Meditation: Transforming The Mind From Worst Enemy To Best Friend

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Vipin: Hi everyone. This is Vipin, and I'm here with Hari Prasada and Rasanath. Our topic today is meditation. And meditation is a really important practice for all of us at Upbuild.

It's an important practice that we teach in classes and workshops and hard to decide that you're actually facilitating a meditation workshop for an organization next week. And in talking about the workshop, we wondered why haven't we recorded a podcast about this key practice for all of us? So here we are.

It's so funny. Just last night, I was looking through our intended podcast to come and I had a series on meditation. It's like, why did we never get to that? I mean, of course it was to come, but I can't believe we've gone this amount of time without getting into meditation, which is our core practice that I've built.

Yes. So no time like the present. I was looking up some statistics on meditation earlier this morning, and I discovered that it's believed between 200 and 500 million people meditate globally, and the number of adults in the US practicing meditation has tripled in the last 12 years.

And of course there are meditation apps worth hundreds and millions of dollars. When I was growing up, I never heard anyone talking about meditation, except for one of our family friends who was a brilliant meditation teacher and who used to go into senior centers and teach meditation. And it was all seniors and me attending those classes.

And now it seems like everyone is talking about meditation. So I want to start by asking you both, why is meditation such a rage these days?

It's definitely a fascination to me as well. I link it to the upsurge in mental health issues and the fact that when there's a need, people will find what works. And Meditation has just been scientifically validated to work on calming the mind, helping us feel more in control, more stable, more secure, and more equipped to deal with life, more focused.

The name of our workshop is called Focus, and Focus applies so broadly. It's about the task at hand, but it's also about our life. And that's even more important when we live a focused life, one that is self-controlled, then we feel more empowered, less like a victim, and we can really be our best manifest our potential.

So I think it's catching on more and more as people feel the need more and more

Thank you for that. You shared a lot of benefits, and it seems like with those benefits, why wouldn't you try meditation? I agree. And you talked about this kind of the mental health situation or crisis that we're living in in the current environment. I was also reading so much about people using it as, you talked about focus, so using it for, as a means toward being more productive.

Also. And so there's the kind of help self improvement. Let me be my best self. And this has become a core practice for people who want to be more focused and more productive and be the best version of themselves. Absolutely. And companies are always itching to figure out what will boost productivity, what will boost our bottom line and morale and decrease turnover, all of the negatives that we want to troubleshoot for.

So again, lo and behold, meditation is there and studies show that this really works. So it becomes more and more acceptable and mainstream. The other thing we can say is that yoga has been on the rise for a number of decades and it gets more and more.

Intensely commercialized, but the good thing is that it becomes also more acceptable and less foreign. And with that comes mindfulness and meditation. So that has, I think, helped pave the way. Yeah. Pave the way, put it in the vernacular and make it feel less other for people.

Yeah. So what you're saying is both. mitigating some of the challenges we experience in life and we didn't even talk about some of the health benefits. I was also reading about statistics that speak to hypertension patients having reduced medication and lowering blood pressure. There's Students meditating, enhancing their emotional regulation.

Yeah. I would actually just on that note, read a quote to everyone from Dr. Herbert Benson, who's a cardiologist and founder of the MindBody Medical Institute at Mass General. So he says, consider for a moment that I were here today discussing a new drug, And the scientific evidence indicated this new drug could successfully treat a wide variety of prevalent medical conditions.

It's completely safe, no side effects, It can even prevent the conditions from occurring or recurring. The drug is demonstrated to decrease doctor's visits by as much as 50%, leading to annual cost savings of more than 54 billion. The discovery of such a drug would be front page news and immediately embraced.

That new drug is of course meditation. This is what we share in the opening section of our focus workshop. Such a great quote. So compelling. Okay. So with that as the backdrop, what is meditation? Because there are many different types of meditation and I think people have all sorts of notions of what it is.

meditation means to control the mind and to bring it to a focal point. So to actually have an object, which you are focused on, which then clears the background noise and allows for stillness and for a contemplation of that object that is more profound and benefits I'll just read something more, which comes from a Dr.

Andrew Newberg in terms of a definition for meditation. He, uh, he wrote a book called How God Changes Your Brain. He's a neuroscientist, and he's the director of research at Thomas Jefferson, uh, Hospital. And, uh, he's also a professor of radiology at UPenn. So, Dr. Andrew Newberg says, How Meditation is commonly defined as a contemplative reflection or mental exercise designed to bring about a heightened level of spiritual awareness or train the mind in a specific way.

I'll read it once more. Meditation is commonly defined as a contemplative reflection or mental exercise designed to bring about a heightened level of spiritual awareness or train the mind in a specific way. We can also say the etymology is important here that, so meditate made its way into the English language in about 1560, and it stems from the Latin root, medere, which means to remedy.

So it has a medical connotation. Medere is, of course, where we get medical. It's to remedy. Thank you for that. You started by saying meditation is to control the mind. And for those who are a bit more familiar with our work, we do a lot of work with the Enneagram, which is a personality typology, and the levels of consciousness, which is a measure of health.

And in the levels of consciousness, we talk about the controlling consciousness is one that's very average and something that we want to move beyond, move into healthier states. So can you distinguish?

Why is controlling the mind healthy and all other types of control unhealthy?

Rasanath: The most fundamental way is to understand the controlling levels of consciousness is when we try to control, we are actually being controlled the paradoxical nature to it.

And the reason why we are trying to control is now our insecurities have taken over and are running our decisions and our actions from a subconscious and unconscious place. So when we talk about the mind, the mind has three broad spaces, you could say. What we talk about is the conscious mind, where there is awareness of what's going on.

That's the conscious part. Then we have the subconscious, which is right below that. There's some awareness, there is partial awareness, but it's not clear. There is fogginess. And then there is the unconscious, which is, you're just not aware what is in there. And our core insecurities have a way of operating from our subconscious and from our unconscious.

So when we are in the controlling levels of consciousness. We are not necessarily working. This space in our conscious mind just like shrinks. And what is really running the show is the subconscious and the unconscious, which means we are not a pilot. We are actually being controlled. We no longer quote unquote have a free will at that point, and we are not really in control of our choices and decisions.

Now, here's the bigger thing. The reason why that kind of control works so well is because we still think we are in charge. You see how subtle this level of being controlled looks like. We feel that we are in charge, but actually we are not.

Vipin: The only free will at that point is to choose free will. In other words, you can decide, Oh, I'm seeing that I'm actually being controlled by my own urges.

I'm being controlled by my desire to control for validation and my insecurities around that. And now I don't want that. So let me try to control the mind. That's the free will. Otherwise, the free will is sort of dispersed and vague at

Rasanath: best. The other way of looking at controlling the mind is learning to take responsibility.

for what lies beneath, what is really running.

the show without my knowledge, without my awareness. So when we learn to do that consistently, then we begin to see how we can exercise free will. It's a very powerful experience of freedom. And the simplest way in which we experienced that is recognizing we are not our thoughts or our emotions. We have thoughts, we have emotions, but we are not our thoughts.

on our emotions. There is a layer of separation that begins to happen. It's almost like a wedge is driven between who we are and our thoughts and emotions. And when we learn how to, the first level of taking responsibility is learning to separate ourselves from our thoughts and emotions. As our teacher and guide and mentor Sachinandana Swami likes to say, take the observer's stance.

And when you take the observer's stance, One, become aware that you're not your thoughts and emotions. Number two, the capacity to see what's actually lying underneath the surface. dramatically increases. And from that place, then we can make a much more deliberate, intentional, aware choice. In other words, we rediscover her capacity for free will.

Vipin: And there's nothing like meditation to draw that distinction between who I am and my mind.

I see. I can't control my mind. How can I be the thing that I'm trying to control? Who is the I that's trying to control that? And why is it out of control?

So therefore meditation is so important to get this realization increasingly that I'm not my mind. And the more we practice outside of our specific meditation practice, That drawing that distinction and living the life of the self, we're trying to align with who we are rather than just identifying with my thoughts and I want this, I don't want this, I'm going to do this, I'm not going to do this, then we're better and better suited for a meditation practice.

So our meditation practice will have increasing benefits. Thank you for that. So creating separation between myself and my mind is key and controlling the mind. And for that, I often think the mind is meant to be a tool of ours, not dissimilar from my arm, for example, where I can use my arm and my hand to do many things.

Eat and write and throw a baseball. And I have control over how I use that arm, at least today, right now I do. But our mind, like you said, we seem to not have any control over that, our minds. And we kind of just accept that that's how it is, that I will, in many ways, my mind controls me. My mind is all over the place.

Okay. It's chatter. There's a lot of mental chatter and there are many desires that are running amok. And I'm just a servant of all of these things. And so how do we actually get more control over what's meant to be a tool for us versus us being a tool for it? Yeah. You just described the need for meditation in a very succinct and critical way.

It's when you're observing that I am not in control of my mind and the mind, what is the mind? It's my central interface with the world. It's the system by which everything comes in to my being, and then everything comes out of my being. It's that, as Rastanov calls it, junction box between us and the world.

There's nothing more important than the faculty of the mind. The mind directs my arm. The mind directs every other faculty. This is it. If we want to be our best. This is it. We have to take back control of our mind. It's not optional. And all wisdom texts will tell you this.

Every wisdom tradition will tell you this is it. Do this, do this, do this above all else. And that's the meaning of yoga. Yoga chitta vritti nirodha. Yoga, this is from the yoga sutras, the foundational yoga text. It's also there in the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred text that we, study particularly, and which is our most important work.

inspiration in our mission at UpBuild, but the Yoga Sutras, which overlaps very much with the Bhagavad Gita, says yoga chitta vritti narodha. Yoga means the stilling of the vrittis, or the waves, Of the mind, that's what it is to actually yoga and meditation are inseparable and the whole, if you chart out, I was just speaking about this last night in our class.

If you chart out the path of yoga, like yoga, it's eight limbs and it all is building to meditation and building to the ultimate fruit of meditation, which is complete absorption in the object. And no more lack of control. So Krishna also says in the Bhagavad Gita, the mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

Take back control of your mind, bring it back in control of the self, bring it back in control of the self, bring it back in control of the self. Abhyasa, practice, this is the key. So what is our practice? It's meditation. This is the prescription for all yoga paths.

Rasanath: The point of taking responsibility is then to take responsibility for this.

And it's a centralized place. Take responsibility for the mind. And that's what I'm showing in my hands. I know.

Vipin: Yeah, I was going to say people can't see you pointing taking

Rasanath: responsibility for our mind, which is why the whole talk about mental health is critical because when the mind is healthy which is where Krishna actually talks about in the Gita, the mind as a friend, and you can actually see the output of that, how we interact with each other.

It has the capacity to pretty much solve every single problem that we see in this world. And while that may seem like a pipe dream, it is not because as soon as and that's also how on a local level, we can solve global problems is all that we need to do as a collective is take the time to take responsibility for our minds.

Vipin: As Morpheus says in the matrix, your mind makes it real. So reality exists within the mind. There's a saying in the Vedic texts, sacred texts from ancient India, Atma van manya te jagat. We perceive the world through the tinted lens of our mind. We see the world as our mind is. So if we want to be happy.

And if we want to be productive, if we want to be inspired, if we want to be a force for good, it all comes from the mind and how we're perceiving ourselves, how we're perceiving everything else, how we're filtering in reality. And we want to actually not filter reality. We want to be fully in connection with reality.

And the challenge is we're so used to being out of control in our minds. We're so used to that as the default. This is familiar. This is comfortable. Come on. Everybody's mind is out of control. My mind has been out of control my entire life. I've never known anything different. It feels great. Much of the time I'm getting what I want.

And when it feels terrible, then I don't have the strength to do anything about it anyway. And for some of us, that's much of the time it feels terrible, but what to do it's at least it's familiarly me. We're resigned, but meditation is the offering of no more resignation. Let us do something. Let us act.

Let us take back control of the mind and thereby who we really are. You both have really lit a fire under this question of why is meditation important? And I'm feeling very inspired by everything that you are sharing. And the image. That struck me. I think you were quoting Rasanath from the Gita class where we talk about the mind is the interface between us and the outside world.

And if you think about it, like if I were walking around the world with a viewfinder, and that was my device through which I saw and experienced everything. I better get to know that viewfinder inside and out. Like, what are the tints in here? How am I viewing things? How is this thing affecting my sight?

And that's, to me, very compelling to think about. The mind, if the mind is the interface, better get to know our minds, and our minds separate from ourselves. How can you not? I was just going to say that this central interface is the quintessential understanding of what the mind is, and I really appreciate Rasanath's framing of it, which I was quoting, that it's a junction box.

Rasanath: So I wanted to say two things to that specifically. One is, it's not my framing, it actually comes from the Vedic texts, where the voice of the mind Technically, it's also called as Madhyama Vaak. Vaak in Sanskrit means voice, sound, and Madhyama basically means that's what's sitting in the center. So the voice of the mind is very central to the external voices of the world and the internal voices of our true self.

So it's right in the middle. The second thing, going back to what you shared about a viewfinder within, we are so dependent on the days where we use maps. We are so dependent on GPS, either in a car or on our phones. Now imagine what happens if that is not functioning properly. Look at the amount of confusion that can exist.

So it does take time. It's so important to recognize why we need to do this. Because our mind is the GPS for our entire system, and when we don't spend time making sure that it's rightly calibrated, it's working the way it needs to work, then we know what the consequences are.

Vipin: I heard one wonderful yoga teacher, Yogi Charu, who has taught Rasanath meditation and who has partnered with us in the past.

Yogi Charu would say that you brush your teeth every day. Right. That's physical hygiene. What about mental hygiene? Why would we think that it's any less important? This mental hygiene is absolutely essential. Yeah. I wonder that to me, that goes to a point where I think people can experience brushing one's teeth is very tangible.

It's a very tangible experience that I have of benefiting my hygiene, my physical hygiene. How does that translate to meditation? Cause I think it's quite possible to practice meditation and many people can wonder, is this really helping? How do I know what am I, is it really, giving me more focus or my thoughts are still running.

I'm sitting in meditation. My thoughts are still running amok and it's not changing after days or weeks or months. So that's something I would pose. And I think where I'd want to take the conversation also is what are your personal experiences with meditation that might be able to shed light on what I'm speaking about, which is the challenge of tangibility of the benefits.

Rasanath: So first of all, the tangibility element is when you brush your teeth, you still need a mirror to look to see how your teeth looks. And they feel good.

Vipin: I could even without a mirror, they feel good. And they smell my mouth. The breath is noticeably different.

Rasanath: What you will see when you consistently practice meditation is there is a release from This is what we talked about earlier, the tangible benefits of meditation.

You will see decreases in stress. You will see decreases in what, in your reactivity. That doesn't mean you feel the reactivity, but you suddenly discover that you have a choice in terms of how you respond. So those are

Vipin: How much practice does it take to

Rasanath: get there? The most important thing is consistent practice.

It's small, consistent practice and the benefits of it are and you will see statistical records of like so many minutes of meditation in a day has significantly reduced. They have the imaging of the brain.

Vipin: This is your brain on meditation

Rasanath: and there are images of how the amygdala, which is, you know, what you call the reptilian brain, that part of our brain that is

Vipin: essentially,

Rasanath: yeah,

Vipin: the alarm sounder

Rasanath: is not as highly activated.

And then that is not as highly activated. Then you have the capacity to see more. Because when the amygdala is highly activated, we become very myopic.

Vipin: So what you're saying is actually there are tangible benefits. It may not be the same where you brush your teeth once and you immediately sense that you have some cleanliness there, but with consistent practice, the benefits.

Are as tangible as anything else that you do for yourself. Yeah. I would also say that there are some tangible benefits right off the bat. It depends on the person, the situation and the level of awareness we may have. But for example, it's not a coincidence that it's become a common English expression.

Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. Where does that come from? That comes from the idea of controlling the mind via breath, which is a yogic meditation understanding. And it's just made its way into the vernacular way before meditation was commonly accepted. And so much so that it's often not taken literally it's like idiomatic, but it's meant to be literal.

It's actually meant to be and if you become more patronizing than anything else. Yeah, but if you try it, there's a reason why it came about. Why is it so popular to say that thing? It's because when you do it, when you take a deep breath, You feel a slight difference immediately. If you take another deep breath, you feel a slight difference further immediately.

So no, not everybody right now. Yeah. If I'm like incredibly heated about something and I want to stay heated about it. Because I get some juice from that or I feel so wronged and like so justified and then I take a deep breath holding on to Ben, you're pulling yourself in two different directions, so you're not going to feel as much the benefit.

But if you genuinely want to still the mind and you do that, it has a different effect. So this has to do with our consciousness. How tangible the effects are has to do with our consciousness. I think there's another. Immediate tangible benefit that I can see, which is going back to free will, making the choice to sit for 10 minutes without any other external stimuli is a discipline and a choice that's not easy for many and not one that most take.

And so even learning how I can develop the self control. And within a day or two seeing, wow, I can actually do this. I can be with myself. I can sit. for 10 minutes and what happens after even if I'm not yet experiencing some of the things that you're speaking about just the intention to do that and make a choice to get to know the mind to control it is a huge benefit that takes more courage than most of the risk taking we do in our entire lives and to dedicate our lives to controlling the mind with consistent practice of meditation takes the most courage of anything To sit and be with myself and to deal with this mind that I'm so resigned to, and I have so many justifications for, that takes tremendous courage and tolerance, patience, endurance, stamina, all of the good qualities that we admire in others and we fancy for ourselves or aspire for or think, Oh no, no, I won't have those qualities.

They're all available to us. But we have to make that choice. We have to direct our free will and meditation is the vehicle. If we direct our free will towards the purpose of meditation, taking back control of our minds so we can take back control of ourselves, then all of those qualities develop and our muscles of character develop like anything, but it takes courage.

you each share a bit about your personal journey with meditation? Rasanath, maybe you could start.

Rasanath: My first experience of meditation started very early in my life. I was attracted to meditation because I felt it gave you superpowers. You're not alone in that

Vipin: superhero.

Rasanath: Many people feel that it was this very, it was this intuitive sense that the mind has more power than physical strength does.

I can't explain why I had that intuitive sense, so I was drawn to meditation.

Vipin: Mind over matter. People say mind over matter. It's more powerful than the physical

Rasanath: things. And I used to fantasize growing up as a child that one day I will be able to just lift objects by

Vipin: telekinesis

Rasanath: by looking at them by looking at them which is if you go to the Himalayas and really see and get in touch with people who have been performing meditation practices like for example we also refer to Yogi Charu who has done experiments where he has completely stopped his heart for five minutes.

medically, you know, with probes connected and has not, has gone into such a deep meditative state that the meditation, you can actually control functions of your body. You can regulate temperatures of your body. You can actually control material elements when you have harnessed the full power of the mind.

Vipin: This is where you see these yogis sort of without any clothes on in the snow in the Himalayas for hours.

Rasanath: Yeah, they walk barefoot and you don't see them shivering because there is a way in which you can actually regulate the temperature using your mind. Okay, so that's what attracted you, but that's not exactly where you took the experience.

That's what really, and I practiced meditation with the, it's not too dissimilar from why meditation is so attractive these days is to get like, you know, superpowers in terms of like extremely focused, very productive and over time. What I began to learn was that those may just be the byproducts of what meditation is really aiming at.

And what meditation is really aiming at is to discover and to come back in touch with the true self. And that has taken time and learning and humility. And this is not to say that I have become an expert in meditation in any way or form. I have a two hour mantra meditation practice that I have been doing for the last 26 years.

Vipin: Wow. Wait, I just want to repeat that in case anyone missed that. So you've been meditating for two hours a day for 26 years. And I would say it is still a struggle. I was just trying to calculate how many hours that is, but I'm not fast enough with the math here, but let's say it's 700 hours times 26 years.

So you're definitely past the 10, 000 hours mark

Rasanath: here. And I can very honestly say it still continues to be a struggle. Every day you have to confront the mind. And the only thing I can say is that there is something to the consistency of the practice that has a permanent effect on how you show up your behaviors, your thought process, even when you have not perfected.

your meditation practice. It still has a profound effect in shifting your consciousness and you're aware with that increased awareness. You see more things about yourself and the world. Just imagine how many things such, you know, then a Swami who we quoted previously, you know, he says how most of the most important things in life are invisible.

And just imagine how many things we are potentially missing when we are not aware. And When you start to see those things, going back to choice and decision making, imagine us making decisions asymmetrically every single time with very, actually very little information, thinking that is the whole truth.

There cannot be a bigger illusion than that. And I use the word illusion very deliberately because that is. One, not having information. Number two, thinking that I have all information. So when you meditate, the first level of awareness that comes to be is, my gosh, I am actually missing things. And if I have missed, if I become aware of one thing, then what it begs the question, how many more things am I actually not aware of?

How do

Vipin: you become aware that you're missing things while you're in meditation? What's an example of that?

Rasanath: For me personally, I, and this has become, this has only become evident over time. I had this story in my life where when I have served others, that I am being very selfless. And I have also experienced resentment about the fact that people haven't responded or reciprocated to me.

I haven't appreciated that service. that spirit of service because I have been so selfless over time in the practice of meditation. I became very acutely aware of how, even when I claim that I'm doing this service for others, the primary emotion and motivation behind it was that others need to see me and recognize me for being the selfless person.

And it was very confronting because the story that held so much credence in my life that also brought about moral superiority, it just started to crumble. And it happened during my meditation practice. So this is such

Vipin: a helpful example, so concrete. So in meditation, as you're spending time with your mind and all its thoughts, you can see Even if you're feeling some, you're seeing some resentment towards somebody else because they haven't appreciated or recognized and you're starting to see how much that's a desire of yours to be seen in a certain way.

And maybe that's even driving your actions in a way that you hadn't realized that is that am I, is that what you're saying?

Rasanath: Yes, and if I have lived with that story for 10 to 15 years in my life and have made so many decisions based on it, that's just one thing I am now newly seeing. Just imagine how many things

Vipin: It

Rasanath: really is a superpower, but not just not seen and what to speak of not seeing the true self, the real self living in this world, thinking that I have my mind and my emotions.

And even when I use the word, I, I'm not even talking about the real eye. And that is the fundamental basis. In order to function in this world, I have to know at its core, at its most foundational, who I am. And then I don't even know who that, how do I, the audacity that we have to claim how much we know, the whole thing just gets turned upside down.

Vipin: Yeah, very powerful. We ask this question at Upbuild all the time of each other, of our clients. What am I not seeing for ourselves? Hopefully not saying what are you not seeing? But what am I not seeing and encouraging our clients to ask themselves that question? What am I not seeing? And you can get the help of others to help you see what you may not be seeing.

But What you're saying is meditation actually gives you that tool in and of yourself to be able to see what am I not seeing and it's not a active pressing yourself. What am I not seeing? What am I not seeing? What am I not seeing? But just being still with the mind and allowing yourself to see all of its different shapes and directions will help you see what am I not seeing.

Rasanath: So when you're working with someone who is actually helping you do it as a coach, the coach typically becomes the tool for observation. That's what is really happening there. The coach is holding a mirror. It's almost like a screen that then the person being coached can then observe. So what we are doing with meditation is doing that for ourselves.

But that is also what I would say that is just one small byproduct side benefit of meditation. When you really understand and this is something that I want to bring attention to is that we have somehow sanitized meditation for the sake of widespread adoption. And somehow there is this notion that meditation is something new.

Even when we don't necessarily hear about it that way, it feels that it's very new. It feels like it's the, and with the adoption of technology, technology sort of abstracts and masks the ancient ness. of meditation. But what I want to bring back is the roots of meditation. These technologies were available to cultures that have been practicing this for a very, very, very long time.

And what they would say, when you really take the time and energy to understand these meditation from schools that have traditionally passed on this knowledge, You'll see these are just byproducts of meditation. The real effect of meditation is to uncover the true self, is self realization. That's where all of this is driving towards.

So we are barely scratching the surface. When, as we talk about meditation, the other risk here is that we are also making meditation a tool that is convenient. for furthering the controlling levels of consciousness. And I want to be very, very cognizant of that, where one thing with mass adoption is, well, how will this further my material progress, which is also why the sanitation of meditation is necessary because, or I'm not saying necessary from a point of view of like, well, it's absolutely needed, but why it's done is When you say that the real thing about meditation is that you, you actually start needing less when you progress in meditation.

You start to see how you're controlled by your material desires and you no longer need to fulfill them, pursue them. Not so good for our consumerist society. That's exactly the, the point. It suddenly topples the very foundation of a society that we have built.

Vipin: So instead I can focus on the byproducts of productivity so that I can go and, and fulfill all of my material desires.

Rasanath: It doesn't really, we are again, just like we have done with everything else, we are making a tool for just continuing to further our controlling levels of consciousness. I'm I want to really highlight that this is the, for the lack of a better term, a misadoption of a very powerful technology. It's an appropriation.

Vipin: An appropriation for the ulterior motive rather than the actual motive. Not dissimilar from yoga being a form of physical exercise. Exactly. Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodha exposes that for what it is. No. Yoga is not a form of physical exercise. It includes physical exercise for a particular purpose. To control the body and control the mind for the sake of realizing the self.

Yoga and physical exercise are not synonymous. And that is the appropriation. Yeah. And even the purpose is appropriated wrongly. I can share from my own experience with meditation to your question, but then that it has been a journey also for many, many years where it starts very humbling and seeing the painful reality that I am totally out of control and the inertia is so strong.

It makes me feel like a failure and I don't want to do this anymore. And it's like, why would I spend time at all? What to speak of regularly dealing with something that is just like a wild beast and doesn't bring me the satisfaction of being good at it. Yeah, that doesn't feel good, which is exactly why you should spend that time.

Exactly. And it took a lot of, again, courage and determination to stay with it, but also recognition of that need. And what's the alternative? If I don't do this, it's just shoving it under the rug and pretending it's all good. And hey, you know what? I'm in control of my life enough. I'm good, like, things are great.

But that's not, that's not the real thing. It has nothing to do with who I really am. And this is confronting me. One comment I want to just interject. The thing I was thinking about earlier was, um, freedom, you know, that sometimes we think of freedom as, well, I don't have to control it. Let it go. And it's, it's free to go wherever it wants.

And actually seeing The freedom, the true freedom that comes from actually being able to control the mind and the process can. It's to quote a verse from the Gita, it's around the mode of goodness can feel like poison in the beginning, nectar in the end, when we see that actually experience the freedom that comes from that, how even as you're describing how painful it is in the beginning, but for so many, it will, you have to go through that poisonous phase to get to the nectar instead of just let me enjoy the nectar of letting my mind run free.

But who's free? Who's free? You anticipated exactly where I was going to go, including the verse that it's like poison in the beginning and nectar in the end. That's exactly what I had in mind. And Arjuna, who's being taught yoga, meditation and being coached to self realization by Krishna for the purpose of achieving his real self, Arjuna complains, he says.

I can't do this. You know what? I think Krishna that this kind of controlling the mind it's for other people. It's for yogis. It's for sages. It's not for me. I'll tell you what it is. It's more difficult to control my mind than it is to control the wind. I would rather spend my energy trying to control the wind, even a tornado, trying to control that than control this.

That says a lot. And Arjuna was a very cultured, very, very empowered, amazing person. And he was so sage like himself. And he felt that way. So he speaks for all of us. This is not easy, but Krishna gives him the two ideas that will address his doubts and will encourage him on his path. Practice and detachment of Vyasa, as I mentioned earlier, and Vairagya, detachment, practice and detachment, practice makes perfect.

So going from that experience that I had in the beginning of, you know, Seeing this is crazy. This doesn't make me feel good at life. Reminds me of all of my weaknesses. I have learned to accept that and to tolerate that and to tolerate myself, which is the hardest thing. And it's still not easy. I mean, 18 years later, also with a very rigorous practice, It's not that it's become easy.

It's just that I've gained my appetite and I've seen the benefits. I've seen how worth it it is. Your taste has increased. Yeah. My taste has increased. I can tell you there are two experiences, two broad bucket kinds of experiences that I've had with this. One is in the practice and the other is outside of the practice.

And I think it's helpful to look at. The effects of meditation from those two angles. So within the practice, I have had experiences where on occasion, I feel so moved. Sometimes I felt tears because of the connection I felt to myself and to God, actually. And then I've had other times where I felt so hopeless.

That I was able to channel that energy. My mind is so out of control. I was able to like really see the need to control this. And I found a catharsis and a pacification and a re channeling that was so needed. And just yesterday, I had this experience where I was incredibly triggered. I was very, very sad and feeling like, ah, my life is still out of control.

There's a voice that says that, but I know that that voice is not me. And I know from all of my years of meditation, which ties to the other angle, that is not me. And I can see that when my practice is tinged with this sadness and this helplessness, and I just became very determined and very prayerful.

And this is also a mantra meditation that I was doing to really connect with the self and, and the source of all of us. And in so doing, I felt a kind of upliftment that I can't describe. And I felt a shift in consciousness that lasted the entire day and affected the people around me. My experience of life and where I see myself at in my life.

So that ties to that second angle. And this is what I think is the most transformative and important. It's not about what happens in the meditation itself. That's also important, but even more important is, especially in the earlier stages. What is this doing for my life? I am cent percent a different person than I was before I began.

I have transformed more than I could possibly imagine. If you had told me that this is how you're going to become, I would have said, you're kidding. No way. Forget it. I don't believe you for a moment, but to see how my interests have shifted, to see how my qualities have developed, to see how my relationships have shifted, to see how the trajectory of my life, my sense of service, what I care about, the way that I think and experience life has fundamentally shifted in the most recent years.

extraordinary way for the better. Now I still have a very long ways to go, but I'm not going to give up on that because I can't afford to. I've seen what this does and I know how much more lies in way. And there ain't a chance that I would give up on that. No way. You both have made a very strong case, very inspiring case.

For everyone to practice meditation and you've inspired me In my own practice from this conversation. There's so much more fuel that's coming Going to be poured into it. To wrap, I have a final question for you. How do you recommend getting started for someone who's maybe never meditated, maybe dabbled a little bit?

Rasanath: Like anything begins, you just get started and you be consistent. I didn't start with two hours a day.

I started with five to seven minutes a day. That's really

Vipin: helpful. So something as, as concrete as five minutes a day. As a starting point, when coaching clients come to me to develop a meditation practice, which is very common, that's a big part of what I love to offer as a coach and what I feel is most beneficial for people, as you can understand from this conversation, they will sometimes say, I can't do it because I need a half an hour or 20 minutes more, more often than that, they will say, okay, yes, I will do it.

I'm going to do it for 30 minutes. And I stopped them. I say, no, no, that is not the starting point. And sometimes they do it anyway. And they, they come back and they say, oh, I wasn't able to. Yeah, you want something that you can do consistently. So start with the smallest chunk. Exactly. Because people will say I did it for three days and they'll celebrate that, or they'll get, they'll get discouraged.

I wasn't able to do it. And the whole thing is, as Russ Nath is saying, consistency, consistency, consistency, start as small and as bite sized as possible. Start small and bite sized and be consistent. And then you can grow that over time. And where would you. Start with what? What am I doing for those five minutes?

Actually, we never went into the different types of meditation, but where would you have someone start if I wanted to meditate for five minutes? Pull up one of the apps like headspace or calm. How would you recommend someone get started? I mean, there are different ways that you can go. Of course, the three popular kinds of meditation that we often will share with people is there's silent meditation there.

That means just. Being quiet and observing the mind. There is guided meditation, which usually focuses on the breath and some kind of contemplation that is helpful to focus the mind and give an experience. And then there's mantra meditation. And all three of these have been shown to provide great benefit in similar ways and with differences as well.

I would recommend choosing what resonates with you and experimenting with that and being consistent about it and then seeing what more might be If I were to try something else now, guided meditation is something that we do a lot because silent meditation is the most difficult. It's just me and my mind.

And there's no real object. And if you want to say there's an object, it's still the mind. Well, we don't have any help in doing that. It's all up to my own strength. So that's the one that we least promote at Outbuild. Some people love it, but. We're not really promoting that for the reasons of it being just about you and your strength.

When it comes to guided meditation, there's a key aspect of somebody there with you, helping focus your mind. You're not just alone in this. And it's a powerful force, of course, depending on the realization and the intention of the person who's guiding you. But this is something that we would recommend for sure.

And we do a lot in our own work. Now, if you want to get palm or headspace, you find that effective by all means. When it comes to mantra meditation, This is the core of what we do at UpBuild. This is what we're most passionate about. And because there's a spiritual benefit that is very different, that's inherently there when you're dealing with certain mantras that are inherently spiritual.

Whereas guided meditation can be spiritualized, it may not be, but if you want to get to the real self, And as we understand it, the real self is the soul. And that's what Bhagavad Gita presents to us and wisdom traditions that we honor will share that the real self is the soul. So then a mantra is incredible.

And then you invoke grace as you're doing it. And it creates a sound vibration that anchors the mind when you're chanting, reciting a mantra, when you chant it. You're focusing the mind by giving the sound vibration, your attention, you're speaking, and you're hearing, you're engaging more faculties, it's absorbing.

So try that. That's something that's fantastic. And there's a simple way to do it. Just wrong, wrong. This is a part of our own practice. It's one sacred syllable in a longer mantra that we practice every single day as the core of our practice. And this is what we offer as a simple starting point for people is just chant Ram, Ram, Ram.

And the easiest and best way to start doing that is by holding the syllable as long as you can, taking a breath, then doing it again. Ram. And holding it even longer if you can. Ra. Ra.

Like that. And you keep doing that for a certain period of time. And then you bring the mind to silence and you just focus on the sound vibration while you're doing it. And you'll feel the sacred resonance in you. You'll feel the mind is more guided to its object of meditation, the mantra, the sacred syllable.

So start doing that five minutes a day or start a guided meditation practice every day. If you like doing silent meditation, do that, but start it and then gauge the effects and increase from there. Well, this is coming at the end of this podcast, but we clearly have to record another episode specifically on mantra meditation because you've given people a little taste.

And I know later today, Hari Prasada, you're going to record a couple of guided meditations that will be also on this platform. So people can just come in and have an experience of a guided meditation, which I'm really looking forward to. And so it'll be two meditations, the guided meditation and guiding us into mantra meditation.

So it's really guided meditation and mantra meditation. We'll do the Ram meditation and then you'll have that chance to practice with guided meditation and with the mantra meditation Ram. Thank you both so much for this conversation. It's been long overdue and now it's here and like you said Hari Prasada that you had a whole series in mind and it's clear there's a lot more to speak about so I will look forward to the next conversation about this and I hope that I'm coming away very inspired for my own practice and I hope that others are as well.