How to Connect With Your True Self | Radhanath Swami on Impact Theory

human beings are disconnected from their own true self the senses the mind the intelligence requires to be in harmony with the heart and with the living force within the heart which we call the the soul or the spirit and when we understand the sacredness the beauty the eternal nature of our own spirit then we can recognize it in creation and we can recognize it in others when we don't realize experience perceive the sacredness of our own true self then our perception is an illusion of the world but when we understand who we are and understand our harmony and relationship with the world around us and the people around us then we're actually seeing everything is true [Music] hey everyone welcome to impact theory today's guest is a mild-mannered swami from the suburbs of chicago but do not let the calm demeanor fool you this guy is having an outsized impact on the world a best-selling author of multiple books he has spent time with some of the most powerful and or spiritually influential people on the planet not only do governmental officials seek him out as a conduit to the people but he spent time with mother teresa barack obama and the dalai lama and that is just scratching the surface of the incredible people you can find him surrounded by and it is no wonder given the laundry list of contributions he's already made to humanity including helping to establish many missionary hospitals eco-friendly farms eye camps schools ashrams an orphanage and even a number of emergency relief programs additionally just one of his initiatives serves more than 260 000 meals a day he has lived as a hermit in the jungle dwelled in caves and at the age of 31 took monastic vows dedicating himself fully to helping people the world over find fulfillment so please help me in welcoming the author of the journey within and the journey home an autobiography of an american swami the uncompromising radhanat swamy thank you so much for being here it is absolutely wonderful so the thing that i found so interesting in researching you is your idea of the difference between illusion and reality and that so many people get lost in the illusion and i want to go in on that so define the illusion how do people get lost in it and what ultimately is the reality the sun is full of light full of heat but if you turn your face away from the sun then you see a shadow so that shadow is illusion but when we face toward the sun again we see that everything is full of light so in the bhagavad-gita it is said aham sanskrit which means the supreme source of everything everything is emanating so we believe in one supreme truth as many names we could call god and from that everything exists when we understand in harmony with that truth what this world is then we actually see it from a spiritual perspective and we see its inherent spiritual quality but when we're disconnected really from our own true self then we see everything under the cloud or in the shadow of the false eagle and so so everything is potentially spiritually if we see it in perspective and in relation and in harmony with our own true spiritual nature so let's break that down so as somebody who at the beginning of my journey i would have found that answer really really um it would have felt out of reach like there were too many parts that i didn't yet understand so if we can break those down so what is our true self what is our true nature we'll use another analogy a dream let us say we're dreaming that we're being attacked by a tiger in that condition we're really afraid we're perspiring we may even be rolling and screaming in our bed now is that dream real or illusion the reality is we are having that dream and the reality there are tigers somewhere the illusion is we're identifying with it we're thinking that that is me in this dream and that tiger is is about to eat me but in actuality the dream is real we're real but when we're misidentifying with that dream thinking that that's happening to me now then that's the illusion in your book though you have a really good example which is you're sitting on a rock in india if i remember correctly and a black snake slithers out which would immediately trigger me that this is potentially a cobra and you said you even had the thought of there is a level i do actually need to protect myself like there is some amount of this is a real world that is a real snake if it bites me i really will die so as we're navigating that spiritual awakening as we're because there's so much talk um certainly in your teachings which are an echo of the word that i find impossible to say the bhagi vat gita oh god i hope i'm roughly close i've said it literally a hundred times and i just i have so much trouble with it but in that so krishna is um all things beautiful the creator of all things beautiful something along those lines so you put that together the the beautiful side of things love and yet there is also the tangible notion of danger is real and so how do people navigate between finding a way to focus on the beautiful so turning their face towards the sun not living their life in the shadow and at the same time recognizing that to some extent you have to function in life you have to be afraid of the snake so where is that line between the the dream world of you're focusing on the wrong things you're obsessing over things like loss of money or status or things that that are the dream the perceived you're seeing yourself as the one who either is good or bad based on those fluctuations but at the same time there is a line at which it does become a real snake like how do we navigate that that's the idea of yoga or true spirituality to actually learn to live in harmony with one's own self we have this physical body we have the mind and all of the thoughts and emotions that come through the mind but who are who are we i am seeing through my eyes i'm hearing through my ears i'm touching through my flesh i'm tasting through my tongue i'm thinking through my brain and i'm loving through my heart but who is that me that me is the essential consciousness that's giving life to every other aspect of our existence our body and our mind do you see that consciousness is universal or is that unique to each individual creature simultaneously both that consciousness is you is unique but it's part and parcel of what is universal and unless we understand that uniqueness of our own true consciousness then we can't really appreciate the universal nature and how we're all actually connected everything is connected and everyone is connected and everything and everyone in this world is interdependent and emerson said that the reason why there's so many problems in this world is because human beings are disconnected from their own true self the senses the mind the intelligence requires to be in harmony with the heart and with the living force within the heart which we call the soul or the spirit and when we understand the sacredness the beauty the eternal nature of our own spirit then we can recognize it in creation and we can recognize it in others when we don't realize experience perceive the sacredness of our own true self then our perception is an illusion of the world but when we understand who we are and understand our harmony and relationship with the world around us and the people around us then we're actually seeing everything as truth we're seeing as a spiritual reality even in this world okay i'm gonna um the great news is because some of so much of this i find simultaneously intriguing and confusing i will play the part of the audience and try to to walk us through this so um you you have a really powerful story about the redwood trees i think that's a really important um piece of the framework so if you can walk us through that and then then i'm going to have some additional questions after that a few years ago i was with a friend and we visited muir woods in northern california and we we go there every year together and our purpose is to get away from kind of everyone and everything and just climb some mountains and be with the redwood trees and in quiet so as we were walking through there was a group of tourists and we wanted to kind of walk by them as soon as possible there was a forest ranger who was speaking to them and as we were rushing by the forest ranger said i want to tell you the underground secret of the redwood forest and i was a teenager in the 1960s so i have this inclination to underground secrets so i told my friend let's just wait and hear what he says the forest ranger explained that in these forests are the among the largest tallest and oldest trees on the planet some of these trees are 2 000 years old they're growing on a hilly terrain the soil is very loose and over the centuries there have been massive earthquakes windstorms snowstorms how do these trees keep growing through all of the different challenges that have come then he was quiet and everyone was thinking he said now i will tell you the underground secret the roots of the trees under the ground reach out to connect with the roots of other trees and as soon as two roots meet they embrace one another they wrap around each other in this way he said every tree in this entire forest is directly or indirectly connected and giving support to every other tree the big gigantic ancient redwood trees are reaching out roots and the little tiny redwood trees they're just like threads the roots they wrap around the big ones and they get all their support unity is strength this is a lesson of nature for humanity that in unity there is true strength but we find if the branches wrap around each other they're not going to have the same effect it's the roots the roots support and similarly the root of our of of our consciousness really is our hearts that's where all the blood is pumping from and the heart is the sitting place of love when we connect to that love within our hearts than it expresses as compassion and this is the greatest need in the world to understand how we are all interdependent with each other what we have in common with each other from a spiritual perspective life is sacred and when we recognize that in ourselves we recognize that sacred potential in others and then we live whatever we may do whether we're swamis or doctors or lawyers or accountants or farmers or politicians whatever our role may be in society we're not trying to find happiness through the things that we can get but we actually understand that true happiness is sharing what we have within ourselves that journey within things can give some amount of satisfaction to the physical senses and to the mind but things can never give fulfillment to the heart all right so taking that analogy of the the interconnectedness at the root the connectedness at the love if you will that layer instead of the branches which i think is really an interesting distinction i understand that and as a metaphor that works really well for me um the part that i don't quite understand is you have the individual self and then you have the the self as it is interconnected to all others um is it that the individual self well i think i have two separate questions about that so one i don't fully understand um the it from first principles i would guess that in your tradition you would say that you want to dissolve the sense of an individual self but that doesn't actually seem to be what you're saying and then the other side of the equation is i need to to answer in my words to make sure that i understand this is is our true nature to be seamlessly connected to using your words all that is beautiful is that our true nature to go to the beginning of your question self is sometimes defined as ego it's our sense of identity and in in our tradition we we want to dissolve the false ego which is our misconceptions of identity and what do you think those are based on like how do people get a false identity but when we do that then our true ego actually awakens and it shines and it gives light in our life into the world so we are the eternal conscious spirit that's within us the living force and the living force is living in a body and has a mind it's not that the living force is a body and is the mind something like when we drive a car you know the car has such a wonderful use at least potentially and we have to keep the car really good if we want it to to fulfill that purpose but still we're the driver in the car we're seeing through the windshield we're pushing the horn and making sounds so similarly our true self is within this body and the false ego is when we forget that we're all a part of the supreme self we're all inherently filled with the grace and the love of the supreme self and we think i'm just this body and i'm just the the ever-changing thoughts of the mind and because of that there's so many divisions it's the cloud of ego that that um obscures the son of our true nature our true love our true consciousness so in this condition we're thinking i'm a man or i'm a woman or i'm black or white or red or yellow or brown or i'm hindu or muslim or christian or jew or jane or sikh or parsy or agnostic or atheist or i'm a human being or i'm a dog or a cat or or a cow or a tree we're identifying with these designations as myself but when we understand what my real self is who i am and what my real potential is then we actually respect that same sacredness of being a part of god in everyone everywhere so i'm going to ask a question that may be so weird to you as to be unintelligible but is the purpose of reconnecting to your true nature to re-discover or uncover um see beyond the illusion like whatever words are the right words to get to the point where you realize you're connected to that that true eternal divinity um [Music] is that because one of course it would bring out compassion and we would be kinder and and better to each other so part one is that that and then is also a part of that just the neuro chemistry of in this body of feeling better like my real question through a really western lens is is it better or on your side of the fence like is it just a more enjoyable place to be why do all of this like it's a lot of work to go live in caves and so like why why put on put in all that energy ultimately we're all seeking pleasure whether we're the ceo of a corporation or head of a government or even the little ant that's on your kitchen cabinet wherever there's life there's a search for pleasure what is the origin of that whatever our species whatever our status in society we're all looking for pleasure we're all trying to avoid pain why because pain interferes with our search for pleasure anandamayos it is said in sanskrit because the nature of the spirit within us is pleasure that pleasure is love as we said before things cannot give fulfillment to the heart it's only love and being loved that's the need of the heart and when there's an emptiness of that love when we're disconnected from that love then we can try to find that experience that pleasure in so many things that could be even harmful power fame control accumulation of more and more and more but it never satisfies us because the example of the tree that we were discussing if you put water on the root of the tree that water naturally extends to every part of the tree if you just put water on a branch it's not going to have that effect things could give some pleasure but love is what we're all truly searching for love is the most powerful motivating force and in whatever we may be in this world if we're motivated by that love that is within us then we'll we'll perform our occupation we'll perform our domestic family duties with the best precision effectiveness because it's with compassion so how do you begin to uncover that so your your entirely amazing book the journey within how do you advise is probably a better way to ask it how do you advise people to go on that journey like it feels like not the sum total of what you're trying to accomplish because it's pretty clear that you're you're very efficient at alleviating immediate pain but in terms of helping people find that spiritual awakening what does that pursuit look like how do people begin or how do they recognize markers on the path how do they know they're making progress a beginning is who we choose to spend time with there's a simple analogy if you take an iron rod and put it in fire and keep it there a little it becomes red and hot like fire and if if you touch that rod it's the same as touching fire and if you put the same rod in ice and keep it there then it becomes as cold as ice so what we associate with we so much become influenced by that and we see throughout the ages people's spiritual awakening is due to circumstances of life where we feel a need for something deeper something beyond just all the external experiences i'm having there must be something more to life than this in india i'm in villages with very simple poor people and i'm also with millionaires and billionaires and i really don't see too much difference because if a person doesn't find satisfaction in their own hearts and in the purpose of their life they're not going to be happy people whatever they have or whatever they don't have because the real treasure is within ourselves so when we feel that need when we feel that um that purpose in our life to find something deeper something beyond then we connect with people who can inspire enlighten us to make that connection and by being with enlightening people people who are really positive people who are on a journey on a journey to engage whatever they have and whatever they know for a higher purpose within this world then our desire for that is strengthened it goes deeper and deeper and then the next step is sadhana satsang is sanskrit which means to be with enlightening people sardara means when we have that we have faith in something beyond we have faith in our potential and then we nourish that potential with a spiritual practice every day we nourish our body by eating and sleeping and we nourish our minds by being with people who encourage us who appreciate us who empower us and we also need to nourish our spirit through a spiritual practice meditation prayer in our tradition we chant these beautiful mantras of divine names and these spiritual practices open up our hearts to make a direct connection with our true potential with that love with that peace what do you think about psychedelics as a way to have breakthroughs like that i know they've started experimenting with cancer patients who are terminal that are really having deep anxiety over passing away and that there seem to be some pretty profound effects and i know you've spoken at burning man which is pretty notorious for the use of psychedelics as a child of the 60s uh have you experimented have you seen people try it do you have any um you know if somebody has very limited time and they haven't had that breakthrough is that something that um you would ever consider sort of yeah try it [Laughter] for the purpose of medics medical reasons you know medications of various forms you know could be beneficial from the perspective of self-realization or enlightenment um psychedelic could potentially at the most kind of open one's awareness that there's something beyond all this stuff that everybody's mixed up in this world but it really can't take you beyond that because our true spiritual nature is our natural self and it requires to be awakened through spiritual practice through savor through valuing the the opportunity to serve rather than being a slave of this desire to exploit and consume and it's when we actually come in contact with enlightened people whether it be through their books or through their to their audience and you know through our own intuition when when that desire when that propensity awakens within us for spiritual enlightenment then we need a spiritual path a spiritual process by which we awaken that the difficulty with psychedelics is it may open a little door that there's something beyond but beyond that it could actually be a serious distraction we become dependent on a substance rather rather than awakening our true self i don't think i fully understand like what a practice would look like so reading your book obviously i get ideas about what you did and the mantras and chanting and being around other people and exploring nature in fact that's something i'd love to know more about so if my one of the contributions i want to make is to give people instruction manuals so i'm obsessed with this idea of like there are just some people for whom until it gets to the point of step one do this step two do this like it's it's always going to remain sort of far away and how do people is asked another way is there something about being out in nature walking through with a mantra that um has that effect of opening that door and the the one experience that really stood out to me in your book was you were you were chanting and it you said that it opened something inside of you and you felt connected to that eternal spirit and you said you expected it to fade away but for some reason that one was just it was deeper and more profound than you'd ever had before is there a way to work towards that is it the repetition of the mantras is it belief in the words behind the mantras is it being out in nature like how can people you know really walk that path that you're talking about our spiritual practice is like a foundation it's kind of like charging your cellular phone you know there's so many functions that a cellular phone has these days but you need to charge it for all of them to be activated so we may have so many functions in our life with our families with our occupation with the world around us with our health but you know in order for them to be spiritually connected we need that connection and that's what our spiritual practice is for and that's what being with enlightening people helps us with and that's prayer meditation in our meditation we chant this beautiful mantra and are you trying to clear your mind when you meditate are you trying to soak in a certain feeling remember that you're connected like if you had to say in one sentence what the purpose of your particular meditation practice is what is the the purpose purification excuse the example of the mind which you just spoke the mind is like a mirror we're the self and we're seeing the world and we're seeing ourselves through the mirror of our mind we all have the experience time that when we're agitated nothing really looks good anymore and when we're in really good mood kind of everything looks good yes when you're in a good mood the trees look so sweet and when you're in a very bad mood you know you just couldn't care less about the trees so we're seeing ourself as a reflection through the mirror of the mind and we're seeing the whole world in a similar way the purpose of the mirror is to see ourself but when the mirror is covered by layers and layers of dust and dirt and debris that's all we see is that dust and dirt and debris what is the dust dirt and debris what's it made of selfishness arrogance envy which creates depression anger greed illusion fear these are all things that have collected in our minds and they're so much directing our lives our words and our actions and we're identifying so much with it when we have obsessive greed we're thinking if i get more and more and more i will be happy it may be fame it may be money it may be power and control over others when we have this envy then we're thinking by pushing somebody else down i'm putting myself up so all of these symptoms of this false ego are like the dust and dirt of the mind and when we're meditating when we're chanting god's names it's a process of cleaning the mirror of the mind to actually become free from these unwanted things and then from our very mind when it's clean we see our true self and we see the true equality of all living beings and we see the beauty of nature inherently everything's changing you know we're born we exist for some time we grow we may produce offsprings but then inevitably we grow old and we die that's just the way nature is in this world but we see the inherent eternal essence within ourselves and within everything and we try we live with sadachar when we make that connection through our meditation through our prayer through our spiritual practice and our mind becomes clean then we live with character we live with values that's the greatest need in the world the value of compassion the character of integrity there's there's so much poverty in india there's so much poverty in los angeles there's poverty everywhere it's it's not just because of environmental problems it's because of the way humans are living we're creating so many of the environmental problems and we're creating so much of poverty if we have compassion if we really care about each other deeply then each and every one of us whoever we are we could make a difference and that's that's a life of values whether we make a big difference or whether we make a tiny little difference doesn't make any difference what really makes the difference is we're doing what we can with the value of compassion in our life and then we're really contributing something wonderful and our life becomes wonderful to the degree we contribute something wonderful with love your journey was very movement oriented which i find fascinating and as somebody who thinks in movies there's a moment in forrest gump where he has to put himself to movement in order to sort of clear his mind so in the 60s you're feeling deeply unsettled by what's going on in with the vietnam war and instead of just protesting you you begin to move and you're traveling around you end up in greece you have this tremendous calling i think you said um and you begin your journey to spiritual india like there was there's so much movement in all of that um is there something to that or is it just getting out of all the things that create the illusion the second part it's it's passing through all these things that create illusion to a higher goal to a higher purpose which is living an enlightened life and each of us is an individual my destiny we could say was to hitchhike from london to the himalayas to try to find a deep meaningful purpose in my life a connection with with spirituality with god but i know people who don't go anywhere and they get much more than me it's it's not a matter of where we go it's a matter of how we try to change our own hearts it's not a matter of changing the environment it's changing myself a few days ago i was seeing people surfing and i was reflecting how life is very much like surfing because the waves a surfer can't change the wave but a surfer can adjust herself or himself to the wave so that he or she keeps moving forward and the environment around us sometimes we can control it to some extent but there's a limit to that happiness distress honor dishonor pleasure pain and the wave may be a wave where everything is going our way and everyone is praising us or the wave may go or it seems like everybody's abandoning us nobody likes what i've done and these are the waves of life that come to everybody whoever we are but yoga spirituality is meant to help us to adjust our life to whatever situation may be so that we can move forward that is a wonderful way to say that i love that where can people learn more about you by watching your show that is amazingly kind um what's the impact that you want to have on the world my greatest aspiration is to be an instrument of god's grace in whatever i do in my life i'm a very small person i haven't had a bank account since 1969 i haven't signed a check i don't have i only went to one semester of a junior college so i'm a little person but i found that the greatest wealth the greatest achievement i can possibly attain is the opportunity to humble myself to be an instrument of grace to serve others i love that thank you so much for being on the show that was extraordinary you are extraordinary thank you it's very kind guys man there's some people can create a certain vibe that just is so rare in this world and uh i really hope the way it feels in this room right now comes across the screen because it really was an extraordinary ride if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be legendary take care thank you again so much in 10 15 20 years time and ask yourself the question is that where i want to be and if the answer is no then you need to find a new part to just get to understand yourself you don't know what you need in your life until you figure out who you are

Channel: Tom Bilyeu

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Keywords: Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory, ImpactTheory, TomBilyeu, Inside Quest, InsideQuest, Tom Bilyou, Theory Impact, motivation, inspiration, talk show, interview, motivational speech, Radhanath Swami, How to Connect With Your True Self, Radhanath Swami Tom Bilyeu, Find your true self, true self, find yourself, the journey within, the journey home, jay shetty, Jay Shetty radhanath, Jay Shetty swami

Id: ml8J0tQm0rU

Length: 43min 10sec (2590 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 27 2019