fulfill their own if you will a spiritual path one of the things I wanted to talk to you about is you did this walk of peace in 2015 from Kanye Kanye Kumari you know to kick Kashmir yes twenty eight seventy five hundred kilometers yeah yes and you did this in honor of Swami Vivekananda well we started from the Vivekananda Kendra in Kanyakumari but I did this yeah in a way honoring him because he had walked the length and breadth of India I wanted to also go and see what the actualities in this country of us which has so many religions so many conflicting theories I mean hundreds of them and so many political agendas so this is the reason why I went and basically it was a peace walk I wanted to tell that convey this that you may belong to different religions different political ideologies but can we do it what you have to do peacefully instead of resorting to violence I mean this was my message and I think I I could give little bit plant the seeds but more than that I think we there are many people walking with me we learn more we learnt many things and it's no I can no longer think of at least in India the India my country as as I thought about it before I started there are many things which have changed you know I found that really speaking nobody wants to have violence or create miss card I found out that it was all fully together that's a one big lesson I know it's completely political it might appear as a what in India is called a communal confrontation which means one religion against other but that's on the surface deep down it's politics for all sinful I said this is one big team to which I discovered and among other things of course of course that the question is how do we overcome that it's difficult this also I discovered it's very difficult as long as we have the system where people come to power through oats majority and there's no other way I don't know if there is any other way but this is the best we have but there is the innate danger that as long as you depend on boats to come to power you split people because one against the other because you want someone to oat for you that okay maybe in a minority so you don't care you see this has some of the things that we learn I think there may be a solution if at least a dozen people stand up and say that power is not important for us but we want to serve the nation difficult to find that's the problem and like if you're in politics you need to be also quite intelligent and quite in a way conniving because you're facing the other guy who's like you but deep down if you're pure and you have no selfish motives then perhaps something can be done but I don't know where there are such great leaders difficult to say no I think that's right and they unfortunately as we're talking about earlier there are many paths to spirituality or enlightenment and it's the manipulation of one's ego to pit you against another and the nature unfortunately of how we evolved as a species is this I think sense of tribalism and one against another which early in the evolving of our species was beneficial yeah but now actually you know it's not beneficial at all I think we need to move Falak yes but the other aspect is though and what has allowed I think atrocities to occur is because though most people are afraid to stand out and to say this is unjust because one is it's their own fear of danger and the other is their desire to benefit and that's this constant this fear of danger I can understand because politics is such a field you can be bumped off when Martin Luther King was bugger off so see you have so even in my case I'm little careful with this because that's not my main thing in my mind I get the spiritual but you can't say I'm spiritual or not care for what's happening this is not possible if you're sensitive but then I have to keep a balance because I think I need to work for many more years and I don't to end it now but but getting to that you know I was commenting I was an atheist but I think that at least for me it's not about believing in one dogma it's about this overreaching principle I think that it brings all religions together which is love compassion and this concept of our existence on some level being an illusion and understanding that we arise from nothingness and go to nothingness and maybe this is a segue into your book your latest book fiction or nonfiction I'm not sure good when I was interviewed but the book came out they asked me why did you go into fiction I said because I'm tired of stating facts and nobody seems to take it so there we go in fiction and in fiction you have a little freedom more than the facts you don't know you can say if something is wrong and somebody mistakes you can say well this is fiction come on so that's one thing the other is recently there has been a beautiful book which I was reading called safe Ian's by Oh Rory haha very nice some points some of the things there because he's an anthropologist so but he says the whole of this ordering of civilization and organizations probably started when people started lying I mean in the sense not lying in the sense that fiction Oh like the chimpanzee cannot fictionalized but ship can't what human beings didn't they have heaven never hell they've invented many things out of imagination and the imagination has to be so real for people to really believe it so that also some way kind of influenced me to write fiction I said some things which I can't write factually maybe but it's difficult to say because some of my factual books like my autobiography sometimes sound like fiction yeah so the dividing line between them I think is very very narrow oh that's and about atheism when you talked about right now I'm working on the next book because Amazon wants another book did this time they wanted a non-fiction and I'm working seriously in a in a way scholarly manner because I'm doing a lot of research on this and the title of the book would be yoga for the godless because yoga which is derived from Sankhya basically except the practices are added on mostly doesn't have much of a concept of Ashura or God as created it's more to do with purifying your mind cleaning your system so that you become free it's not such an important part of this you big practice why I'm doing this is because very often cults take up the practice of yoga and turn it into something religious which is okay as long as it doesn't disrupt but when it becomes disruptive then even politics we have the right and the left and the right can always use yoga and religion as one of their you know calling card but it's not so you know there's nothing to do with it well this is in some ways my view which is one any practice that offers benefit to another and to others I cannot argue with but that being said you can feel content you can feel happy usually if you define your life as being of service to others then that is ultimately the highest pinnacle and you don't need any God or godlike entity to allow you to do that getting back I think you've commented on what you call neuro theology I don't know much about it but well it's interesting because there is a body of work on this and if you look at the evolution of our species we have two aspects one is a very good memory and the result of having a very good memory is regret and the other is a perception of death which for many people is frightening so what happens for many people is that mentally they spend most of their time with regret or here Yuli of looking yeah and so some people would argue that this concept of religion is to diminish this via fear of death because if you believe that when you die you either have a karmak existence of rebirth or you go to heaven or you're in some other blissful wonderful place that rewards you for being a good person it allows you to escape that fear in fact there's a body of evidence that shows that religious people live longer and in some ways though whether for good or bad if you are able to decrease fear and anxiety and this is what meditation offers you you become less stressed these inflammatory proteins which are associated with chronic disease decrease these hormones which are associated with stress and anxiety which are released on a chronic level and people who are anxious are all very detrimental to your health so if you have bliss based on a lack of fear of death then that can actually benefit you physiologically but it could also have negative consequences because if you use that bliss to justify negative behaviors that of course is a is a problem there's a philosopher which you might like named Dennett and actually he's a very outspoken atheist actually but he talks about something called the gold army and the silver army and I may confuse these but if I recall correctly it's this idea people go to war with absolute belief they're fearless right because they can go forward and are afraid of nothing because death is meaningless because ultimately death leads to afterlife Wow the silver army they're much more entwined with our present reality and thoughtful about consequences yes yes so it's it's an interesting but don't you think there's also the other side that you believe in heaven and hell suppose you also filled with great fear and your whole life is spent trying not to do this not to do that because you might go to hell but that's the purpose of religion to to create a moral ethical framework of behavior and that's why there are some people religious people who say that their religion or whatever religion is absolutely necessary free live a moral ethical life there are other people like sam harris and others who and myself who say you don't need any religious foundation kill any late yes yeah so you can be a wonderful kind caring person without this and this is a buddhist yeah they don't have a concept of Ashura or a great to create a god room but it takes is so important the James case in point because I and my research I figured out that even before the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali they were the yogacara school of Buddhist and before that the Jains were call - Ramona's whoever complete literature yogic literature practice and theory so it isn't what I'm trying to say it's not dependent on that that's what I'm trying oh it could be indifferent could be so you practice Kriya yoga thank you and that's what I learned from and this idea of Kundalini now in our teachings of Kriya yoga there are two sections there is the one in which you just deal with the mind or / brain purifying the mind taking it to the level of the mat and then Budi and then to the this is one lineage one kind the other believes that if this has to happen the Kundalini has to arise now the other side is not agreeable to this they said there is but there is bliss of course but that bliss need not necessarily be accompanied by something moving up or down it's not required but I cannot deny the fact that there is something which does get activated whether it moves up like a snake or not this is a controversial thing but something definitely gets ignited and it has from you I can't talk to you about this probably because you know more about the nose than I do but I think it is also something to do with the parasympathetic nervous system not just the center and maybe the vagus nerve displeasure about feelings that you get in the different flexors which are called the chakras so for me it's a reality because and Korea does deal with it in some way no III think you're exactly right and I think there a number of studies that demonstrate now that when you can't put your stuff into the state whether it's choosing Kriya yoga or other types of practices what happens is it shifts you from stimulation of your sympathetic nervous system where you have stress anxiety and all these very negative effects we talked about how we evolved as a species and certainly when we were on the savanna in Africa and we saw lion these types of responses were very appropriate but they're not beneficial today and they actually impede a lot of people from their own path because if you were in a constant state of fear and anxiety you cannot focus on being present which means connection and you cannot relax what do you say that this is also to do with the limbic system defense system yes exactly that's exactly what I'm talking about and as you pointed out you were talking about the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic system is when you use as an example Kriya yoga it allows you to stimulate your vagus nerve increase its tone which shifts you from this fear state to the state of bliss and this is when your physiology works its best because you see what happens is we you're in this state several things happen one is your physiology works much better your cardiac function your peripheral vascular function your immune system but the other thing that happens there three one is your executive control area in your brain which is associated with discerning thought where you make more clear decisions works at its best when you're in a fierce state you limit your options to is we know that when you are in this state again because you have access to memory and you're much more thoughtful you're more creative and ultimately you're more productive and this is why I think based on science now we have demonstrated what many of the spiritual and religious practices who do things such as Kriya yoga other breathing techniques other types of meditation techniques it has a profound profound effect the positive effect for many people now I've got a chance to talk to you this is something you can I'm still not sure where the bag is no it's bid so the vagus nerve begins in your brainstem lower down and it essentially goes to every organ okay in your body okay it is no endings coming out yes but and especially in the heart okay the other thing is it's not a one-way street it's a two-way street so it also interprets things that are going on in your body and then allows you to have a brain response okay and it works independent of the parasympathetic it's part of the parasympathetic you see so the what we call the autonomic nervous system which comprises the sympathetic and the parasympathetic system they are part of the system when it says autonomic it also it means below the level of consciousness typically but the extraordinary thing is that while generally it was developed from our evolution because we have so much data coming in we can't concentrate on wreathing we can't concentrate our making our heartbeat it created a system that allows these to automatically happen but with practice you can influence them and you can allow yourself to shift from the stress mode to this more relaxed or what they call the rest and digest system so yes the vagus nerve starts in your brainstem essentially goes to every organ in the body is there any main location of it oh yeah there you have one on each side oh yes yes and just like you know you have symmetry the nerves and your brainstem go to each part of your face right so yes you have to and we are learning even more now as an example over the last few years we've learned that even what you eat it has an influence and in fact there are some evidence that based on certain type of gut bacteria that it can of have an effect on your mental state and you can change that through diet but of course what we have also learned and whether this is good or bad is that 80% of our illnesses are due to our behavior so if you can master your behavior which means exercise diet belief you will get rid of most illnesses but in Western medicine because we have a capitalistic system the pharmaceutical industry actually is against that and in fact we do not have a system of health which actually if you look at area vadik and other traditions they talk about a system of wellness we have a system of illness in the West yet since around the subject have they found out some kind of some way by which it can be the Vegas now for instance can be act made more active or something new from it well you know it's funny you say that because I have been approached by venture capitalists who want to create a prod a product that stimulates your vagus nerve yes and now there is another thing to figure it out yes so there is a way you can do that and it's actually used to actually treat certain types of seizures but the idea here would be to utilize it to stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system to receive the health benefit the interesting thing though is one of the most important aspects of that benefit has to do with being in a compassionate mind state and you cannot bypass that so there is something that is called heart rate variability and this is not different heart rates it's the rate of variability between a heartbeat if that is more irregular this inter beat variability that means actually your parasympathetic nervous system is stimulated and yes but again so far you cannot achieve that state unless you're in a state of compassion hopefully for yourself and of course for others and one of the challenges is that in Western society especially most people beat themselves up they're very critical of themselves when you beat yourself up it's hard to be compassionate to others and it's very self-focused because you're not fully if you're not flirting to you exactly so I think that's the point so let's talk about the void which in some ways I think we've been heading towards in your book we're at the end Sonia goes to the void and he states he's going there what is this a metaphor for well in this book which is a story of course and so suniye goes into the white simply means that he is no more visible to us that's what it means that doesn't mean he some not there somewhere and because in the beginning this character called suna and he comes if somebody asked him what's your name he says I'm Junior so where do you come from he says Junior doesn't come from anywhere and doesn't go anywhere it's it's it's no thing and nothing but not he and so therefore in the end he goes back to nobody knows where he came from he go back he goes back to where he came from we don't know where I mean this is the concept this is the one concept the other concept which I'm trying to work out is that why does not nothing but it's the essence of every team and therefore this man being here or not being here is not so important the crystallization of it is not so important as an as a concept it's there everywhere all the time and I don't know if you notice at the end that there is this doctor and you're always just to study this and he says where have I seen this man before because he is looking at the picture and he said patience yes he said I have seen him as a patient I'm also trying to say that what we think some people we think our patients may not be really patients but somebody who is not like other people extraordinary so we can't define them so we kind of judge and say oh they're patient that they're not well the sick they may not be maybe there's something which they can see which we can't see I don't know something similar today I'm trying to no no it's that was my impression there one is that one thing that inhibits our ability to see clarity is our own judgments our own judgments our manifestation of our own delusion and sense of self import and when you can be in that non-judgmental state which means you then offer you have no fear about an interaction you're able to offer unconditional love that is the ultimate highest I think because you don't have anything to defend you know and you don't mind what that at the person things because that's okay I mean people can think in different ways so this is probably what I'm trying to convey true Suniya and now there's a demand for a sequence now I'm only wondering if if I have a sequence it will destroy this Union which we created you know what so does he have to come back yeah the publisher says stay at the Westland books which are part of Amazon they say why don't we have a sequel I said but then I have to bring him back from very vanished said yeah bring him back he can vanishing it then I said then they would ask for another sequence them so it becomes endless it's like I said the TV series so I know I'm just thinking about it so I know he manifested near a toddy shop yeah I'm not familiar with toddy shops maybe you can explain that and we'll close on toddy shop charlie shop you know in India and not India so much but in Kerala which is the southern coastal part of India there is this kind of an icon called the Katori Hall now there was a time when there were no liquor other than toddy available alcohol even now they call it Indian made foreign liquor for all the other rum and everything that comes so it was only toddy that was available which is actually before it Furman's it's a very healthy drink it's a it's from the coconut tree or from the palm tree they climb up and they chopped the top of the bud that comes and they leave a pot there so it drips into it and it's very sweet before fermenting and then they make it ferment and it becomes toddy it's slightly it's slightly stronger than beer but less than wine perhaps somewhere in between so that is a good idea so mmm and toddy can be hot it and thought he can be good depends on how you make it and how long you have kept it and so on now this little Charlie shops are basically like little stalls like small rooms run by an individual and they haven't their own kitchen because people want to eat and and sometimes when we were young in college we found out the tastiest food perhaps is in the toddy shop because these guys when they drink toddy they want good food and it's cheap because it's not meant for high-level people it's meant for the ordinary folk so lots of them you know Kerala is a Marxist State even now it's ruled by the Marxist it's a communist state even before Calcutta so you know in fact the first Chief Minister the Marxist Chief Minister of Kerala has the same name and from the same not family but the same tradition as Shankara the writer of the Phoenicians who was a nambudiri brahmin and this man's name was Shankaran Namboothiri party he Shankaran number three part but he was Accomack sister I mean he went to the part seller he read a lot of these things but he became a Marxist so we have a big presence there and I'm what I wanted to mention this is much of the Marxist strategies were done and discussed in toddy shops because these guys were not so overtly religious so they don't mind going and sitting in toddy shops it you know so it's like a in rural areas especially they you don't find a much in cities but if we go a little into the suburban and rural areas you'll find these little tiny shops where people come and have a torii and then they speak and all kinds of things are discussed there and generally holy men don't go to a coffee shop so I wanted to place jr. right there but you notice that he doesn't dream Tony he drinks black tea but he doesn't mind living there at the backyard of a toddy shop and meet all the other guys who have thought he has no problem out there you see so I wanted in fact I'm going to confess to you that when I first started writing the book suniye was drinking toddy then I cut it off and said let him have black tea because then if you drink starting whatever he says people think he must have been drunk so I got that out because he was drunk in a different way he didn't need toddy to get drunk so no drinking we also drink in some way a different thing so this is what a toddy shop is all about if you go to rural Carroll I will find them I'm gonna have to check that out so in some ways least tell me if you're going because some of the Tauri can be terrible but I can recommend good places so in some ways ultimately it's interesting because the toddy shop is in some ways a metaphor to connect I think with with actually the nature of human beings and then you have if you will this enlightened person or close to enlightenment and it allows this connected action yeah so you know my book was called into the magic shop maybe your next book should be into the toddy shop that Christine gave me and I read it it's a very very interesting book I must say even before I met you I started reading it last time this is a beautiful book yeah especially the thing what I found it is this I don't know what to call it there's something out of the box it's not it's it's not like linear it's linear means something is there and I'm here and I'm trying to get there but this is like it's it's quite out of the box it's like fuzzy logic if you can say that but that's what really affected me because it's like the some of the teachings of the Punisher for instance they're not linear it's not as if truth is there and you have to go and find it it's here so how do you find it out that's the question I think that's the question for all of us but ultimately what it requires is you have to be able to see clearly and I think that's what the past yeah helps us I think also when you say clearly it means to sometimes keep ourselves out of it and no I think that's right that's it's because we have to be careful because we have a tendency for delusion maybe I know best well for all of you who have been listening I want to thank you I think our time actually has probably gone a bit over but what a delightful discussion and I want to thank you for spending the time with me and it was a variable our variable very enjoyable and well thank you very much but I know you also have your time is valuable in that you came and spent some time with me thank you all of our time thanks variable thank you thank you all

Channel: CCARE at Stanford University

Views: 33,075

Rating: 4.8571429 out of 5

Keywords: Stanford CCARE, James Doty, Sri M, Satsang Foundation, Maheswarnath Babaji, Conversations on compassion, Compassion

Id: 2ea7g-bEd2o

Length: 85min 17sec (5117 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 20 2018