MONK Explains The SECRET To SELF CONTROL & How To Live A HAPPY LIFE | Gauranga Das & Jay Shetty

for several years meditation has really given me an entrance into this arena of a totally new paradigm of what love is which scriptures describe as devotional service service without any selfish [Music] considerations i'm really excited about sharing this interview with all of you because i'm sitting with the one and only gauranga das who inspired my whole monk journey the person who individually captivated me so early on in my life when i was 18 years old and when i heard him speak and had him speak many many times and interact with different people inviting me to spend some time in india and just inspired me on my whole spiritual journey and literally changed the trajectory of my life just simply meeting him for a week in london completely changed what i wanted to do and became my role model and inspiration in life and still is and uh i'm excited that you finally get to hear from him and i get to ask him a few questions so hopefully this is going to be a bit of fun as well he's hilarious so if he doesn't let that out then he's just being respectful but uh i'm really honored and humbled to be sitting with you thank you so much thank you so much for welcoming me and speaking those words i've been so grateful that i've had you in my life since i was 18 years old in so many different ways and i can honestly say that you have been there for me every stage in my life and i think that's a very special thing because i think so many of us today in the world are looking for mentors and i'm so fortunate that i met one of my biggest mentors in life so early on so i'd just like to honor you and share my gratitude and uh thank you and thank you today for all of this help you've given us this week in allowing us to film the eco village and uh i want to start with talking to you about how what people i've mentioned about you before when i've spoken about you but people may not have is a perception of monks i think people often think of monks as either we know nothing about them or we think maybe they're lazy and they don't want to do any work or we think maybe they're uneducated and they didn't have another path or maybe we think they were very religious growing up but when i met you what i got fascinated by is that you didn't really fit into any of those categories you were extremely educated you are extremely educated you come from a spiritual background but it's not that you were you were a normal person at college growing up i just want to hear a bit about how you decided that this path was right for you because when i heard what you'd done i was so impressed that someone of your caliber who had everything that me and my friends were seeking were able to give it up so easily for this life so what brought you to this stage tell me about what you wanted to become growing up and then why you became this well thanks jeff for asking that question yes it's true that as i was in iit i did not have this idea of becoming a monk but i came across a few incidents and those were some of the turning points in my life one of my friends who was pretty well to do in terms of education and studies he once attempted a suicide and that really shook me up and then for the first time i started understanding that life is much more than just achievements but there is also a feeling of experience which each one of us is processing from within so we are improving technology we are improving systems but what about the human experience which is happening behind those systems and behind those machines on the other hand i also found that in my class there were some other students who had failed in quite a few subjects but they were not at all affected and they were going around the campus as if nothing has happened so i was pretty bewildered because i thought those were the ones who should be in anxiety and when i asked them they would respond by saying that our philosophy in life is simple to enter the college is our job to take us out of the college's college's job so why should we be worried so i realized that beyond all the various externals technologies systems that's the talk about gdp and everything there is something which is not described in great detail in any of our textbooks and that is the perceptions and the experiences which each one of us have as a soul and that really made me to seek answers in books which are beyond the regular ones and then i came across the bhagavad-gita and then i started getting answers to one of the most important principles in life circumstances are beyond our control and we have limited control over our circumstances but we have unlimited control over our consciousness and therefore i thought that was pretty deep when an airplane flies it takes off and as soon as it takes off you see the same buildings look pretty insignificant so we may not have control over the size of the buildings but we have control over how high we can go and similarly problems in life may not diminish but our consciousness can rise much above those so called problems so that the entire perspective changes so when i read the gita i realized that one of the core principles to remain enthusiastic positive full of enthusiasm and energy in your whole life is the flexibility and the agility with which you can choose different lenses at any particular given moment because sometimes a lens can make an object look very tiny and another lens can make the same object look very huge and appear to be extremely close to your eyes and there are other lenses which do not magnify at all so therefore depending on the situation and circumstance how can we choose those lenses is something which is described in great detail in the ancient vedic wisdom and i got drawn to that i started reading it and i didn't realize that my journey will take me one day to london so that our paths cross yeah that's so beautifully explained and thank you for sharing that because i think so many people who will be listening and watching today so many of them may have that experience at college too that people are facing so much stress and anxiety people are trying to become something that they don't want to be but maybe their parents want them to be here or maybe their friends or their peers think that that is what success is in society how did you when you decided to become a monk i'm guessing that not everyone around you was celebrating like it may have been a tough choice or a tough decision how are you able to make this tough step because even if people are not becoming monks everyone sometimes has to make choices in life where people around you may not agree and how were you able to do that i know you do that now as well in your work so many times you're having to make tough decisions where everyone may not agree with you how did you do that in the first instance of becoming a mum well to be honest uh i was also not very sure whether you know i would be able to sustain this path because practically nobody in my family has ever done it before and i was thinking how will society respond to this and whether i'm making the right decision and i was thinking how should i process this moving forward but then an incident happened which completely changed my perspective i was on the road traveling with one other senior monk he was driving me and we were on the highway and this was november of 1993. and then as we were moving on the highway our vehicle hit against another truck and there was an accident on the highway and our car got badly smashed luckily in spite of being injured quite heavily i survived it was a very transformative moment for me because i saw my whole body filled with blood and the doctor spent practically five to six hours in the operation theater taking out the glass pieces which had entered into my body and then as i was recovering i started contemplating that well as far as my life is concerned even an inch here or there would have been the end of my life and i'm only 22 and i could as well be dead by now but looks like i've been given another chance so whether someone in society or anyone else connected whatever may be their feelings or background whatever their responses may be today i am alive and i've been given a second chance let me use this second chance to do something great to serve others and therefore i decided that i will use this opportunity every breath which has been given to me back as a second chance as an opportunity to share and spread this message which has benefited me so much so there are moments like this where you are practically hopeless and then a small window of hope opens up and then you see everything from a different perspective so for me it was that moment which gave me that conviction to sustain this determination for a lifetime [Music] there are so many variables when it comes to determining if you're taking all the right steps regarding your business so to simplify one can ask what am i not doing that can 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edge on the competition here it is netsuite surveyed hundreds of businesses and leaders and assembled a playbook of the top strategies they're using as america reopens for business receive your free guide seven actions businesses need to take now and schedule your free product tour at netsuite dot com forward slash j get your free guide and schedule your free product tour right now at netsuite.com forward slash j that's netsuite.com forward slash jay what's one of the most important things in life relationships of course and why is that i personally believe it is because we are made to feel connected to others and more importantly once we build that connection we have someone we can confide in i'm so lucky and thankful to have my wife for this i talk to her about all the things i go through especially the toughest situations i'm here to acknowledge that i know there are many people today who do not have a parent a friend or partner they can speak with in that way i truly believe having someone to speak without judgment is key for healing if you need someone to talk with better help is for you better help will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist you can start communicating in under 48 hours it's not a crisis line it's not self-help it is professional counselling done securely online the service is available for clients worldwide you simply log into your account anytime and send a message to your counselor you'll always get timely and thoughtful responses plus you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions so you won't ever have to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room as with traditional therapy better help is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches so they make it easy and free to change counsellors if needed it's more affordable than traditional offline counselling and financial aid is available better help wants you to start living a happier life today here's a testimonial from a client that was just posted sarah was an absolute pleasure to work with i felt wholly supported listened to and important the entire time i worked with her and i believe that so much of my personal growth has been due to her caring and empathetic approach to our sessions i generally could not have asked for a better match and i will carry her wisdom and wonderful energy with me as i move forward visit betterhelp.com forward slash on purpose that's better h-e-l-p and join the over 1 million people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional in fact so many people have been using better help that they are recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states special offer for on-purpose listeners get 10 off your first month at betterhelp.com forward slash on purpose again that's betterhelp.com forward slash on purpose i love that i think we all have such similar moments in our life whether they're near-death experiences like yours maybe not as extreme but i think everyone who's listening and watching right now can relate to the fact that we all get these choices in life sometimes it's a second chance sometimes it's an opening or an opportunity and we at that point have a choice to make whether we want to carry on living unconsciously and without thought or without purpose or whether we want to live with deeper meaning and purpose like you chose and i mean you've really lived up to that because i remember when i met you and even now like today we're sitting in an eco village that of course there's been a community behind but you've led the development of there's the incredible food distribution work that you've definitely been involved in spearheading the incredible work that's happening with the community in mumbai you know you've been a part of affecting thousands and thousands and millions of lives and i think you've definitely lived up to that incredible commitment thank you thank you so much it's uh it's really special actually because i think that it's one thing to say those things but to actually authentically live up to it and i can see you're always challenging yourself to the next level and i guess that's that's what i love about our path of of being a monk is that and i was speaking about this with brother and swami too that we have self and service so you have your own personal meditation you have your own personal prayer and your sadhana and your practices and then you're going and extending yourself for the world right and i feel like you've found a way of using all your talents in service of humanity so it's not that you became a monk and thought okay now i need to let go of this you've actually believed that the gifts that you've been given or the talents you've been given can actually be used to help serve the world which i think is a really important thing could you share a bit on that sure perspective and why that's important that's a beautiful question the word monk in the christian tradition it comes from the root word in latin monchos which basically means solitude and typically monks would contemplate in solitude but there are several monks who would also engage in community work in the buddhist tradition the monks are known as bhikkhu or bikshu it has two meanings one is beggar second is which means one who is able to see and perceive danger and that's a very interesting definition because monks were those who would lead their life understanding the knowledge and protect themselves and people from the danger of ignorance [Music] in the hindu tradition monks are known as sannyasis sannyasi word consists of three parts sam plus ni plus asa so some means totally ni means to go down and asa means to approve so sannyasi basically means one who is dedicating himself to completely uproot go down and approve all the negativities and negative desires from within he does that for himself and he helps others also in their journey another word in sanskrit for monk is vairagi and that also comes from a very beautiful tapestry of syllables v and raga so we means without and raga means attachment without attachment and another meaning is we plus ranj plus bhan which means without color so that is a very interesting definition which very much correlates to the question you are asking which means that a sannyasi or a vairagi or a renunciant or a monk is one who can be fully engaged in productive activities which was a benefit to society but remains uncolored by any of that he remains unaffected so that is one of the interesting perspectives of vairagya or renunciation therefore one of the core principles in the renounced order is absorption absorption i would divide in two important elements one is the intention and second is action intention towards selfless service intention towards tireless service and intention towards pleasing selflessly so the two elements are intention and action monkhood is all about how we can selflessly please others and how we can tirelessly serve others so the combination of this intention of selfless pleasing and tireless serving it combines into giving an experience of total absorption and that absorption is something which then expands in the form of compassion and we include everyone else within that expanding circle of compassion and round the whole world in peace and harmony now you can see why i think he's amazing that was brilliant i've never heard that before i've never heard the breakdown of the the words of the definition of monk in different traditions i think that's incredible to hear that and i think that's what i find so special about this path is that it allows the ability to serve as well not just to live in solitude and and that's why my next question is i've written my book called think like a monk and the reason why i called it that is because i believe that you don't have to necessarily live like a monk to think like one that it is a beautiful opportunity if you can but we all we both know that for 99.9 of the world it's not going to be something that people are going to do but i really believe that the mindset that a monk is encouraged to cultivate of service of self-growth of removing unwanted negative tendencies and implications these are things that anyone can do and in one sense we all must do to live a peaceful and purposeful life so i'd love to hear from you what you think thinking like a monk in your opinion is relevant for the modern people and modern world and for people like me now who also live in the city have normal jobs and married how does thinking like a monk actually help that person bhagavad-gita describes four principles which are extremely important for us to follow one of the greatest challenges in remaining grounded in life is our inability to tolerate provoking situations whether one is a monk or one is in household life or in a corporate life any kind of a relationship or doing any kind of activity or occupation we are constantly being provoked and therefore gita first talks about what is known as vega which means we have to tolerate our urges so i would say tolerating our urge to consume the second principle is refers to duality we have to tolerate various dualities which come in our life and remain humble and aware of the fact that we cannot control all situations so therefore we have to tolerate the urge to control third is paramater we are so convinced about our opinions and our standpoint and our viewpoint that we want others also to buy into that so many arguments differences of opinion happen relationships break down because we have a strong urge to convince others so we have to tolerate that urge to convince others in certain situations and the fourth is the urge to compete and that is known as paratkarsha sahih certain people will do much better than us in so many different ways we should feel happy when we see that and remember that we have a role to play and we should resist the temptation and the urge to compete so gita focuses on how to elevate one's consciousness above these urges to control to convince to compete and then we are actually able to rise above all of these and realize that yes i have a role to play to serve each and every one in society to the best of my ability and therefore people who are engaged in society are in anxiety because many times they are trying to compare with others and this comparison is a huge cancer of the mind today every single day in india 371 people commit suicide every every day every day every single day 300 million people across the world are experiencing mental health disorders every single day 18 billion cigarettes are being smoked 6.75 trillion cigarettes smoked every year 1 billion people across the world experiencing addiction to cigarette smoking and unable to give up so practically each one of us have our internal challenges and therefore gita focuses on first managing oneself and then based on how we manage ourselves we can manage others and in my own experience i have found that when people irrespective of whatever occupation and profession they may be when they cannot control these urges to consume to control to convince to compete then invariably they land up in so many difficulties so many challenges social issues may not be described emotional issues may not be described personal issues may not be described in books of technology and management but all of those issues have a major role to play in our overall experience as individuals and in our contribution to society for example the word family may not pop up anywhere in your management books or in your technology books but today because of a lack of emphasis on family values and because of inability for people to control their urges so many differences of opinion are cropping up a country like luxembourg has a divorce rate of 87 percent spain has a divorce rate of 65 percent france has a divorce rate of 55 percent russia 51 percent america has divorce rate of 46 percent the global divorce rate is 44 and therefore it's very important for us to realize that there may not be much focus on instilling values in individuals and institutions as families but if you do not focus and emphasize and invest in something in due course of time you'll lose it and therefore it was not empty rhetoric when people would say a family which prays together stays together and therefore it's very important for us to introspect which way we are going as a society how much are all these values crucial and critical for self-conservation and conserving relationships in society conserving mental health and sanity in society because sometimes we may just think that these are not irrelevant because you cannot connect a dollar value to these values [Music] as you know i'm a big proponent of self-awareness i love learning more about myself my heritage my background and i also love learning about the people around me and how that impacts the world that we live in simply by taking an ancestry health test which 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says about genetic risk with ancestry health head to my url at ancestry.com forward slash j to get your ancestry health kit today that's ancestry.com forward slashj yeah now that's a fantastic answer because i think that's the key thing that's missing that we live in a world that believes if you actually chase the satisfaction of your urges then that is freedom that real success is actually following your urges or whatever urge you have if you want to compete with someone compete if you want to compare with someone compare if you want to say anything about someone you can say it and we see that as freedom but actually what you're suggesting and what the text is suggesting is that we actually gain real freedom when we don't need to do those things and we don't feel the need to do those things so so on that point let's let's extrapolate that because i think that's a really powerful point what is the beginning of the step-by-step process of starting to create self-control because i think we see self-control is such a negative thing because it's seen as restrictive or it's seen as like almost being imprisoned but actually we're imprisoned by our desires but that's still a it's like a massive paradigm shift for a lot of individuals today and even for myself when i first met you and i first came to this so explain why actually freedom comes from controlling your urges the gita says this is a beautiful verse where krishna says that freedom from all of our base desires comes when we are able to control our mind and follow a strict discipline of applying ourselves to follow a certain regimen the word used is regulative principles of freedom it may sound contradictory because self-control or discipline seems to have a connotation of being bound as a prisoner but i'll give two examples one if someone is flying a kite the question is is the rope binding the movement of the kite or the rope becomes an instrument for helping the kite fly higher so if someone says why is the kite bound let us cut the rope so the kite may fly for some time but then again it will crash so the rope is binding the kite but the rope should not be seen as limiting the movement of the kite but facilitating the upliftment of the kite [Music] similarly if you are caught in a traffic jam you cannot move and sometimes when the signals don't work or if the policeman is not there in sight then there may be a huge traffic jam but actually the traffic laws and the signals facilitate proper movement of the vehicles so it is not to be seen as limiting but facilitating therefore when we look at discipline discipline is something which enables us to experience greater freedom and that's what the bhagavad-gita is talking about the art of self-control the art of mind control and by practicing this each one of us will actually experience an enhancement of our consciousness and i think we've all experienced that i think everyone knows that when you you feel like you're letting loose in the beginning it feels good in the beginning but then after a bit of time it starts to feel really painful yeah like for example when the british were in india they saw that at one point of time maybe a century ago the cobra population in delhi was increasing so they made a ruling in order to control the cobra population if anyone gets a dead cobra and submits to the government office they will get a financial reward and they thought by announcing this people would go out get inspired to kill cobras and the cobra population the control but then quite a few people got inspired to rare cobra farms and they started rearing cobras snakes and farms around delhi the cobra population started increasing when the government realized that they scrapped the scheme the guys who were wearing the cobras became angry released the cobras in the city no way and therefore this is known as the cobra effect oh wow i've never heard that where the proposed solution of a problem is worse than the original problem and therefore people are in distress they are depressed they are unhappy and they decide let me consume alcohol let me take drugs let me do this let me do that so various momentary titillations which they provide to their mind and their senses may sometimes increase and enhance the problem then solve it therefore the submission is try to understand how the system is designed understand how these issues can be resolved in the best possible way within the design and if there is a computer it has a hard disk if the hard disk gets a virus then the computer just crashes however beautiful the screen may look but the hard disk is corrupted similarly people invest a lot of time and energy building their body building their physique keeping themselves physically fit but they fail to realize that a very important component of our system is the mind and mind is like the hard disk for this computer-like body and if sufficient investment is not made to keep the mind fit then in due course of time one will be overwhelmed with negativities and therefore this kind of mental fitness is what is known as meditation so meditation is the gym where you actually perform various kinds of exercises to keep the mind fit well after all these years of meditating for so many hours per day and leading so many other meditation workshops yourself what would you say for you has been the greatest gift that meditation has given you personally everybody is looking for love many people think love is all about pleasure but in response to your question on meditation the greatest gift which meditation has bestowed upon me is a proper understanding of what is love and i realized that love is about pain and not pleasure in the chaitanya there is a beautiful description which defines love in this it is described that in every relationship there could be various problems scarcity impediment discomfort unhappiness change uncertainty lack of reciprocation and separation all of these may happen in a relationship but if the relationship continues then that is defined as love and as i described before how to please selflessly the object of your love and how to serve tirelessly and so in my experience love is something which is extremely rare extremely valuable and extremely difficult to process unless we are willing to put ourselves through a system of purification and then when we purify ourselves then lust which is like iron transforms into love which is like gold so in my experience for several years meditation has really given me an entrance into this arena of a totally new paradigm of what love is which scriptures describe as devotional service service without any selfish considerations i share this example that when we began our govinda's restaurant in our chapati temple many years ago we decided that we will have pizza and it was rather not swami's idea to have pizza this was 2004 and we were not really experienced in making pizzas and you know some of us used to make our own version of pizza which was you know take a couple of loaves of bread and put some tomato ketchup and have some fried vegetables and it was what we would call as pizza and we thought that is it so when mara said we should have pizza i said i i mentioned to him i don't think this is an item which we can sell in a restaurant and looked at me and said which pizza are you referring to the one which you guys feed me i said that's what pizza we know and he looked at me and said that which you feed me is not pizza it's a perverted reflection of pizza and then we had someone come from new york and he gave us the entire recipe of an authentic italian new york pizza thin crust and for the first time in life i saw artichoke hearts and i didn't know any of this and i was initiated into appreciating what a pizza is so the word pizza was being used by us but the experience was something else the word pizza remained the same but we were ascribing or superimposing the word pizza on some other product which was giving a different experience the whole world is speaking about love songs are being sung by movie actors and actresses and singers and rock stars about love novels are being sold in the millions which are centered around the theme of love but all of these descriptions are referring to an experience of selfish personal pleasure whereas the description as given in the vedic scriptures is love means service without selfish consideration so this has been the greatest revelation as far as meditation is concerned for me in my own life and my journey with radha swami and my other monks amazing people often question uh how can anything be truly selfless if you know that it's good for you and i want to hear your perspective on that because i'm sure people have said to you that how can anything be selfless because if i know that it's good for me to do service and i'm serving then it's not selfless so how do you respond to that the soul by nature is designed to serve so sugar by nature is sweet and water by nature is liquid so when we perform an activity and function which is as per nature and as how it has been designed one experiences harmony and that harmony produces the greatest efficiency and so the soul by nature is designed to serve when we engage in serving and pleasing that effect of serving and pleasing it actually produces the greatest joy from within and therefore there are four levels of motivation and that's what has kept me going in my 30 years as a monk the lowest level is motivation by desire the lowest level is motivation by fear the next is motivation by desire above that is motivation by the sense of duty and the highest is to be motivated by the sense of love so if you analyze all these four levels you will see actions motivated by fear and desire is simply a transaction actions motivated by duty may result in transparency but it is only actions inspired by love which takes us to trance and therefore we have to decide we want to lead a life based on transaction or we want to lead a life based on trans and so again referring to the chaitanya tamira i quote bahu parish rama chandana a great saint he indulged in very hard work to get mad puri a great saint he actually got a whole load of sandalwood to please his worshipable lord gopal and in that process he experienced so many impediments and difficulties but this verse reveals that ananda badhilamane dukhana ganila his bliss increased and he did not consider that in any way shape or form to be creating any distress for him and a very important word is used ganila basically means count to keep an account when we keep an account it is a business transaction when we are serious about something when we mean business we keep a count if i lend money to someone and if i'm running a business so i keep a count of how much i've earned how much i've spent if someone is intent upon losing weight they count their calories so whenever there is seriousness and business-like dealing the principle of keeping account comes means is our relationship a business-like transaction where i keep account of how much i have done for you and how much distress i have gone through and how many difficulties i have gone through in this relationship if i keep account of that then it is a business-like relationship when a child is screaming in the middle of the night the mother spontaneously gets up to pacify the child the mother never tells other other people in the family i am not on night shift or i don't have overtime how much will you pay no because she is just concerned out of a principle of selfless service to the child and therefore in a relationship inspired by love one is in trance because we do not keep count of what difficulties we have to go through in that relationship because we are simply concerned with pleasing the other person and i believe that when i have led my life in this particular capacity as a monk it has been keeping in mind a higher principle a soldier fights to protect others home and hearth among fights to protect others hopes and therefore when people go to a pharmacy shop they know they'll get medicine when they go to a bookstore they know they'll get a book when they come to a spiritual place where such spiritual discussions are going on why are they coming why are they listening to you why are they connecting with anything from any of our traditions because they are coming to receive hope and therefore people may think wealth is my greatest asset position is my greatest asset good looks are my greatest asset political influence is my greatest asset social acceptance is my greatest asset but all of these are assets which can be finished and destroyed at any moment as per bhagavad-gita the greatest asset is our hope if someone has hope even if he loses all the other things he can still in due course of time do his best and therefore these kind of discussions evoke growth of the most important asset which each one of us have the power and the ability to hope absolutely that's yeah that's an amazing perspective and looking in that way i'm i'm going to shift the conversation slightly so hopefully this will be fun for all of you i wanted to ask some questions uh about our relationship because uh he's known me since i was 18 years old i'm 32 now so it's been a fair amount of time and we've spent a lot of quality time together in that time so i wanted to ask him a few questions so my first question was and and i want you to be honest you have to be honest no uh you don't have to sugarcoat what was the first thing you thought of me when we first met around that time yeah i was in london and jay walks in with one more friend and then i look at him and i think oh this guy looks like tom cruise [Laughter] and then you know he starts asking you know all kinds of questions and i think maybe he's in distress because his girlfriend has ditched him so honestly you know i didn't think that you were so serious about wisdom and wanting to know more at least it didn't appear at that time so those were my first impressions i hope i'm not being offensive no it's true it's true i was never uh i wasn't spiritually inclined as a young kid and even in my teens i was not so spiritually inclined i think that's why i meant at the beginning that meeting you was a real turning point for me because even though i'd had some friends that went into spirituality in my family of course my father and everything i didn't really i didn't really see my place i couldn't really understand how someone like me could be spiritual and i think that's why i'm so proactive in wanting to share it with people in the way i do is because i want to share wisdom in a way that people like me who didn't really think they were spiritual or could access it can actually find their parts so i think you're right i would agree with that uh okay good and then and then did you ever think that i would become a monk because i used to tell you probably every time we met between 18 to 22 that i wanted to be one whenever i would hear that i would think this guy has gone nuts and i was worried because you know definitely you were so sincere and your you were your intention to become a monk was coming from somewhere really deep but because i had spent already so many years by that time as a monk i knew that life was pretty rough in terms of you know relentless a need for being disciplined and you know it's going to be extremely difficult and tough and you came across to me as someone so fragile and someone who's like a mama's boy that i would always think that oh man how will this guy tolerate all the hardships as a monk and i was trying to discourage you for sure for all those years so but you know what happened later was of course your call see this is good i want you all to listen to this because i want you to realize how much growth someone has to make i think sometimes when i'm when i'm speaking now or you hear me a lot of the time people feel that oh you've always been this way or you've always had it figured out and and the answer is we don't no one has it figured out and we're all figuring out all the time and emotionally we changed as well i was definitely i think when i first met you i don't think i was thick-skinned i don't think that i was resilient i don't think that i was i think i was fragile emotionally i think i was very sensitive like all of these things were and i was 18 years old so should i really put myself under pressure to be more maybe not because you're only 18 years old but now when i look back and i think about how i've been able to grow and change it's it's fun to see it from that perspective it's fun to look in the mirror with someone that has known you for a while and realize how far you've come and and for you to see how far anyone can come as well including yourself so okay that's good and then when i became a monk then we traveled together as well uh what did you think during that time what was what was your thoughts were they changing did i impress you did i did i prove you wrong or did i where did it go from there no i must be very honest that you know i never imagined that you know you'll come to where you are today because at that point of time i remember so many times you would break down and cry and i was i was wondering that how will this guy survive his ears as a monk and uh i still cry if if someone had told me that one day this boy is going to become a social media celebrity i would have said good luck but i i definitely was impressed number one with your sincerity in wanting to know and learn so i think that was a very very important value system and attitude which you had even then an eagerness to know and learn which was so sincere that i remember that in all our travels one thing which struck me was how precisely you would keep notes i don't know if you still have those notes i still have them from there but what struck me more was you have one of the neatest and the most beautiful handwritings and i don't know whether you know those who are following you really have seen your handwriting but it's mind-boggling and i still remember that although i have not seen it for a long time but the way you would capture the notes was very inspiring because it was very clear that you were wanting to understand very systematically all of that wisdom and it has been an amazing experience to see how all of that unfolded in due course of time another thing i would like to share is that in our travels i could also see a very deep urge within you to share this wisdom and that was pretty obvious because you know i was a speaker and so many people would come around and i would not have time to speak to all of them but you would immediately start sharing wisdom with others just after the event and that irresistible desire to share the knowledge and wisdom and help others was something which i observed even then and also that desire was so strong that you would see best practices happening in different parts of the world and especially at his concho party and you immediately would try to do something in london and one example of that was how you really tried to help the youth in london by creating a beautiful house for the youth to stay right around the college campus where they could experience a proper ecosystem for spiritual advancement and i think it was totally your initiative which was born of your experience of seeing something like that in india and i was pretty impressed but in spite of you know your emotional side i could always also see very strong resilience and the ability to withstand opposition challenges difficulties and unwillingness to take no for an answer and you know some examples of that was like some of the initiatives which you took at that particular point of time with respect to how to connect with the youth and there were a lot of people who had other ideas but you were convinced of certain ideas and you really felt it was the best thing to do and you were willing to put your weight behind that and that really impressed me because i thought oh here is someone who comes across as very emotional and fragile but he still has the guts to lead with a certain kind of determination which does not come across immediately so you know i did notice that and i remember when we were in florida and we were about to catch a flight and you know two airlines attendant girls came up and they looked at you and said hey you look so happy and cute and i remember that and you know i looked at you and i looked at them and i was thinking why is this guy a monk maybe he'll be more effective if he's out there amongst the people and as part of society and at that point of time there was practically no clue and what your future is going to be but i could see that you had a tremendous ability to connect with people and reach out to people in ways which were pretty deep and something which not everybody could do so these are some of my memories of those times seeing you know the soft side of your personality but at the same time your steel-like determination which seemed to be couched under that uh external cover of emotional softness but i do believe that without having that kind of dedication and determination you could not have spent you know those three years as a monk with many of us and i remember you know putting you through the grind in the kitchen you know in front of a blazing fire we would be cooking and you would be assisting and even while the construction of this eco village was happening you were out there in the sun helping with bringing various materials and assisting but all through all of these the common thread which i saw was you had an enthusiasm and a zeal to serve and that i feel is a very very important character element which has really brought you to where you are and and i'm so glad that you know millions of people who are connecting to you are extremely fortunate to have a guide who is connected with the authentic wisdom thank you very kind and uh all i can say honestly is that all the inspiration of anything i've ever done is through what i've learned from you and seen you do for so many years i remember coming with you to university events every single night in india so every single night karangadas would go out to speak to different students about this wisdom and i would follow him and go every single night with him and i used to see this incredible enthusiasm from him to want to just share this wisdom with everyone when i saw that i wanted to replicate the same thing so every time i saw him do something and then i realized that wasn't him and i couldn't be him which was a good self-awareness point for me you can't become your mentors you can't become your role models you can't become your idols and you don't have to quite frankly and i think that's one of the biggest mistakes we make when we're young and immature but then you grow to respect them more because of what they can do and achieve and then you learn to find your own place and i think that's what you always allowed me to do you gave me the space you never judged me for any of my mistakes or flaws and you you never expected me to be at your level or anyone's level you gave me space and freedom to find myself and so every time i would find a different part of myself i never felt judged by you to express that to share that with you and yeah anything that i've ever tried is what i've seen you do here in india and what i've seen you do here with the monks here and spending time here with some of my best memories of living as a monk and i think anything that i ended up doing in london was completely inspired by your work and yeah anything that i've done that's good is thanks to you and all the work that i'm doing now is just uh inspiration from everything you've given me so thank you so much well we are very honored to you know be a part of your journey and very happy to see your expression of humility and gratitude because that's one of the very core elements of our spiritual journey yeah and don't worry if no one has to go and become a monk now but we do recommend that you come and visit the eco village where we are right now i'd love for many of you to visit over the years when i start leading retreats and that's a big part of what i'd like to do over the next 10 20 years and beyond and so this is just the beginning as i always say and we're very grateful that grangadas is providing such a universal home for so many people to find their own spiritual parts so thank you so much to you thank you thank you to the eco village and uh yeah thank you all for watching and listening thank you hey everyone my name is jay shetty and welcome to my youtube channel every week i'm sharing three videos that are going to help you feel more fulfilled feel more happy and more successful make sure you subscribe to this channel so that you can find out about the videos as soon as they launch press the like button and leave a comment and let's keep making wisdom go viral together make sure you subscribe

Channel: Jay Shetty

Views: 317,081

Keywords: Bhagavad Gita, Life, Explore, Mind, Purpose, Social Media

Id: k6al_FWqErk

Length: 65min 30sec (3930 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 07 2020