Sadhvi Bhagawati on TRS | Stanford Neuro-Scientist Who Gave Up PhD For Spirituality & Dharma

0:00 Sadi G, you've been in India for about 30 years now. Yeah, I'm from America, born and raised. I don't actually have a drop of Indian blood in my body, but I go down to Ganga and I have this extraordinary experience of being in the presence of the divine. And it knocked me literally to the ground in tears and I hear a voice and it says, "You must stay here." I'm 32 now. I don't think anyone around me that's my age is completely happy. This is the time of life. Succeed, attain. Just don't think that happiness is going to come from it. It's like looking to buy milk in a shoe store. It's not there. If what we're looking for is just happiness, we know the way. Do you know Virat Kohli is the

0:47 greatest cricketer of our time? She started being mocked. I'm pretty sure pushed him into some kind of depression. It's very hard to be a public figure of any kind. In a lot of ways, they're energetically vomiting with their projections, with their expectations. And so, you've got to use that spiritual shower to get those projections off. I'm going to say something a little bit brutal, but I see the world around me. Should we bringing new souls into this planet? For people for whom it's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do it. Or, oh, yeah, you know, she got pregnant, so we're going to have a kid. This makes no sense. You don't do things aimlessly, mindlessly, purposelessly. The goal of life is to control your own mind. I had experienced very severe abuse in my early childhood and then

1:33 abandonment and I stood there hours probably and I cried and I prayed until I could finally forgive. We let go because even though what someone else did is wrong, we still deserve to be free. [Music] Welcome to the Randi Shoma Sadi G. How are you? Wonderful and so wonderful to be with you today. Um you know I'm at this point in my life which is uh

2:19 governed by transitionary states in my mind. I think I'm in the middle of deep transformation. So when I have opportunities like this to sit in front of people like yourself uh it's one of the best days of my week. So happy so happy to be with you. Likewise. Uh you've been in India for about 30 years now. Yeah. Almost September 1996 I came. So September I'll be celebrating my 29th anniversary with India. Wow. Okay. But your journey began in America. It did. It did. I am from America, born and raised. I don't actually have a drop of Indian blood in my body even though when I arrived I knew on the deepest soul level I was home. But yes, I grew up in

3:06 Los Angeles. Hence the title of my memoir as Hollywood to the Himalayas because I literally come from Hollywood and then left Los Angeles for the San Francisco Bay area for Peloto when I went to Stanford undergrad. I then was doing my PhD in pediatric neurosychology. Wow. When at 25 I came to India with a backpack. Wow. Yeah. pediatric neurosychology. So you were trying to understand the mind of children. So exactly but with a very specific point in mind at that time and this is now

3:52 32 33 35 years ago. At that time the science of neurology told us that once the brain is finished forming it cannot be changed. And that happens usually around late adolescence or early 20s. If someone has depression or anxiety or addiction or any kind of psychological issue, all we can do is medicate them. They cannot actually be cured or fixed because the brain can no longer be changed. So my area of study and I thought well okay so if we cannot help them once they're in their 20s why not get in and work with them when

4:37 they are very young so that was what I was studying the pediatric neurosy now in the last three three and a half decades neurology has come a full 180 degrees we now know exactly what our sages have been telling us for thousands of years, which is everything you do changes your brain. Gotcha. Um I wonder what a PhD does to the human mind when you deep dive into subject that much versus what 30 years of Indian Himalayan experiences do. It's a beautiful question. You know I I always say that when I came to India I thought

5:23 my education was finishing but actually when I came to India I learned my education was just beginning. I could tell you exactly what every neuron was made of. But I couldn't tell you how to be in peace. If you said to me you know who are you? I would have said well I'm you know this age. I come from Los Angeles. But it actually was a mindset shift from what I talk about as the Hollywood way of thinking, which sadly these days is not only in Hollywood. It's pervasive everywhere. And it's a way of thinking that says you are your body. you are. Its size, its shape, its color, its

6:12 history, its bank account, its followers on Instagram or Tik Tok or Twitter or whichever one you pay attention to. It is its relationships. You are that. And if we think we are that, that's when we suffer because you're never beautiful enough. You're never successful enough. You're never popular enough. You're never rich enough. You're never happy enough. But the Himalayan way of thinking, the spiritual way of thinking, what I learned in India is you have a body, but you're not the body. You are soul. You are divinity. You are consciousness. You are one with the supreme reality. And when you shift in the mind, that

6:59 mindset shift, the suffering ends. India has really taught me how to live. So that transition into this way of thinking where you're detached from your body, your own past as well as you know I hear a lot of men especially talk about how they want a legacy in the long term. And I I would also say this when I was a little bit younger that hey I I'm working to build a legacy but even legacy is attachment uh of some kind. I don't think that one shouldn't chase legacy because of this thought. I think it's good to leave the world kinder and better than you found it. Absolutely. Uh but you got to set a finish line for yourself. My question to you is

7:46 how does one actually shed off the attachments of the past, the attachment that societal conditioning brings you. Um, I see this with a lot of friends my age who I'm I'm 32 now and uh there's deeper questions that are arising. There's um a lot of questions related to love, commitment, uh the lack of commitment, suffering. I don't think anyone around me that's my age is completely happy. In fact, I see a lot of people in their 20s kind of happy, but your 30s force you to reflect. I also see people gravitating towards philosophy, towards spiritual conversation. I think that's why we find consumers on these podcasts as well. So

8:32 I did an experiment because remember I'm a scientist at heart and after I had been in India, I mean I knew from the beginning there is a secret here. Poor children on the street were happier than people I knew living in Beverly Hills or Hollywood. And so I started to get really curious about happiness because I grew up in a world where everyone had everything. But no one was happy. Not just in their 30s, in their teens, in their 20s, in their 40s, in their 50s. And people had fun. Muzza, like, oh, we had a great party. Had a great pizza. I got

9:17 an A+ on an exam. Oh, that was a great night. Oh, that was a great vacation. But on a deep level, a level that sustains you even when life goes up and down. A level in which you're happy even when the pizza is over. That level of sustained joy, deep joy, no one I knew had. And when I was back in America, you went back to Yes, I was back visiting. I go back periodically anyway to go back and visit. Okay. So we're doing work with the United Nations spiritual teachings and when I was there I just started calling and chatting up different people I knew but they were all people who were at the absolute highest of their chosen career.

10:06 So, someone in academia who was a tenure professor at Stanford, someone who was the chairman of a billiondoll company, someone who was a successful actress in Hollywood, someone who was a singer whose songs were in the top 10 on the radio, you know, back in the day when we had radios and top 10s and things like that, someone who played professional basketball with the Lakers. And they were all people I knew well, so I could have these really casual conversations with them. But in the middle of the conversation, I asked the question that was my study. And the question was, are you happy? Just that,

10:52 are you happy? And what I got was every single person gave me one of two answers. Either they said I will be happy when [Music] or I would be happy if will be happy when I lose the 10 pounds I gained over the holiday season. I would be happy if my husband worked less, there were less traffic on the way to work, whatever it was. But all of these people who had attained the absolute highest and they are still an arms length away from happiness. And

11:37 that for me was really the conclusive study that all of these things they don't bring happiness. It doesn't mean don't do them. By all means do them. This is the time of life. Search, succeed, attain, grow, acquire, expand. Because if we're looking for happiness in it, it's like looking to buy milk in a shoe store. It's not there. If what we're looking for is just happiness, deep happiness, we know the way. Spiritual practice, service, deep connection, meaningful engagement, creativity. These are the things that actually bring happiness. I just want to

12:24 summarize everything that you just said once. Okay. And I also come from the perspective of being on the exact same page as you uh and pitching similar ideas to younger friends of mine. Wonderful. Um you said that you should chase happiness instead of chasing the material reward. If you can do that from day one, nothing like it. Focus on doing creative work. Focus on work that adds value. and focus on being in a peaceful state of mind, giving back to society. Uh these are things you can do at 22 as well, of course, but it's just that at that age, you're more inclined to the material game. And I think that's a normal outcome of being at that age. Um before we move on, I'd just like to quote this friend of mine. He's been on the show.

13:10 His name is Sapalhai. He's a Nihang Sikh. He said something in a real that stayed with me very deeply. uh Sapalari said that he believes that the law of attraction and manifestation sure it might work uh but what it'll end you but what it'll end up leaving you with is a sense of using the law of attraction again. So when you manifest something to get to some material goal of yours and then you get it then you're tempted to do it again. So in that process you're actually getting more attached to material reality anyway. Yes. when the long-term goal is to be detached from the things that you want because all forms of attachment eventually lead to suffering of some kind. So he said that if at all you have to use the law of attraction or

13:56 manifestation simply use it to manifest peace. Yes. Because if you're in a state of peace and a state of surrender to the divine and you work through that state of peace and surrender, then the universe will give you even more than what you can possibly manifest or attract into your life. Absolutely. And that's the summary of the 10 years of my career. That's what I've learned that just try being peaceful and happy, everything else will follow. Absolutely. And this is actually how Indian society is set up. If you look at traditional Indian society given to us by the rishies and the sages, we have brahmacharia asham that's supposed to be the first 25 years of your life is the time to

14:43 study. But not just study in school. Brahma is the one who is actually going closer and closer to the divine. So yes, study in school, but study the self. Study the truth of who you are. Who am I that's getting an A? Who am I that's failing math? Because I'm not just the student. I'm not my grades. I'm not my marks. And this is for your younger viewers also. This is so important. Nothing wrong with chasing success. The problem is that it doesn't always come. And if I am identified as that success, then when it doesn't come, my self-identity

15:29 becomes I am a failure. And this is where you have students jumping out of dorm rooms and committing from the fourth floor of their hostel because they failed a math exam or because they didn't get into the university that they want to go to or because they didn't get the job that they want. And it is not a law of rewards and punishments by the universe. It's not, oh, you were great in your past life, that's why you're rich in this one. If you're rich in this one, it's because having money for a short period of time or a long period of time is the condition that is most conducive for you to get closer to God because that is the s result of your

16:16 past actions. But it's not rewards and punishments. The universe does not have a judgment that says wealth is good, poverty is bad. Going back to you know spiritual tradition for a moment. Duara was a city made of gold. Bhagwan Krishna was the head. It was heaven. Everybody wanted to be there. Lanka was also a city made of gold. Raven was the head. It was basically hell. The gold was neither the cause of the heaven nor the cause of the hell. The gold existed in both places. What made Darka heaven and Lanka hell was who

17:03 was in charge. So acquire gold absolutely but make sure as you say while you do it that it's Krishna running your show not Raven running your show. Yeah, I mean amongst a hundred other career skills and lessons and theoretical knowledge about AI and managing people. I think all of that is also just kind of tangential to this core skill set. Yes, you work hard, you be disciplined, you be consistent, you actually have an intention of giving back to society, magic starts happening. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you know Virat Kohli is? I know the name. He's the greatest cricketer of our times.

17:50 Okay, good. I'm glad I didn't say he's an actor. So, he won a very big trophy recently after a career that's almost 20 years long and he waited his whole career to win this particular trophy. Um, and uh he went up to his teammate in the postmatch ceremony, Phil Salt, I think, and he told Phil Salt that, "Hey, you know, go back home. You've just had a kid. Go back to the real stuff." Yes. Yes. And I'm like, here's this legendary cricketer who spent 20 years getting to this trophy, and he doesn't call this the real stuff. He calls family life the real stuff. Yes. Um, again, it's something that young people miss out on in the chase because no one tells us this in school or college. So this was why I wanted to make sure to take this

18:36 time even as a slight tangent from your question about identity because knowing the age of a lot of your community you know rather than speaking only to people in their 40s 50s 60s7s you've got to speak to the young people. Yeah. So that they actually can begin their lives with the right vision. I don't know why I'm bringing this up. Uh the one thing that I've learned about life is that life is a battlefield in many ways from your own individual perspective. Absolutely. You know, making the money, earning the reputation, uh battling it out in the world. Uh I recently heard of another Gita called the Udhav Gita I think and

19:23 apparently this was told to someone called Udav by Bhagan Krishna towards the end of Bhagan Krishna's life where it's more of a narrative on the end of life rather than just the battlefield. Yes. I don't know which one I should reference right now. Should I be referencing the Udhav Gita and learn about how to shed off everything or should I be referencing the Bhagavad Gita because I'm still what the world calls young Bhagavad Gita for now. The Bhagavad Gita is to me for every phase of life but certainly for the first decades of life. If you've only got one guide, I mean obviously if you've got time, read

20:09 everything, but if you're looking for one core life scripture guide book to life bait, I also think it's important to absorb it and not just read it. Well, that's of course of course because there's too many people who just skim through it. Doesn't do you any good. Yeah. Well, I shouldn't say that. on some even unconscious level it is probably impacting you anyway but yes it absolutely needs to be absorbed um yes as is the case with any scripture any scripture any truth any lesson I mean this conversation needs to be absorbed if people just listen but don't take it in it also doesn't benefit them I'm going to say something a little bit

20:55 brutal of course but I kind of see the world around me and yes It's definitely a cynical perspective. I see the world around me and I see human suffering. I see anger in so many spots. I see pollution. Yes. Um should we bringing new souls into this planet into this realm? Because many people don't think through enough. So whether you decide to have children or not is of course a personal decision and it's up to you. It's everybody's individual life choice and I would never never give you an equation that says, "Oh yes, you absolutely must have children." But what I would say is ask yourself, how can I change the world?

21:41 How can I create the world in a way that it's safe to bring my child into it? And yeah, kids are going to need clean air to breathe and they're going to need clean water to drink and they need trees to climb on and to get fruit from. Well, so we better get planting. We better stop emphasizing a commercial materialistic viewpoint that insists that we create more and more factories because manga more more and more and of course more and more and more cheaper cheaper cheaper which means that those factories have to cut corners around how they dispose of their waste. If you can focus on the fullness of the self rather than filling the shelf,

22:28 if we can do that, then we are creating a world that we're so happy to bring our children into. And so if you've got the commitment to really raise conscious, beautiful children who can be leaders of this planet, absolutely, because that's what we need. But for people for whom it's just like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do it." Or, "Oh, yeah, you know, she got pregnant, so we're going to have a kid." And then the kids get raised by their devices and they get planted in front of the devices at meal times or as babysitters and parents are not conscious, then we're just exacerbating the problem. H yeah I think I've come to

23:13 realize that the only few things that are in your hands are your sense of nobility and integrity just being a good person because even if no one's watching the universe is seeing everything always of course and karma is yeah um and everything comes back the good and the bad. Yes. Um the other thing that's in your control is this angle of free will and your own choices. Yes. Uh again, I have no idea why I'm bringing this into the podcast, but you know who Justin Bieber is, right? Uh there's currently a narrative about Justin Bieber online that he's going through a difficult phase. Uh I've followed Justin Bieber very closely since I was a teenager because he was roughly my age. And I remember seeing this meteoric rise when I was in the eighth grade of this new

23:59 singer who's come through, who's become a global sensation. Then as he reached the pinnacle of success, he started being mocked. people started calling him stupid that became an online narrative about him. I'm pretty sure pushed him into some kind of depression and then you didn't hear about Justin Bieber for a few years and then he comes back with this very mature take on music and I remember hearing his music at that moment and I felt like his voice has changed, his energy has changed and I thought that wow this guy has redeemed what people said about him and here we are today. uh he must be in his early 30s at this point and there's clearly some suffering going on. But how can you blame just his choices and his free will for the suffering he's going through? Great question. First of all, it's

24:46 important to not use the word blame. Causation doesn't have good or bad. Causation just is causation. the fact that some choice of his had a ripple impact into an experience now that is unpleasant. I wouldn't use the word blame because what I know about personal suffering because I've experienced a lot of personal suffering and in the midst of great prosperity and great blessings also very deep suffering. And what I know about suffering is it leads to a depth within,

25:35 an awareness within, an openness within that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. You stop judging other people when you go through suffering yourself. And you understand the truth of who you are on a very, very deep level. So I don't know enough about his life. I mean, I certainly know that he's a musician. if he's suffering. Now, my guess would be that a lot of it has to do with being in a situation in which your identity is something that is projected upon you. I mean, it's it it's very hard to be a public figure of any kind, especially

26:21 someone on that level of public icon success, without having people's projections impact how you think about yourself. So, people are projecting love and adoration on you and you feel good. People are projecting something else on you and you don't feel good. But there's a third aspect to it which as you get older and deeper starts to really impact you as well. Even at the height of success very very frequently there is an inner depression rates of addictions rates of depression rates of eating disorders are huge far

27:08 beyond general population. What you realize is, oh my god, all of these people, they don't love me. They love they love this image. It's not the core of who I am. God forbid should you age or should you get acne that you know for a while the face doesn't look so good. What does that mean about your identity if everybody only loves you based on what you look like? or based on how well you play a sport or based on a role you play or how well you sing inside there's bound to be an emptiness because at the core we all want to be

27:54 seen and known on our deepest levels. It's why in relationship so many times what you hear is but just listen to me like I want you to understand let me explain why and that would be why it would be so important to have a a parallel spiritual path. Nothing wrong with being an actress, a model, a singer, a commercial person, no problem. But you would have to balance it with something that really touched you and filled you on a much deeper level and with a community of people who knew you on a deep level and who you allowed to see you on a deep level and who you trusted on a deep level to be open and vulnerable and real

28:41 with. And if you didn't have that, I think it would be very very difficult. Yeah. um extending this musician conversation. There's two other musicians who I admire deeply, Kendrick Lamar and JC Cole. Uh they're known for the lyrics and the depth in their music. Uh and they both have famously said that um they lean upon meditation or solitude as a means to just cope with the fame. I think everyone wants money, fame and success without understanding that it attracts problems as well. And you got to do daily rituals to wash off those problems. You need isolation. Absolutely. So Kendrick Lamar said that he needs 30 minutes to himself every day. And JCole said that he doesn't need

29:28 solitude every day, but every time he's feeling anxiety, his quick switch is to sit down in solitude and just go within. Absolutely. Absolutely. Think about it. If you were sitting with someone and they were sick, they got food poisoning or they were having a stomach virus and they threw up on you, first thing you do is you need to go take a shower because you need to get their literal vomit off of you. But people are not only literally vomiting on us. In a lot of ways, they're energetically vomiting on us with their projections, with their expectations, with their agendas, with their comments now on social media. And so, of course,

30:14 you've got to use that solitude, use that meditation as a a spiritual shower to get those projections off, to get back to who are you without the vomit of the world on you. You have to otherwise I think you would be very challenged. The goal of life is to take care of your own mind always. In the scriptures it says and it means the mind is the master key. It's the master key to your bondage or your freedom. It's the master key. Sadly though, we don't pay enough attention to it. I mean, imagine that as

31:00 I sit here with you and we're having this beautiful conversation. Imagine that in the middle of this conversation, suddenly my arms started flailing around like this. And I said, "Ah, don't worry about it. These are just my silly arms. Yeah, they Yeah, they do this sometimes, but ah, don't worry about it." You'd think she needs help. Like, we understand that our arms and our legs should be under our control. And if they're not under our control, we understand that is a problem and you should get it solved. But our mind, which is the steering wheel of our life, we just let it roam around and we say, "Oh yeah, my silly mind. It just goes there. It goes there. My mind goes into

31:46 anger. My mind goes into jealousy. My mind goes here. My mind goes there." Like we have no control. And like the fact that we have no control is not a problem. It's a bigger problem than if you can't control your arms or your legs. And this is where it's so important to really master the mind and why practices of meditation of mindfulness are so critical because thoughts arise. Thoughts arise from so many different things. From within us, from billboards we see, from something someone else says to us, from so many different ways, a smell. But thoughts are vehicles and they

32:32 actually take us places. And a lot of times those thought vehicles take us to misery. And we need to reclaim control over which thought vehicles are we jumping on. And when those thought vehicles that are going to take us to misery or to ignorance or division separating us from each other arise, we need to just do the same thing we do to the wrong plane or the wrong bus and just do namaste or wave and have a different thought. You know this process of trying to have a different thought becomes easier with time as you keep meditating and as you

33:18 know what to do with that excess uh of mental energy. Yes. Uh personally for me I submit my thought to the divine. Beautiful. But it's taken 10 years to learn to do that. Yes. So for someone who's just starting out, all I can say is experience the power of 20 to 30 minutes of solitude and pick a meditation that you enjoy. Absolutely. And I'll give you another piece is ask yourself one of my favorite questions. I'll actually give you two. So imagine you're having a thought. Somebody does something. You didn't like it. Now you have a thought of anger or you have a thought of hurt or a thought of judgment. Don't tell yourself don't have the

34:04 thought. Don't yell at yourself. Don't berate yourself. But simply ask yourself, is there an alternative? Might I have a different thought? Open the space that you might have a different thought in that moment. The other question that I love is, is it worth it? Is it worth it? So, somebody does something, for example, it's rude, it's hurtful, it's obnoxious. Naturally, you have a thought of anger and judgment. Ask yourself, is it worth it? This thought I'm having is creating stress in me. You be the judge. You have total

34:51 free will. I'm not going to tell anybody what to think or not think, but grab that veto power back in your hands. Stop being a slave to what someone else did or what someone else said or what you see online. Regain that control of is it worth it? Is this what I want to be thinking right now? And if not, have a different thought. It's very important advice that you've just given because the goal of life is to control your own mind. Yes, I truly believe that and then manifest peace for yourself. Yes. And go through life in that peaceful manner. But um it effectively boils down to a lot of

35:37 reflection, writing and meditation. Yes, that's what a 22-year-old needs to do today. Yes. In order to get to what you are saying at 32. Absolutely. um you know beyond the career advice I think this is possibly the biggest piece of advice for someone who's beginning their journey. Absolutely. Uh I um have to talk about this Hollywood to Himalayas angle of your life throughout this episode. Um I would love to know instances beginning with where you felt you started to shed off your past self which was deeply accomplished from an education perspective. You had completed your PhD

36:23 and then you came here. So obviously there was a certain amount of evolution, lots of science, lots of uh thought patterns already built out. Yeah. Uh but what happened in India that you began shedding off your past self and I would assume that process of shedding off your past self took you more towards peace and lasting joy. Absolutely. Absolutely. Wonderful. So I mean I think throughout this conversation from this point onward um we'll unpack some key experiences of yours throughout your India journey cuz I think there's a lot of people like you all over the world who look towards visiting India with this perspective of

37:09 self Yes. introspection. Yes. Yes. And realization. Yes. So first of all it's it's important to just mention at the beginning I didn't come to India looking for this. I wish I had. I would love now 29 years later to say oh yes I was searching for enlightenment. I was searching for truth. I was searching for a guru. But I wasn't. I was 25. I was someone who if you had seen me from outside you would have said this girl has everything. I came from a beautiful family in Los Angeles. A lot

37:54 of prosperity and privilege and opportunity and love and all of those beautiful blessings. And I didn't know that spirituality was something to look for. It wasn't until I came here and had these powerful spiritual experiences that I even realized, oh my god, this world exists. Like this is the answer to what I've been missing. So I came to India at 25 with a backpack on what I thought was just an adventure trip. I loved to travel. I had traveled a lot through Europe, throughout England, across the US, in South America, in a lot of places.

38:40 And the only reason that I agreed to come to India because I had been a very strict vegetarian since 15. My family was not vegetarian. But suddenly up and up from inside at 15 just automatically it came no more and I stopped eating non-veg. And so when I would travel, it was really hard to find food in restaurants, especially if you don't speak the language, that don't have chicken broth in some kind of a sauce or a soup or a base or a broth. But I had learned that wherever I was in the world, if I could find an Indian restaurant, then I was

39:26 always sure to be able to get not only pure veg, but really tasty, yummy vegetarian food. But the universe has its own plans. On the airplane over, I had this conversation with myself in which I said to myself, "Okay, this makes no sense. You're in the middle of a PhD program that you love. You have no knowledge, no interest about this country you're going to visit. And even though I was not religious and not spiritual, I always believed that there was a capital P plan.

40:12 I did not believe that anything was random. I had spent enough time in science laboratories to know that things don't like life don't just happen randomly. So the idea to me that this whole thing had happened utterly randomly. I didn't buy it as a scientist. So I always believed there was what I called a capital P plan and therefore that there must be a capital P planner. didn't bother me that I didn't know what to call it or have any concept of, you know, what God might be. But I always believed that there was some intelligence, presence, energy that was the planner of this plan.

40:59 So, flying somewhere over Southeast Asia, I had a conversation with myself. And so, I said, "Okay, look, what that means is there must be a reason I'm going and I'm just not aware of it." And so I made a commitment that I would keep my heart open to find what was the reason that I was traveling to India. And I made a vow that if I don't keep my heart open, I was going to get back to Delhi, change my ticket, get back on a flight and go back to California and start getting practicum units for my PhD. Okay. Fast forward about a week. We come to Rishiesh. And so the universe created a situation where rather than

41:45 staying at Lakshmula, rather than staying in downtown Rishies, we came and stayed at the only hotel at that time that was in this Sar ashram area of the ashrams. Put the bags down in the hotel. And I said, I'm going to go put my feet in the river. I didn't know the river was sacred. I didn't know it was the mother goddess. I just knew I'm hot. I'm tired. We've traveled. I want to just freshen up and put my feet in the river. And I goes down to Ganga and I stand on the banks of Ganga. And I have this extraordinary experience

42:33 of being in the presence of the divine. But then as I turned my head, it didn't matter what I was looking at. A tree, a telephone pole, a family, a marble step. That presence of the divine stayed in everything. And it knocked me literally to the ground in tears of having come home. Tears of truth. And then I turned that vision inward. Because here I was in this experience of oh my god, oh my god, there is nothing but the divine. And then somehow at one point the vision

43:18 turned inward. And up until that moment of my life, for the first 25 years of my life, I had identified fully and completely as my body, as my story, as my history, as the strengths, the things it could do, the beauty that it had that and the struggles and the challenges. In the midst of the beautiful blessings of my childhood, I also really suffered. I had experienced very severe abuse in my early childhood and then abandonment. When I was a teenager, I ended up with severe bulimia, depression, like really struggling.

44:05 And I had always identified as that like I am the victim of this abuse. I am the victim of this abandonment. I am the one with this bulimia, with this addiction. And to me that was my identity. And by the time I came to India, I had done so much psychological work that I felt like I was really healing from it a lot. I was managing it. But it was still my identity. It didn't paralyze me anymore. It didn't prevent me from living. I mean, I was taking 21 units a quarter in a PhD program that I was getting straight A's in. So, I was fully functional. But inside me was always this deep belief that something about me

44:50 was not right. That I was somehow inherently damaged or tainted or wrong or bad as you see in children who experience things like that where the mind is always trying to make sense of things. And if you harm me, if you abandon me, it must mean because I am wrong or bad or dark or damaged or not good. So I carried that really really deeply in me. And suddenly in that moment as I'm seeing the divine in all I realized, oh my god, it's in me also.

45:38 There's no place that I end. And the divine begins. There's nothing in me that's damaged. There's nothing in me that's wrong or dark or tainted or impure or not enough. like, oh my god, I am I am one with the divine. That was this massive like rip off the band-aid. So that was the first and that experience of course radically transformed my life. Like in that moment I knew this is where I am meant to be. And I spent the next several days just sitting on the banks of Ganga crying

46:24 ecstatic tears knowing I have come home. Come home really to myself and of course come home to the place that I just I knew I was meant to be there to get from the hotel to the banks of Ganga. I discovered that the nicest way of doing it rather than down the alleyway that originally I had been directed instead of that there was this beautiful ashram that was clean and gorgeous and gardens and flowers and beautiful divine statues. I didn't even know it was Paricadon. I just knew it was this beautiful asham and I was using Parmar as just a walkway

47:09 to get from the hotel to the banks of Ganga and I'm walking through the asham one day and I hear a voice literally a voice and it says you must stay here and I go like this I mean if you hear a voice clearly somebody must have spoken and it was definitely ely it did not feel like an inner voice. I mean obviously it turned out to be an inner voice but it didn't have that felt sense experience of I'm thinking it. It absolutely felt like something outside of me was talking to me instructing me what to do. And again I looked around and again there was no one.

47:56 And I was just about to ignore it because I was a scientist. I was not a mystic. I didn't hear voices. The only people I knew who heard voices were schizophrenics or Jon of Arc. And I knew I wasn't Jon of Arc. And I was pretty sure that I wasn't developing, you know, hallucinations. So I just was about to ignore it. And I remembered my vow from the plane to keep my heart open. And then a voice in my head, my voice, spoke to myself, and said, "Okay, you want to ignore this voice again? No problem. But now you better get yourself back to Delhi and back on a flight to

48:41 California because you're not keeping your heart open." And the last thing I wanted to do, I mean, I was in the middle of having these ecstatic spiritual experiences. The last thing I wanted to do was leave and go back to California. So I said, "Okay." And I looked up and I see a sign that says office. And I go in and I say, "I want to stay." So it's a really long story. I won't go into all of the details, but eventually I get to stay. And eventually I meet the head of the ashram who became my guru puja swami chanandarati gi maharaj. So after I

49:29 started staying there maybe two three days later very soon I asked puja swami g a question and the question was about fear. How do I let go of fear? As I told you, I lived very stressed, very anxious. I was always very wor, you know, school and exams and errands and relationships and whatnot. My life felt very, very stressful. So I asked him about that. How do I let go of this fear of this anxiety? And he said, you fear because you don't trust. And I then gave him my story. And it's a

50:17 good story. I mean, it was a story that up until that moment in my life had always gotten me a lot of sympathy. I mean, a lot of people, anybody who heard the story would say, "Oh, you know, you poor thing. You poor thing. You poor thing." So, looks at me and he says, "Are you going to take that to the grave?" I was 25. I said, "No, no." He said, "So, are you going to let it go on your deathbed maybe a month before you die, a week before you die?" And I said, "No, no, Swami G, Swami G, you know." I said, "I'm I'm in process. I'm in process. I'm working on it."

51:02 He looked at me and he said, "You're waiting for someone to draw the line. you're waiting for someone to come in and say you can be done now. He said no one will. He said it's up to you. You can carry this pain, this anger, this story to the grave. You can let it go on your deathbed. You can let it go a month before you die, a week before you die, or you can let it go tonight. And I was like, "Tonight?" He said yes tonight. He said we have this beautiful ary ceremony and I will tell the priests to give you one of the lamps. I want you to do the ari. And he said, "And after the arty, I want

51:49 you to stand in Ganga and I want you to hold her water in your hands and offer to her water all of your pain, all of your anger and give it to Ganga and forgive and let go." I spent the next several hours in an experience that I'm very embarrassed to share 30 years later, but in the interest of transparency, I will tell you. It was an experience of being still very stuck in the arrogance of western education. And I remember thinking, this is sweet, this is quaint and there

52:36 is no way this can happen. Sometime just before the arty I had a moment that I will be grateful for for the rest of my life in which I remembered the vow again and I said to myself okay look obviously it's not going to work like we know it's not going to work but you took a vow to keep your heart open and you must keep it open and remember just out of respect this instruction was given to you by one of India's most revered masters like get off your high obnoxious arrogant high horse and stop mocking it and start having respect for it. I just

53:22 have to interrupt you. Of course, everything that we spoke about up till now in the conversation was about practical wisdom. Yes. This chapter in our entire conversation is about openness. Openness to change. Openness to receiving spiritual blessings. Yes. And honestly, this is the part where most people are not able to do it. They're not able to be internally open to an experience. Up till now, they're able to absorb the practical wisdom because it is associated with their material realities. This is slightly beyond material reality. Yes. So, I hope that the lesson people are taking away is keep your mind open. Well, here's what I'll do. I'll finish the story and then I will come back and unpack pieces of it for people to be able to implement

54:09 because remember I was only 25. I mean, I'm telling the story as a 54 year old sasi, but the one who experienced it was a 25-year-old student. Very similar in many, many, many ways to probably a lot of your community and listeners. So, the me who walked into that water is not the me who's telling the story. I mean on the soul level of course it is but on the emotional, psychological, intellectual level I was at a vastly different place. I was super skeptical. So I walk in the water after the arty and I did exactly what he told me. I

54:56 held the water in my hands and I thought of every experience, every moment of the abuse, of the abandonment, of the harm. And I visualized it all. I felt it all. And I offered it into the water. And I stood there, I don't know how long, hours probably. And I cried and I prayed and I cried and I prayed until I could finally actually see his face and forgive him. And what I discovered many months and years later as it went

55:42 by was when I let go of the anger and the pain, it's not just letting go of emotions. It's letting go also of the identification as the one to whom that happened. And that is just as important as letting go of the emotions. The emotions are critical because they otherwise, you know, suffocate our lives. But the identification is also important because I was moving through my life as this is who I am. And in letting go of the anger and the pain, I learned to let go of the whole story.

56:27 And those are the layers that you were talking about of I'm not this. Yes, it happened. I'm not denying that it happened. It was awful. But the eye who stands before you today is not the eye to whom it happened. And that's true on a physical and biological level as well. The 25year-old me who stood in that water did not share one cell of her body with the 5-year-old me who was abused or the 8-year-old me who was abandoned. Not one cell. Every single cell in our bodies regenerates. After seven, eight years every single cell of your body has

57:14 regenerated. So they're they're literally on a physical level. If Swami G said to me, "Show me the you who was abused, I couldn't. Not a cell of my body had been abused." But I had carried the story in my mind as this identity. And that's what we need to free ourselves of. So the unpacking of it begins with the awareness that says there is a plan and therefore there is a planner. You don't have to be deeply religious. You don't have to be deeply spiritual. You just have to believe that

57:59 there is an intelligence in the universe that there is some capital K knowledge or capital W wisdom. If there is an intelligence in the universe, that same intelligence pervades us. So the first step is simply acknowledge there is an intelligence in the universe. If your religious beliefs give it a name or a form, fantastic. If they don't, fantastic. Also, it doesn't matter whatsoever. Point number two, to be open to the plan. An awareness that if there is a plan for a caterpillar, if there is a plan for a seed, if there is a plan for a chick in an egg to

58:45 eventually burst forth and become its own chicken, surely there's a plan for us. And I don't know what it is. But I don't have to know because if it works for every other aspect of natural creation, it is inconceivable that I am the sole exception to the rule. So that's step two is just being open and willing. Step three is actually being prepared to take the steps, actually jumping into those arms, knowing the universe will catch you. That doesn't mean it's going to throw a whole bunch of money your way. It doesn't mean that the job that you want is definitely the job you're going to

59:30 get or the husband or the wife. It's not a vending machine. The universe is not a vending machine that you put in your money and you get whatever you push the button for. But it's going to catch you in the deepest and most purposeful way for your highest evolution. And then step four is the letting go and forgiveness. And this is critical because to the extent that I am holding on to a story of pain, of anger, of victimization, of betrayal, of harm, of cheating, of anything like that. I'm not free.

1:00:15 And one of the most beautiful spiritual rules is you deserve freedom. Your highest self, your highest truth is freedom. And your highest goal is the experience of that freedom. So we forgive not because what the person did was okay. It's really important to realize that because a lot of times what people do is not okay. But luckily, we're not the karmic police. Luckily, we are not the ones in charge of who's getting what karmic fruit. The law of karma doesn't need a secretary and we're not the karmic police. So, we let go because even

1:01:02 though what someone else did is wrong, we still deserve to be free. And if you don't forgive and you hold on, you're essentially saying to someone, "Okay, you harmed me once. Now I'm going to give you the rest of my life. Now I'm going to give you every moment of every day from now for the rest of my life. I'm going to keep thinking about what you did. I'm going to sacrifice my freedom on the altar of your arrogance, your ignorance, your ego. Why would we do that? And then lastly, so five steps. Lastly is one of my most favorite practices and

1:01:49 it's a practice called niti niti. Not this. Not this. And it's a practice you begin in meditation by saying, "I'm not the clothes I'm wearing. I'm not my skin. I'm not my blood. I'm not my bones." And this is obvious, of course. I mean, there's no part of your brain that says, "No, no, that's not true." We know that. We know we're not our clothes. We know we're not our skin. We know we're not our blood or our bones. But then you start to get a little more subtle and you say, "I am not serotonin. I am not norepinephrine. I am not dopamine. I am not an electric signal."

1:02:38 But the moment that I acknowledge that, what that means is I'm not a thought. I'm not a memory. I'm not a feeling. I'm not an emotion. Because everything that takes place neurologically, every thought, every emotion, every memory, every feeling is a chemical and electrical pattern of behavior in the brain. But if I'm not the chemistry and I'm not the electricity, it means I'm not the thoughts, I'm not the memories, I'm not the personality, I'm not the emotions, I'm not the stories. And then as you remove what you are not, you experience this beautiful place of stillness, of spaciousness

1:03:23 into which the experience of what you really are can emerge and that practice can be taken into our day also. Similarly though, you walk down the street, you catch a glimpse of yourself in some mirror or window and the mind says, "Oh god, you look fat and ugly." Nathy, ny, not the body. Not the story. But it has to work the other way as well. When you catch glimpse and the mind says, "Oh, looking sexy today." Same thing. And you just make it a practice of your life. And you can do this at 15, you can do this at 20, you can do this at 25, you can do this at 95. And it'll help

1:04:09 you shed these layers layer by layer by layer by layer and you'll forget. Just reminds you that we're human. We always forget. And then you just remember and you come back to it. This is a good end to the whole conversation we've had. Beautiful. just wanted a lot of practical uh outputs of course from all of your 30 years of wisdom. Um I think it was very important to uh extract this side of someone who's completed the PhD in neurology but also spent 30 years exploring the spirit. Yes. So thank you Sadi. Of course. Uh I believe that we've

1:04:55 created something that's going to be value adding for the next 50 years. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. Deeply grateful. That's all I'll say. Thank you so much. [Music]