Gospel | Chapter 4: Aug 24, 1882 (Part 1) | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, we are going to start on page 112 when my book.
[SPEAKER_00]: The date is 24th August 1882.
[SPEAKER_00]: 24th August 1882.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna was talking to Hazra on the long not-teased veranda of his room when M arrived.
[SPEAKER_00]: Master, I should like to visit Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sagar a few times more.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's just remember that this is all very close to the date when he visited Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sagar.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we had this long dialogue between Vidya Sagar and Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's what he's referring to when he sees M coming and Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say that I would like to visit Vidya Sagar a few more times.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he did not actually, you know, it never happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should like to visit Ishvachandra Vidya Sagar a few times more.
[SPEAKER_00]: The painter first draws the general outlines and then puts in the details and colors at his leisure.
[SPEAKER_00]: The molder first makes the image out of clay, then plasters it, then gives it a coat of white wash and last of all paints it with a brush.
[SPEAKER_00]: all these steps must be taken successively with the Asakar is fully ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: But his inner stuff is covered with a sin layer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is now engaged in doing good works, but he doesn't know what is within himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gold is hidden within him.
[SPEAKER_00]: God dwells within us.
[SPEAKER_00]: If one knows that one feels like giving up all activities and praying to God with a yearning soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here it's interesting to note he's making a profound point about the philosophy of life itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people are in especially in today's world when it's a very highly secularized world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of people, good people.
[SPEAKER_00]: They think that the best one can do is to be a good person in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that seems to be obvious and there's nothing beyond this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was somehow the philosophy of life adopted by the Ghasagar.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you remember the dialogue we had, and summarized with Ghasagar's perspective, the Ghasagar was very learned.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had read the text, so he was acquainted with Eastern and Western thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: and his whole idea about spirituality was that he says one cannot really know that ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the best that one can do is lead a good life and be of use to others.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sounds great, why not?
[SPEAKER_00]: But, and that's the best possible life, such people imagine, in today's world, it's a widespread belief, especially among the elite and intelligent people, and that's the best of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are rest of people, large numbers of people who don't even think that.
[SPEAKER_00]: large numbers of people are just after, you know, sense pleasures, money, status, and fame, and, you know, praise from others, relationships, whatever it is, that's what the majority are seeking.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the best among them, subscribe to this view that let's lead a good life and be up use to others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna is giving an answer to this, this world review of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying there's something higher than even the best possible life of this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ultimate reality which spirituality talks about the world religion talk about as God, Brahman, Ditao, or the Nirvana, it is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not something that cannot be known, it's not something that is fictional, it's not something that was imagined by primitive people, but now that we are advanced and we have so much science and knowledge of the world and universe, we have to get rid of all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it is actually real and it is actually very, very worthwhile, far more than even the best possible life that we can imagine in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that has to be solved.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it can be realized by everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: He does not say that only I have realized it and you have to believe me.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, every one of us can.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he wants everyone of us to pursue spirituality.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the tremendous, there's a very profound point he's making.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know Sri Ramakrishna, we call him the Yuga Vatara, the incarnation of the age, and he seems to be completely out of tune with this age, which is insistence on renunciation of plus 10 gold, which is extremely simple, almost rustic lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was only semi-literate in this age, day and age.
[SPEAKER_00]: He seems to be completely the opposite of what this age is about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet I think that's why it's important.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the important importance of the Ramakrishna Vathara.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this day and age, he stands as a beacon of spirituality that the accumulated spiritual wisdom of the world civilizations across the millennia.
[SPEAKER_00]: It stands for something real.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: God exists.
[SPEAKER_00]: God can be realized and indeed that is the goal of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is what he's saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he's talking about Vidya Sagar, Vidya Sagar is representative of perhaps the best that today's agnostic secular world view can offer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good man, man of high character, who is utterly committed to the social uplift of people around him, well-being of others, what could be better than that?
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ramakrishna is saying that there is something better than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is something higher and deeper than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, if one knows that one feels like giving up all activities and praying to God with the yearning.
[SPEAKER_00]: So remember what activities is he talking about?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just the pursuit of power and pleasure in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking about the wonderful activities being taken undertaken by Vidya Sagar.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, one will go beyond that also.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is something higher than that, something deeper than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the master talked with M, now standing, now pacing up and down the long veranda.
[SPEAKER_00]: Master, a little spiritual discipline is necessary in order to know what lies within M.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it necessary to practice discipline all through life?
[SPEAKER_00]: So notice the underlying sequence and the development of thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there is this higher thing available to all of us and we must pursue that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the next question will be, how do you get it then?
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ram Krishna is saying a little spiritual discipline is necessary.
[SPEAKER_00]: What kind of discipline?
[SPEAKER_00]: How long are we supposed to do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Spiritual discipline means practices.
[SPEAKER_00]: Prayer, meditation, Vedant, take enquiry, devotion, all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So is it necessary to practice discipline all through life, discipline means spiritual practices?
[SPEAKER_00]: Master, no, but one must be up and doing in the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, one need not work hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Hemmsman stands up and clutches the rudder firmly.
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as the boat is passing through waves, storms, high wind, all around the curves of a river, but he relaxes after steering through them.
[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as the boat passes the curves and the Hemmsman feels a favorable wind, he sits comfortably and just touches the rudder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next he prepares to unfurl the sail
[SPEAKER_00]: Likewise, the aspirant enjoys peace and calm after passing the waves and storms of lust and gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: This also answers an important question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people feel that, so this spiritual path is, it must be endless.
[SPEAKER_00]: The answer is yes and no.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, the Ram Krishna says no, it is not endless.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a definite end.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a definite culmination.
[SPEAKER_00]: Diversionally, God becomes real to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through Vedantic inquiry, you realize the truth, which is within, we also have in your own experience, or through yogic meditation, mystic experience of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whichever way, when God becomes real for you, in one sense, that's the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other sense, that's the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: But after that whatever happens, you're dwelling in the reality of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe many spiritual experiences may come and go after that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Realization of God, so that is the culmination of our spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says that one, that is the goal and there is an end to all this, there is the time when your practice is hard work ends and you just enjoy the pension, the spiritual pension.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, he says, initially, in your spiritual practices, initially there's hard work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that hard work he says, there are the storms of last and gold and they have to be passed and he gives nice examples.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he lived, remember, he lived near on the bank of the Ganga and he saw these boatmen every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what he saw he's using that as an example.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some are born with the characteristics of the yogi.
[SPEAKER_00]: but they should be careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is lust and gold alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the obstacle.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes them deviate from the path of yoga and drags them into worldiness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps they have some desire for enjoyment.
[SPEAKER_00]: After fulfilling their desire, they again direct their minds to God and thus recover their former state of mind fit for the practice of yoga.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever seen the spring trap for fish called the shortcut call?
[SPEAKER_00]: And no sir, I have never seen it, I haven't seen it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So remember Sri Ramakrishna is giving these examples from his village life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm being a city person who hasn't seen these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Master, they use it in our part of the country.
[SPEAKER_00]: One end of a bamboo pole is fastened on the ground and the other end is bent over with a catch.
[SPEAKER_00]: From this end, align with a hook, hangs over the water with bait tied to the hook.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the fish follows the bait, suddenly the bamboo jumps up and regains its upright position.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, take a pair of scales, for example,
[SPEAKER_00]: If a weight is placed on one side, the lower needle moves away from the upper one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lower needle is the mind and the upper one, God.
[SPEAKER_00]: The meeting of the two is yoga.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless the mind becomes steady, there cannot be yoga.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the wind of worldliness that always disturbs the mind, which may be likened to a candle flame.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that flame doesn't move at all, then one is said to have attained yoga.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'll let you read a little more.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll come back again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lust and gold alone is the obstacle to yoga, always analyze what you see.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is there in the body of a woman?
[SPEAKER_00]: Only such things as blood, flesh, fat, entrails and the like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why should one love such a body?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I use to assume a Rajasik mood in order to practice renunciation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once I had the desire to put on a gold embrider robe, where I ring on my finger and smoke a Hubble bubble with a long pipe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matur Babu procured all these things for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wore the gold embroidered robe, and said to myself after a while, mind, this is what is called gold embroidered robe, didn't I took it off and threw it away?
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't stand the robe anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I said to myself, mind, this is called a shawl, and this ring, and this smoking a hubble bubble with a long pipe, I threw those things away once for all, and the desire
[SPEAKER_00]: never arose in my mind again.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was almost dusk, the master and aims to talking alone near the door on the southeast veranda.
[SPEAKER_00]: Master, to him, the mind of the yogi is always fixed on God, always absorbed in the self.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can recognize such a man by merely looking at him.
[SPEAKER_00]: His eyes are wide open with an aimless look, like the eyes of the mother bird hatching her eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her entire mind is fixed on the eggs, and there is a vacant look in her eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you show me such a picture?
[SPEAKER_00]: As evening came on, the temples were lighted up, Sri Ramakrishna was seated on his small couch, meditating on the Divine Mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he chanted the names of God, incense was burnt in the room, where an oil lamp had been lighted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds of conscience and gongs came floating on the air, as the evening worship began in the temple of Kali.
[SPEAKER_00]: The light of the moon flooded all the quarters.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, as we go on, before that, let me go back a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, take a pair of scales.
[SPEAKER_00]: If a weight is placed on one side, the lower needle moves away from the upper one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lower needle is the mind and upper one guard.
[SPEAKER_00]: The meeting of the two is yoga.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, obviously the weight which is put on the scales is the world, desires, worldly desires.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that makes the lower needle move away from the upper needle.
[SPEAKER_00]: unless the mind becomes steady, that cannot be yoga.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another example, it is the wind of worldliness that always disturbs the mind, which may be likened to a candle flame.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the flame doesn't move at all, then one is said to have attained yoga.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is from the Bhagavad Gita.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this one important, very important point he makes here,
[SPEAKER_00]: the importance of attention in spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I often speak about the Vedantic path where we inquire into our experience and then we realize what we are and instabilize ourselves in our reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: The realization comes, aham drum has me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a direct path, but one thing I'll take this occasion that every path, whether the
[SPEAKER_00]: or meditation on God, devotion to God, whatever the yoga that we practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: The currency is attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very important secret to know, whether it's for worldly success, but also especially for spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever one, so I'm Vivekan, the later said that the key to knowledge, whether worldly knowledge or spiritual knowledge is concentration of mind, focus of mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sign of a worldly mind is a scattered mind, scattered in a hundred different directions.
[SPEAKER_00]: The inability to hold on focus and put the mind on one object.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that usually happens because of desire, as he says, there that if a weight is put on the pams on one side, then lower needle moves away from the upper needle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even in karma yoga, the practice of converting our work into spiritual practice, spiritualizing our daily work,
[SPEAKER_00]: easy, even the idea that I will do good to others, it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Attention is important there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you why.
[SPEAKER_00]: A recent experiment, three years ago, performed in a university here, the psychologist Jonathan Heith talks about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said that in a particular school here, I mean, in the university, this experimental is performed on, you know, empathy for others.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the source of empathy?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it knowledge or something else?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, a group of students, they were asked to study the, you know, the story of the, the good Samaritan,
[SPEAKER_00]: the well-known story where somebody, you know, goes out of his way to help a stranger, it's from the Bible and takes care of the sixth stranger and nurses that stranger.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the idea being, sacrificing your time and energy and helping somebody else out of sheer sympathy for that person, even though that person doesn't belong to your family or your community.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was a, a Samaritan was not a part of the mainstream Jewish community there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that topic was studied and they were told that you have to prepare a speech on this like a sermon and you have to go across the hall from this hall across that big lawn and go to the other hall and give a talk about this topic.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the good Samaritan.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, like any psychological exercise there is a double bind or there is a control group which was given some other
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, story from the Bible to study and told that you have to prepare a talk on this and go and across the lawn and give a talk in that hall.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll be somebody there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they studied quickly and they prepared a little talk and they were sent one by one across the lawn.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as they crossed the lawn to what they thought was the lecture hall,
[SPEAKER_00]: on the lawn on a bench, somebody was sitting there, one of those experimenters sitting there and when this person came, he would double over as if in pain and groan.
[SPEAKER_00]: To see if that person would pay attention and come and ask, can I help you with something wrong?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they did that for everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then they tallyed up the results, you know, and when they would cross the lawn and go to the other hall, when each of them reach, they would be told experiment is over, you don't have to give a talk, there's no audience, I think you can go home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they collated the results.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the results were quite interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It made no difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: It made no difference what they were studying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody had studied the story of the good Samaritan, which was all about helping a sick person on the wayside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally what happened to them as they crossed along.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody on the wayside, who is sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: did not make any difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them helped, some of them stopped to help and ask questions about how this person was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of them didn't stop, didn't notice at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, what was the key determinant?
[SPEAKER_00]: The key determinant was attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did they notice or not?
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of them were too busy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Repair, rehearsing the points, the thought they were going to give there about how one should help others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they were so busy in their mind, they didn't even notice this person sitting there.
[SPEAKER_00]: that attention was the key to tremendous and those who noticed many of them were much more likely to help.
[SPEAKER_00]: The others, they passed, they saw this person, it didn't register because the mind attention was elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it's not the knowledge, the conclusion was ethics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ethical behaviour is not so much about knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: not so much about the knowledge, the philosophy, the understanding of what is right and wrong, as it is about attention, especially sympathy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a whole, it seems there's a whole neuroscience, which is grown around this.
[SPEAKER_00]: They talk about mirror neurons.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have, you know, when somebody is in pain, a similar kind of neural activity detected in a person who is showing sympathy, you feel this, you've mirrored the suffering of that person to some extent, even neurologically.
[SPEAKER_00]: serving others, taking care of others, requires attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: The oft-coded thing, the somebody is suffering on the near this subway in New York.
[SPEAKER_00]: People talk about it, how people are rushing past, even stepping over that person without asking.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if one person stops and tries to help that person lying on the floor on the sidewalk, many other stuff, and they try to offer their help.
[SPEAKER_00]: The difference is attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: In big cities, for example, life is so fast, especially here in New York.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a positive attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Attention is important for caring, many more people would be much more caring if that crucial factor of attention whether if they paid attention to the sufferings of people around if they're not so much caught up in their own issues either busy with work or busy with the hassles of their family life or whatever or just involve too much with them sex so attention is important for karma yoga
[SPEAKER_00]: There was this interesting study I mentioned this earlier, the insurance companies, you know the study which of the doctors were getting sued more here in the United States and litigation is such a big factor here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they were the insurance companies were of course interested in knowing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would decide to ensure in premiums and all.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they couldn't find any factor because it seems they thought at first you might think that the more qualified doctors would be less likely to be sued, less qualified ones would be whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, they couldn't find anything like that and I think there was no clear correlation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until they found one factor, the you know that's the just the impression, if the patient liked the doctor, it was much less likely that the patient would sue the doctor.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that dependent a lot on the doctor paying attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: It did not depend on the expertise of the doctor.
[SPEAKER_00]: It did not depend upon the qualifications, what medicine school had gone to.
[SPEAKER_00]: It did not depend upon the awards the doctor had gone or how how how famous the doctor was.
[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't depend so much on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just on the attention, the personal report that the doctor was able to set up with the patients.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that sounds reasonable actually when you think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, love of God actually depends on attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all say that the love of God is important, but the yoga love God, and that itself is enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you keep on asking, how will I love God?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have that feeling.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I have a little bit of it, but not much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot artificially generate love for God, maybe.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what we can do is control our attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: The more you deliberately pay attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: in Pooja, in prayer, in meditation, in devotional singing, more and more attention deliberately paid to the deity, you will see automatically, it is inevitable and attachment will grow with the deity, that's how worldly attachment grows, anything in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could be a pet, it could be a relative, it could be a gadget, it could be a place you stay in whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the familiarity, the retention, the closeness, the repetition that leads to attachment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then finally to a kind of love or maybe even obsession or whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: With God also the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you develop bhakti again attention?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Rajayoga, the path of meditation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here, of course, the whole thing is just attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all about attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is meditation?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's basically control of attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing else.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what we do with the limited amount of cognitive capacity present to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of scattering it in a hundred different directions in the world, this is the exercise of which has solely to do with attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Collecting our attention away from the world and focusing on one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could be our breath, it could be a deity, it could be a mantra, whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Could attention on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: focus concentration is the key to success everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody was saying that what is the difference between us and you know Gandhi and Lincoln and Einstein.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is difference, this is all of us, all of them and us, we all have the same 24 hours in a day.
[SPEAKER_00]: This difference was what did did with those 24 hours in a day.
[SPEAKER_00]: They deliberately did something consistently.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you might say, I can't do deliberately, do something consistently.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have 100 different demands on my time, all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But 100 different demands, you can do each one of them with full attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's open to us, developing the power of attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is Rajay Yoga.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a secret of meditation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to become this says, do everything
[SPEAKER_00]: do whatever you are doing with the fullest possible attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: No esoteric techniques of meditation, breathing, posture, all those things are very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: With the secret there is, make a habit of attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever you are doing, you do it with the fullest possible attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: that trains the mind for attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people have done that, and there are academics.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know people, especially in a third-bud couple of years back, I noticed that one thing, common to all these very brilliant people, whether students or faculty, they all had to a greater or lesser extent the ability to focus, to cut everything away and focus on something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they love to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be famous professors are like that, faculty, other faculty, members, and students.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is something important, what learning for everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: And young people, especially, the ability to focus and hold the focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Swami Vivekananda's, when Vivekananda is this logo, he designed
[SPEAKER_00]: As you remember, there is the rewaters and the sun rising in the back, the lotus blooming and the swans swimming in the waters, and the whole thing inserted by a serpent, like a cobra.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's supposed to be by the harbony of four yoga's, one realizes God.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hamsa, the swans swimming in the water, the hamsa symbolizes the supreme spirit,
[SPEAKER_00]: And the lotus is devotion, the waters are karma, and your activity throughout your day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the sun rising is a sun of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the serpent encircling the whole thing is the power of yoga.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we wake up, this is the power of concentration, power of yoga.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, he has explained this logo.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, the logo was designed in the Vedance Society of New York.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people don't know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he was here in New York, Swami Vivekananda, one of his lectures was about to be published in a pamphlet and the printer came to meet him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a Dutchman.
[SPEAKER_00]: He came to meet him and he said, Swami, could you give us like a logo?
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be nice to put a logo on the cover of the...
[SPEAKER_00]: the booklet, the pamphlet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when you make another sitting for breakfast, on a napkin, he drew, sketched something, and then he tossed the description, he tossed it across the table, and he said, drive to scale, and then he can print it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And somebody asked him, what's the meaning and he explained.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there are two explanations, he's given on two different occasions, almost the same thing, but slightly different.
[SPEAKER_00]: The well-known explanation is this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lotus is bhakti, the baby waters are karma, the sun is gana, and the serpent in succinct the whole thing is power of Kundalini or the power of meditation.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another place, he actually writes an explanation of this logo, he says
[SPEAKER_00]: when the power of yoga, that is concentration, that's certain, is joined to knowledge, devotion, and action.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the Supreme Soul is attained or God is attained.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now notice, instead of saying four yoga, he said these three knowledge, devotion, action, all to all of them is yoga, the power of yoga, that is the power of attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody seems to have picked up on that, but I noticed it immediately, that's slight change of tone there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So power of attention is very important, and of course, it is important in government, it is important in Bhakti, but the path of meditation is the path of controlling attention, part excellence.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's actually the whole point of the path of meditation is controlling attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember the last year we did the retreat in Garison Institute, and it was on meditation.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as Professor Arendam Chakravati said, after talking about different traditions of meditation, Buddhist meditation, meditation, Kashmiri shybism, meditation in devotional religion, dualistic religion, meditation in non-dualism, after all of that he said, one session you just
[SPEAKER_00]: And what is common to all techniques of meditation?
[SPEAKER_00]: Little bit of start, let me to realize, there's only one thing common to all techniques of meditation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the control of attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: No technique of meditation can work with scattering of attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every technique of meditation, at least has one component where attention is gathered and focused on something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rajayoga.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the path of knowledge also, again, importance is a missed often.
[SPEAKER_00]: Attention is very important.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've noticed the crucial difference between studying something, even understanding it and then stopping there and saying, that I sort of get what you are saying, but I'm not enlightened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not making the breakthrough.
[SPEAKER_00]: The difference is, you know, studying and understanding,
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one, deepening that understanding leads to enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that deepening is only a matter of attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: To sit with it intently, to throw yourself into it, not only with one's intellect, but with one's heart, with one's whole being and trying to make that to immerse oneself in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep it study focused on that one understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, the understanding must be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You must listen to the classes study that text, think about it and get a general view of what is being going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And your doubts also must be set at ease on the questions you have got should also be resolved.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, that intense focus of attention is needed for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: and Siramakrishna makes it crucial.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, this is the mind of the yogi.
[SPEAKER_00]: This focus, this non-flickering nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: These days, especially with computer, internet, social media, the attention is the one which is endangered.
[SPEAKER_00]: person who popularized the term EQ emotional intelligence.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a few years back he wrote another book focus and in the introduction he says that I have
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to pay attention to attention because I was approached by so many parents, teachers, even those who hired for corporate jobs and students, youngsters also, there's this widespread melays of attention of flickering mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even there was even a book called flickering mind many years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: well before the age of social media and on 20 years ago, there was a study by of the impact of computers in schools 20 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was a book on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The name of the book was the flickering mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read it long ago in a school in Ram Krishna Mission about several years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the name is so evocative, the flickering mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that time, you know, computer screens were flickering screens.
[SPEAKER_00]: That has gone, now we have high-tech, very steady screens.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now screens are very focused, mind's are completely unfocused.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, this whole thing which has come up recently that the entirety of Silicon Valley is based on what is called the attention economy and in internet so much is available and quite freely it really does not matter if you can provide good content.
[SPEAKER_00]: anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all about money, of course, for these providers, but good content is apparently it's not enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of good content is there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why will they see only you?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the idea is to somehow who cure attention?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you pay attention, then these people can put advertisements on their website and get money, but they must make sure you pay attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one of the ways to make sure if your attention is to train your attention and to draw your attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the ways to draw your attention, for example, this or one hook is anger and so they find out the way issues you are angry about, political issues, religious issues, and they'll keep feeding you that news more and more.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you focus on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sriram Krishna said, primary thing which disturbed the mind which disturbed our attention, the weight of worldlyness which puts the lower needle away from the higher needy, he says, is lust and gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: The strong desire for sensual enjoyment, worldly enjoyment, position, and also associated power, status, all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: temptation and terror.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the two things which affect the mind immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, one must deliberately stay away from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ram Krishna compares them to storms.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he also says, if you make a serious effort, those storms will die away after some time.
[SPEAKER_00]: With practice and with maturity, the storms will lessen and die away.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will not be such a struggle after some time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the gospel of attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember when we were kids in school, the teachers would yell at us to keep quiet, stay still.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would always invariably stay, say pay attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a quite wonderful phrase, you know, pay attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like paying money, that's the currency we have.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the currency of our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: More important than money.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is what we are paying attention to.
[SPEAKER_00]: A psychologist said, what you attend to and how much attention you put on that, that can make the difference between heaven and hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: that determines the quality of your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Milton's quote I like very much, I've quoted it number of times.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mind in its own place can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mind in its own place, the mind by itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: How does it do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: One factor is attention, one central factor.
[SPEAKER_00]: what I focus on and how much of my mind I put there.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are many things that may pull my mind, but I don't have to put all my mind there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many more attention to those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maximum attention to what is important, nourishing and good in my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Siddhartham Krishna, Swami Ramana and these two tell young monks that all the work that is given in Darshram for you, with schools, colleges, hospitals, he said with one fourth of the mind you can do all that work.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you give three-fourths of the mind to God, if you give three-fourths of the mind to God, what happens is we give three-fourths of our mind to the world and then struggle to retain one-fourth of God and that becomes a struggle for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Psychologists have also discovered there is a joy of attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: focus, concentration, those who have done anything with focus, concentration, studies, music, anything, they know that very nourishing experiences when you do something challenging with a lot of attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you, those are some of the best times of your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, enough of what attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just see if there is any comments about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: James said, I have a definition of fear as the frantic flickering of attention, true flickering of attention and also flickering of the mind, but also you know fear and temptation, terror and temptation are what focuses our mind also, but helplessly it draws our mind out to that object which is on the situation which is creating the fear or the temptation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the whole sit there, we are helplessly held there for a while, and then let go, and it's usually always useless and always harmful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Abhijit says, from talks with Ramanamaharshi, question, are there any signs which will indicate the aspirin spiritual progress?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maharshi says, the degree of freedom from unwanted thoughts and the degree of concentration of single thought are the measures to gauge the progress.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful, he said.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of our suffering, not in the world, a lot of suffering is due to the attention we pay to pay to those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the suffering would go away for attention, but not there on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have told you this earlier, I will repeat it, and once I will invite it to speak at a medical conference, and theme of the conference was pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one of the sessions was talk therapies for managing pain, and in that they were spiritual therapies, and I was one of the speakers.
[SPEAKER_00]: but a doctor he gave that this introductory talk and he said, the way we manage pain by giving medicines, drugs is not effective.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a dirty secret in the pharmaceutical industry that pain killers don't work well.
[SPEAKER_00]: They work, they don't work well.
[SPEAKER_00]: have the time they work, have the time they do not work, you do not save you from pain, but all the time they will give you side effects.
[SPEAKER_00]: That much is guaranteed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he drew, I still remember, he drew these three circles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Innermost circle is the actual physical discomfort pain and this is of course about chronic pain, not acute pain, chronic pain, continuous pain, sometimes back pain is like that and other things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So whatever is a chronic discomfort for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Innermost circle is the actual physical discomfort.
[SPEAKER_00]: The middle circle is the anxiety regarding that pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's going to hurt again.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to start now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, the pain is going to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: That kind of continuous deflection by attention is on the suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the bigger circle.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the widest circle outside is the,
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, the social problems related to the pain, I can't go to friends, but they party, I can't do this or that because of the pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: So many problems I have in society in work because of my pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, the innermost circle, the actual physical pain, that's the only thing that a pain killer can address, and that also ineffectively, that one is only 20% of the total suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: 80% of the total suffering is because of what we think about that pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: In chronic pain, acute pain is a different thing altogether, but chronic pain is a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And notice here attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so many cases, I know I've seen some and read many about senior amongst Sadhakas who there is physical pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: We hardly seem to be aware of it, because the minds are powerfully given to something very high and noble.
[SPEAKER_00]: that I have told you the story about earlier maybe Mahapurushmar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Swami Shivan and the Jiva is a president and is old age.
[SPEAKER_00]: He suffered terribly many problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Mah was one of them breathlessness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once whole night he was unable to sleep to sit up supporting himself with pillows.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the president of the order.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word got around.
[SPEAKER_00]: So next in the morning when the monks came to bow down to him, somebody asked, Swami, how are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: and Mahapurushma, so Amishiva then they said, I am fine, I am fine, I am good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, but Maharaj, we heard, you couldn't sleep last night because of breathless, because of Asma.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he looked startled and he said, oh, you mean the body, not good at all, not good at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, I am fine, he didn't even relate it to the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once another time, Mahaparish Maharaj, he was going to Bhanaras and he had a Tonga accident.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a horse-drawn carriage got into accident.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was hurt and laid that night he developed a very severe intense fever, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then next day in the morning it was gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said last night, Baba Vishwanat, that means Shiva in Banaras, he came to me and he separated these two.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just said these two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Separate these two means I, the conscious self and the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but from our perspective, the attention given to God or the self within.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mind of the yogi is always fixed on God, always absorbed in the self.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice, always fixed on God, GOD, comma, always absorbed in the self, capital S self.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not small self.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our mind is always absorbed in the self, that doesn't mean we are yogis.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have our mind is absorbed in the self means with the body mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: So both are actually equally valid, whether you are deep devotion, you're continuously thinking about your Easter day with her, or you're absorbed in the witness consciousness, you're aware that you are that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absorbed in that means you are aware that you are that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not shaken.
[SPEAKER_00]: One more point I'd like to mention, yes, so Ramavar Kramanmashi says here is absolutely right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is one great indicator.
[SPEAKER_00]: of progress.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: He does not say he is a great teacher of non-dual Vedanta, who Ramana Marshi?
[SPEAKER_00]: So he does not say here the progress is, you know, how far have you gone in understanding who am I?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what he would always ask, find out who I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: He does not say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does not, progress does not depend on how many classes you have completed, how many texts you have read, how many verses you have memorized?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: It depends on how can you remain focused deeply on God, in which ever far.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice all the intense practices, which the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna did after the Mahasamati of Sri Ramakrishna, all of them, what were they doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: All of them had got to some degree of the other enlightenment by the grace of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had various experiences, including some like Narendra,
[SPEAKER_00]: that intense years and years of very serious practices in hills and jungles, mountains, begging for their food, at the risk of their health, many of their, you know, their health broke down.
[SPEAKER_00]: What were they doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: They were getting deeply absorbed in that which they had already found.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the grace of Sri Ramakrishna, they had already got their realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: in various forms.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they made it a steady, unwavering light within themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean Brahman and the Swami Shiva and then they were asked, what are you doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they said, what he has given it, what he has given us, we are making it our own.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the thing, effortlessly being.
[SPEAKER_00]: And is there any end to this process?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: they all went to this phase and they all came out of this phase of this phase and the direct disciples, they all had a phase in their lives where they were going around, you know, radiating that peace and blessing others and helping others.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that means they reached a phase where they were the calm where they are well settled in in the spiritual realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then Sanghita says, how does one prevent attentiveness and deep concentration from becoming obsessive compulsive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obsessive compulsive is generally with something lower.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obsessive compulsive is often a sign of Thomas or Rajas.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, attention or concentration as such is a sign of
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice one thing about the obsessive compulsive mindset that it is, it's out of your control.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't control it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You become a victim to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some have this OCD behaviors, you know, they kind of helplessly trying, some keep on washing their hands, used to call it a washing menu or a purity menu, some, many kinds of obsessive and they are all, um, usually unproductive
[SPEAKER_00]: they are not helping in any way, in any worldly way, academic way, in your music, in your art, creativity, let alone spirituality, in no way it is helping.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is true that in at least some of the non-spiritual
[SPEAKER_00]: areas like art or science often it can be difficult to distinguish between an obsession and concentration.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of the great scientists, why great scientists, many a lot of people be you know and be also know or researchers who are writers, musicians, their practice, their research can often seem very obsessive and it's good in a way that's what leads to
[SPEAKER_00]: But definitely if it's a useless behavior, even a harmful behavior, and we can't get out of it, we feel captured by that behavior rather than us practicing it deliberately, then it's a typical tamasic or rather sick mindset, tamasic especially.
[SPEAKER_00]: Often OCD at the level of pathology is basically
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, nowadays it's very popular, is living in the present paying, this all comes out of the mindfulness movement.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good, because we tend to live too much in our minds.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think somebody said, finally, that,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in the old slapstick comedies, we used to laugh at people who slip on a banana peel, actor who slips and falls down and audience laughs, we are always doing that, either we are slipping on the banana peel and falling down backwards into the past or slipping and stumbling forwards into the future, in not standing up straight where we are in our present.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the tendency of the mind is to dwell on something in the future, expectation or anxiety, if this happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: what if this happens, there is one dwelling in the future, what if what if the other one is expectation, if only, if only, what if, if only and in the past either those days were so good or regrets about the past or nostalgia about the past that is slipping on
[SPEAKER_00]: However, let me add here, our Sathana in all the paths of Vedanta, which is devotional knowledge for meditation, more than just being present, it is a positive practice of a mantra or Vedanta,
[SPEAKER_00]: are being present to the person you are helping, whether it's in the school or in a hospital, not just trying to be present in the moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a preliminary practice I would say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice all these yogic practices or the Vedantic, the Vedanta, the Vedanta, which are all the bhakti practices, they will all help you to stay in the present.
[SPEAKER_00]: not necessarily though.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I know enough that one can do a long and complicated Pujab will only half-heartedly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once it becomes mechanical, once you learn all the mantras and you do it the same rituals day after day, it can become quite mechanical.
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes, weathering those storms is very difficult and we sometimes get swept away by them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a matter of practice to keep up with the struggle and have faith that eventually we will be strong enough to hold on certainly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the end, we will all win.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are that reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is always with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are, earthman, what can ultimately defeat you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing can defeat you ultimately.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that conviction, you move forward, do not worry about what has gone in the past, absolutely nothing compared to the glory of the reality within each of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have seen in those sadhus whom I consider to be really spiritually evolved.
[SPEAKER_00]: They make, they pay so little attention to our defects.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they would trace our good qualities to the sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: We thought that's partly good qualities, nothing particularly, we'll regret about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they would trace those little things in us to the sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what we felt were major defects in our life or character or
[SPEAKER_00]: spiritual practice, they would make very light of it, they wouldn't bother about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would just say that go on, try and make a change, do better next time and go ahead, when the grace of the Lord will say, whereby the grace of God, it will be better, you will overcome this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's true, it is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Say, that says, what is the difference between paying focus attention to something and being addicted to something?
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, the
[SPEAKER_00]: voluntary control over it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And another thing, addiction is generally detrimental to our psychological and finally physical well-being, but also psychological well-being.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the book flow, Mihai Chixen Mihai who has spent his lifetime in studying attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I highly recommend reading
[SPEAKER_00]: So he calls these sustained periods of attention to a worthwhile object of attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: So sustained attention to a worthwhile object of attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says he calls them flow experiences.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says these are some of the best experiences of our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: it could be anything what we do deliberately, something good for us, it could be in our career in our spiritual practice could be a hobby, but deliberately cultivated attention and he makes this point that flow experiences are always, they are always nourishing, it gives
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose you play a game of, you're watching a game of tennis on TV and you go out and play a game of tennis and the difference is what you're watching on the TV that those may be professional players playing much better than you and what you go out and play may not be at all as good as what you saw on TV but the nourishment you get the satisfaction you get by actually physically engaging not just the physical part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: active engagement of concentration, your powers, your faculties in a challenging game, that is much more nourishing than lying back on the couch and watching a very nice game on TV or a movie on TV.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says these acts of passive engagement, past equals it passive enjoyment, but TV, movie, they also seem to be attention because our whole attention is captured there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, engrossing movie or television program or whole attention is captured.
[SPEAKER_00]: So isn't it
[SPEAKER_00]: You will see at the end of that program, or children playing video games.
[SPEAKER_00]: So isn't it concentration?
[SPEAKER_00]: Reminders concentration.
[SPEAKER_00]: Reminders, hour after hour, they can go, will forego sleep and food and everything in play video games.
[SPEAKER_00]: So isn't it concentration?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is attention, continuous, deliberate attention, but see, it's a kind of addiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: How will you differentiate the difference is this?
[SPEAKER_00]: the same amount of time, energy and focus if they had put, say they are reading a good book or learning something whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the end of the experience, they would, these are the words of Mihai Chexen Mihai.
[SPEAKER_00]: You feel a greater degree of psychological integrity, a greater degree of psychological well-being and nourishment, feeling of accomplishment, feeling of being more than you were earlier, before the experience, whereas the addictive
[SPEAKER_00]: whether it is browsing, internet, playing video games or watching TV of any kind of addictive or playing, you know, gambling addiction is there, many kinds of addictions are there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It may seem like concentration hours and hours may go there.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, the result is, you feel unwell.
[SPEAKER_00]: You feel a kind of psychological disintegration, you feel you have gone to a poorer state internally than you are at the beginning of that tension.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a clear difference in inner well-being.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, afterwards physical well-being is also affected.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are there any practices you would suggest to cultivate attention?
[SPEAKER_00]: So people like, I was just saying this question was asked by Siddharth.
[SPEAKER_00]: So many people here, Siddharth especially,
[SPEAKER_00]: You all know people who are, the backgrounds you come from, I know, the backgrounds you come from, you all know people who have cultivated attention to extraordinary level in math, in science, in fields of scientific research.
[SPEAKER_00]: scientist at Harvard couple of years back on a book launch.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is one of the noticed physicist's material science, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: He discovered a new kind of crystal and the name of the book is the second kind of impossible, the name of the book, the second kind of impossible.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you gave this talk on how he discovered that crystal,
[SPEAKER_00]: And then after the talk in the Q&A, I asked him that my expertise is not physics, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to know about your work and the kind of people who work with you over these years.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the distinguishing characteristic of the way these people work, you, you and your colleagues, which would take away for people interested in education.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, well, you have seen how I conducted my research.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there is a problem which I want to solve, just standing in this huge auditorium, he said, there's a problem I want it want to solve.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will go through the walls of this auditorium to get an answer to that problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you saw in my whole talk, how I spent 40 years of my life searching for one crystal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see, that is focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: in quality, obsession or whatever it is, but it is focused on something worthwhile.
[SPEAKER_00]: Second, kind of crystal, new kind of crystal, fine, there is no doubt, but with that kind of focus, it could have realized God also, that's also true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was Swami Ram Krishna and then somebody, one senior monk, he said, that the kind of intense energy, the young people today pour into their examinations, with that much
[SPEAKER_00]: which is encouraging actually, are there any practices you would suggest to cultivate attention, read the book flow, there are many interesting insights there and they have very solid insights, there are many books on attention, especially these days, in the days of distraction, in the days of internet and all, now there is a cottage industry, writing books on attention, one good book I can recommend among all of these, the book called,
[SPEAKER_00]: on deep work.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think deep work, if you look at up maybe I think that's the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I benefited from that book.
[SPEAKER_00]: The number of such books, but flow is a very solid book based on scientific studies over many years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm a Vivekananda simple, powerful recommendation.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't
[SPEAKER_00]: do whatever you are doing with the fullest possible attention, very soon you will find you have concentrated in study, in birth, in meditation, all of that will come okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the whole day went in whole class mental attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: O, Janteshandeshandeshandeshandesh, Hariyom tatsat Sri Ramakrishna, Yupanamasku.