Namaste and welcome. So, this is going to
be our second talk in the series, "Weathering a Storm". I've used "a storm"
rather than "the storm" because the principles that I'd like to try and
share with you, things that can actually help us in all areas of our life and
throughout this journey that we call life. The time that we spend here in
this world within this particular body. So, of course, the fact that we have this
current crisis related to this virus pandemic, it's really making people quite
deeply reflective. I noticed in a news report today that, they said one of
the main things that people are doing now in isolation, the biggest single
thing a lot of people were doing was looking towards self improvement.
That was just like wow! That's wonderful. I'm really glad
that, you know, this is the result of this particular event, that people are looking
at these things. What I'm going to try and do is,
with a series of videos, is lay down some series of things and hopefully they'll
be in some order that will actually help us with the current crisis that we face,
and in our life going forward. The previous video that we did was titled
"This Too Shall Pass", is a famous, apparently originally from Persia, very
ancient statement and that's echoed in all the old cultures around the world.
This embracing of this fact that this too shall pass, and that everything,
both good and bad, will come to an end, that nothing is permanent. That is the
nature of our life and the material world. Embracing that reality
actually makes people a lot more resilient and able to face life and
the different things that will come our way. So today, what I wanted to push
forward, a little bit on, is the idea of what it is that we're looking to do
is build a framework to actually deal with adversity, rather than when we
encounter a diversity we sort of like lose the plot and become a little
off-balance and not sure exactly what to do and how we're going to do things. And
it just points to this really major need for a framework to help us
deal with adversity and, of course, life in general. So, what I'm going
to be proposing come with these steps that I will try and share
with you. These are not just purpose-built for or a type of strategy
just for this particular event but for the broader reality of
life as as we know it, and as we experience it. One of the things that
something like this or a tremendous natural disaster- I've been through
hurricanes. I've been through monumental hurricanes, earthquake
situations living in Asia, other kinds of epidemics, cholera epidemic one time
in India, refugee crises. All kinds of things, and in some ways, I feel fortunate
to have been able to experience these things because that, coupled with my
spiritual training, makes it so I can be in a space and operate from
some position of calmness even in a tremendous crisis. But I think one of the
things that is becoming apparent now with this practically worldwide lockdown
is that people are sort of coming to recognize that the current model for our
life is not at all resilient in the face of crisis. There is no capacity, almost,
to withstand, immediately everybody's freaking out that there's going to be an
economic collapse. There's this big focus on trying to keep the economy
going which points to some degree, to this idea that you know we are meant to
exist to support the economy rather than the reality that the economy should be
something that assists and supports us, that should serve us rather than us
serving it. And so we see when at first the outbreaks started many world leaders
were telling people, "It's okay just go on with things. Everything is going to be
fine." The whole idea was, of course, they wanted the economic situation for the
country, for everybody, to be good and to remain somewhat stable, but they became
obviously prepared to put people at risk for the purpose of trying to, you know,
keep the economy pumping along. But the model that
we've lived, we've kind of built the economic model where people have become
so incredibly dependent upon on credit. I saw a stat in the paper just a
couple of days ago. In America, the vast majority of the population was not able
to access $400 in the time of a crisis, meaning they weren't putting money
away. We'll deal with some of these things, you know, as we go forward. There
was quite a brilliant article in the, I think it was the New York Times, about
how, you know, that the financial irresponsibility of society and
individuals has become exposed, that people, even when they're on a rather
good salary, you know they're earning $150,000 $170,000 a year, they're still
tending to live from almost like paycheck to paycheck. As more money comes
and we just increase our standard of living, we become more accustomed to
spending money on all types of things that really don't last and don't matter
in the long run, and we don't do what people in previous times did, which was,
in good times they stored up surplus to help them over bad times that
they knew were coming. And the fact that we're living in a, you know, this whole
new paradigm, we see it in businesses with just-in-time inventory management
where nobody wants to keep more inventory than absolutely necessary on
the shelves, and they get these ordering systems down, they've got these supply
chains, and it's all calculated so that the moment I'm almost running out of
something, a certain amount of that stock will just arrive and I restock the
shelf with it, so I'm just not carrying inventory. Banks apply the same mentality
in terms of reserves. They want to put as much as possible into play, and people
that have surplus money, they tend to live in this way in terms of investment
and everything as well, where everybody's kind of just really living on the edge.
Then you run into something like this, that it's beyond our control.
All of a sudden we're faced with a crisis and so many people are struggling
financially. I mean there's all these promises governments are making to try
and provide financial support and things but we really don't know how that's
going to work. We don't know how long it's going to go on. The reality is that,
until they come up with a vaccine for this virus, it is going to cyclically
re-emerge then fade out and then re-emerge
again. So the chances of going back to where the things were prior to this
is just actually not true and we're not gonna be able to do that for
some time. So it's almost like, in many ways,
we've become addicted to certain types of lifestyles. We're living a life very
much like an addict lives, where it's all about the next hit and you don't think
about the future. You don't think about repercussions. You don't think about
consequences. It's just about the hit that you need at the moment,
securing that and then just getting loaded, getting stoned. This
is not a good way to live. Now that we are suddenly faced with the current
situation, it's almost like an addict going into withdrawal, that you know, "Now
what am I going to do? How am I going to manage this?" When I speak about addiction,
I've had quite a bit of personal experience and dealing with people that
have suffered from addictions, many different types of addictions, even some
family members, people that were close, and watch them go through these
struggles. But because of that, I became exposed to AA, and how they run quite
successful rehab type programs. One of the things that sort of really caught
my attention when I first got exposed to these things was something that's called,
"The Serenity Prayer". I find that the Serenity Prayer is probably one of the
most important things that a person could meditate on, reflect on, and
actually attempt to live by. It is utterly, utterly
transformative. So within AA system, I don't know how
many people are familiar with addiction and dealing with it. They've
found that most of the highly successful programs, there is this recognition of
the limitations of my own control over my life and circumstances, that there are
things, in fact, many things that are beyond my control. A person that
suffers from addiction, they have a practical experience of feeling that
they cannot control the urges, they cannot control the decision-making
process. It's like they've lost control over this part of their life.
So, in this Serenity Prayer and the 12 steps that they use, there is
this recognition that we are in reality, in many ways, dependent upon some form of
higher power. I know that the word God has become so, unfortunately, so out of style.
as it were, and people have due to the influence primarily of other people of
peers and things, you know, they've chosen to to turn away from any concept of a
higher power, but at the same time, at least in the form of God or some deity,
they will, make their intentions known to the universe.
They will send out their prayers or requests to the universe, and let the
universe answer them. I mean, whether you're saying that God
exists or it doesn't exist, everybody's practically in the same
headspace. There is a recognition and there is an acceptance
that we are very small in the big picture, and in the big scope of things.
There is much power and things that are, much greater than us. The
mere fact that the whole world is shut down over a bit of DNA, a bit of
rogue DNA really points to the fact of how little actual control we have over
our life and things. And so in the AA program, they really ask people to
embrace that reality and to really live in that reality because it's
incredibly helpful in terms of now figuring out where am I going to place
my next step, how am I going to be able to move forward. So, the prayer is
actually really incredible. It goes, "Lord grant me the serenity to accept the
things that I cannot change, to grant me the courage to change the things
which I can and the wisdom to know the difference." This is an
amazing idea. This is really life-changing,to really
completely embrace this principle where we are seeking from, we
are seeking the help. We want courage. We want courage to be able to accept things. There are going to be many things. There
have been and there will continue to be many things that will come our way, and
ultimately the biggest one of them is death itself. Being able to accept that
which I cannot change completely transforms a person. You know we have
this tremendous tendency, I'll talk about it in the next talk, to become
overly focused on the things that we actually can't change, wanting to change
them, stressing about them, being just like really preoccupied about those
things and spending very very little time, in comparison, to become focused on
that which I can change. Like for instance, I cannot change how
somebody is going to deal with me but I can change how I take that on board and
how I respond to that. That's my area of responsibility. How somebody else
is behaving towards me or acting towards me, that is not my responsibility, but yet
I'll spend all of my time focused on that person, and wanting to change them,
and wanting to change what they said, and what they did, rather than
to just accept the reality of this is where that person is at, that this is how
they're perceiving things. This is what's going on with them at this moment and
then choosing to focus on whether I allow that to deeply affect me or not,
and how I will respond to that. There is this tremendous need for us to become
hugely more focused on things that we can change and putting the effort and
the time and the thought into how we are going to be able to do that. In
the Serenity Prayer, to be able to know the difference between these two things,
the things I can change and the things I can't, is categorized as wisdom. And I
completely embrace that and accept that. Being able to know that difference and
being able to respond in our life accordingly will really make the
difference as to whether we are going to live a successful life, whether we are
going to be a good partner, parent, friend. Whether we are going to be a good
neighbor and how we are going to live. One of the really
important things that this all points to is the need to have a bigger
idea, a broader idea as to what is my purpose, to have a purpose that
brings meaning to my life. This will make it so that my ability to deal with
situations, my ability to deal with others is going to be just infinitely
better. I mean like just really, really infinitely better. So, in considering
the Serenity Prayer, we are actually asking you not to become also
overly focused on controlling everything. The reality is, we're
not totally in control. There are limits to our control. I need to begin to focus
on that which I can do, that which I can
change, those areas where I can contribute something of importance and
significance to my own life but more especially to the lives of others, those
people that depend on me, whether it's for friendship,
whether it's for some form of leadership, or guidance. What I would
like to do is really ask you to just think about this. I'm going to put it up
on the screen and we'll just play a little bit of meditative music. What
I would like to ask of you is to actually pause and to begin to reflect
on these words, of this prayer, and think of them in relation to our own life and
where we are right now. How we can become a better person. A
better person doesn't mean a great hero, somebody that's just rock-solid,
incredibly strong. Now a person may be very humble. A person may be in many ways
weak. Weakness of physical strength or power is not a bad thing. If in
our humility we can embrace this advice and learn to apply it within our life,
then we will be able to weather any storm, and that is what I'm hoping you
will take away today as we listen to some meditative music and reflect on
this message. Thank you very much.
