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 Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new kind of daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robay.
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And me, Simone Boyce.
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Every weekday, we're bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more.
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I am so excited about this podcast, The Bright Side.
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You guys are giving people a chance to shine a light on their lives, shine a light on a little advice that they want to share.
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 Listen to The Bright Side on America's number one podcast network, iHeart.
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Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side.
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 At one of the most famous restaurants in the world, there's a table in the corner where the most incredible conversations on the planet are happening every week with owner Ruthie Rogers and amazing guests like Martha Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, and Paul McCartney.
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 We've saved you a seat.
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Ruthie's Table 4.
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Listen to Ruthie's Table 4 on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You're free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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 I'm John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Real enlightenment doesn't mean being from this particular religion or this particular organization.
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Real enlightenment is when we really see others with equal vision and we become a well-wisher because we see everyone as a child from the same source as we are.
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 So, this tendency to compare ourselves to others, whether it's in beauty or wealth or fame or power or athletic abilities, it's simply a distraction from real happiness, real peace and real meaning in life.
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 Hello, everyone.
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Welcome back to On Purpose.
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Thank you so much for taking out time out of your days to listen, to learn, and to grow.
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You're making such an incredible investment into finding and growing yourself.
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And I really, really appreciate that you trust us here at On Purpose to help you do that.
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And you know that it's my commitment to connect you with the ideas, the insights, and the individuals that can truly elevate your thought.
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 help you live through higher frequencies and vibrations, and actually live to your highest potential.
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And today's guest is a truly extraordinary and remarkable person, someone who has held such a deep position of change in my life, and I know for a fact has changed the trajectory of what I would have done.
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 His work is absolutely astounding.
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He's a world-renowned spiritual leader, a philanthropist who's doing so much incredible work in the world, and a New York Times best-selling author.
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His work's been recognized by everyone from Barack Obama through to everyone from Prime Minister Modi to the business leaders.
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 CEOs, and different people across the world.
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He's spoken at everywhere from Harvard, Princeton, Cambridge, Oxford, Apple, Salesforce.
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He's been invited to keynote at these organizations about real leadership, about deeper values and meaning and purpose in life.
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 And his work to serve the world is absolutely phenomenal.
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He's built schools, hospitals, welfare camps, a food distribution program that feeds 1.2 million meals a day to the children of India, and an ecovillage that demonstrates sustainable living for modern day.
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This project is absolutely amazing, and you're going to get to hear about it on this interview today.
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 His name is His Holiness Radhanath Swami and he's been a Swami, a type of monk in the Hindu tradition for over 40 years.
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Please welcome him to the On Purpose show.
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Radhanath Swami, it's such an honor and pleasure to be able to interview you again.
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Thank you for giving me this opportunity for the third time.
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It is truly my honor and pleasure, Jay, to be with you again.
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It's fantastic to be here with you in LA this time.
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Last time
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 The two times we've interviewed you before, first time we were at the Huffington Post in New York, and then we were at NASDAQ in Times Square.
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And so now we're here in LA, Hollywood, and I'm so grateful to you for always taking out time and being so gracious.
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And the first question I wanted to ask you, because I know that I get this conversation and question a lot, is what is a monk and what is the purpose of being a monk?
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 And I think no one better to ask than someone who's been a monk for over 40 years now.
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So I'd love to hear your definition and from your journey.
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Everyone is unique.
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So everyone has a unique reason for whatever we do.
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That's just the nature of life.
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 So similarly, we all have our reasons for going into our occupation, for the responsibilities we have for our families, and also for being a monk.
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The idea of a monk could be explained from the perspective of the Bible.
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 Or it is said, we should be in this world, but not of this world.
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And for a person who's in family life, or very much living within the secular society, that means we're performing our work, but simultaneously, our purpose, our goals, our intent is higher than this world.
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 We're not motivated simply by greed and arrogance and envy and selfishness, but we're motivated by compassion, by love, by harmonizing our body-mind with our souls and with the world.
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So when one becomes a monk,
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 separates from many of the externals of this world, but is really doing it for the well-being of the world.
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A swami is an ordained monk within the yoga or Hindu tradition, and a swami is one who
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 does not have a specific family where one has to work an occupation to support, but one makes the whole world his or her family.
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That is the idea.
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 Within our community in India, for instance, we have industrialists, and business people, and politicians, and farmers, and engineers, and scientists, and educators, and students, and we also have monks.
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And everyone has a very, very unique and special role.
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 The monks are those who give their full energy to the community and society through giving an example of spiritual focus that can inspire and give direction to others in society.
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Yeah, I think that's such a beautiful answer and I couldn't agree more.
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I think there's such a need today for
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 us to, I always say that if we want to learn something deeply, you have to go to the person who's doing it with their whole life.
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So if you want to learn how to play basketball, you would go to someone like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant.
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And if you want to learn how to be an investor, you'd go to Warren Buffett.
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And if you want to know technology, you'd go to Bill Gates.
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And I feel if people really want to understand service,
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 and giving their life for others and to really understand how to overcome the impurities of the mind, then we have to go to monks because that's what monks are dedicating their whole life and their whole, yeah, their whole life to.
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And so that's, it's beautiful to hear from your perspective that it is such a,
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 specific goal and it is so dedicated and devoted to that goal as a life and so you're spot on we need examples and we need role models that we can truly look to for internal character.
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 So one of the things I'm interested by, and for anyone who hasn't read this book, it's called The Journey Home, The Autobiography of an American Swami, which is Radhanath Swami's autobiography.
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And in that book, you talk about, and we've spoken about this before, but I want to look at it particularly at this angle here, that at age 19, you chose to hitchhike across the world in search for the truth and in search for connection with yourself.
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 First of all, why did you feel such a need to do that?
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Why did you feel that you needed to go and search for something?
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And how did you know you were getting closer?
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Because I think so many people today are on a search and they want to find something, but we don't know either where to look or B, we don't know when we're getting closer.
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So how did you know when you were on this worldwide journey?
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 I was a teenager in the 1960s, which was a very turbulent time in the history of America.
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And in many ways it's not so different than today.
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You know, the specifics may vary, but the idea of something really being wrong.
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 At that time, the Civil Rights Movement was something that really impressed me because when I was a boy, I had a job, 15 years old, and I was working with African-American people who were the age of my parents.
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 And I saw at that time that they were really beaten down by racial discrimination.
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And because of that poverty, very little opportunity for education to make a living.
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 To deal with it, most of them were alcoholics.
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But they were such good people.
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They were my best friends in many ways.
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And when I would go to school the next day and pledge allegiance to the flag, we would say, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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That didn't make sense to me.
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The principle was excellent.
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 But how people were living in America wasn't like that.
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So it was a contradiction.
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And I couldn't just put that away.
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You know, I had to address that in my life.
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And at the same time, there was a Vietnam War when you become 18 years old.
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Many of us, you have a choice of going to jail or going to kill people that you really have nothing against.
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In fact,
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 Most of us didn't believe we should even be there for the war, but yet we were forced and people were coming back, our friends coming back dead or wounded or traumatized.
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What's happening?
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So I joined the counterculture.
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I joined the civil rights movement.
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And I was really an activist because I felt that was true to who I was and what I believed.
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 After some time, I understood this saying of Gandhi, be the change you want to see in this world.
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And I really wanted to do that.
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And I came to my own conclusion that that change requires a spiritual connection.
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So then there was another problem.
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 because I was looking at religions, and I found in practically all the religions that I was exposed to, there was elements of hatred in the name of a loving God, arrogance, that we're better than everyone else, or I'm better than everyone else.
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 And so much of the problems of the world were coming from interpretations of religion.
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So I either had to reject the concept of religion, or there must be something at the heart, at the essence, of all religions that's universal and that's beautiful and that actually brings out divine qualities in a person.
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 And somehow or other, my family wasn't religious in a formal way.
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My mother and father were religious by selflessly serving their family and trying to be good to others.
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And that made a big impression on me.
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But as far as really searching for spiritual truth,
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 I came to a conclusion that, yes, there is something at the heart of all true spiritual paths that can transform us and unify us.
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And I was looking for that.
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So I began to study Judaism and Christianity and various forms of yoga.
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 When I went to Europe, I was studying in cathedrals and in monasteries and at museums and in forests, and then ultimately I had a calling to go east, and I hitchhiked while I was in
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 the Middle East countries, I was studying Islam, and eventually took about six months to hitchhike from London to the Himalayas in India where I studied various forms of Buddhism and Hinduism and yoga and other such spiritual paths and meeting great spiritual people.
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I was looking for that essence.
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 And I found that that essence really is the inherent nature of every living being.
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We're all a part of God.
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And our greatest potential is to awaken the dormant love for God that's within us.
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And when that love is awakened,
0
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 When you put water on the root of a tree, it naturally extends to every part of the tree.
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When that love is awakened within our heart, it naturally extends to all living beings, because life is sacred.
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When we understand ourself, we understand our relationship with everyone and with everything.
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 The environment today is so much being neglected and exploited because we don't really have a heart connection where we understand how we are interdependent with the environment and if we really care about other people.
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 our own family, and the broader family of humanity, and the expanded family of all living beings, of all species of life, the more our love gets deep, it expands to include more and more and more people of all varieties.
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And we're all depending upon, at every moment, the environment.
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 to the degree we discover that love within ourself, to that degree, it will be expressed through our actions, through our words, in whatever role we are in society, in the form of compassion.
0
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 When you find that bright spot to help you get through your day, it's powerful.
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That's where The Bright Side comes in.
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A new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that's bringing you a daily dose of joy.
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I'm Danielle Robay.
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And I'm Simone Boyce.
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Listen, both Danielle and I are reporters.
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We've covered the news and we know the world can feel heavy, but The Bright Side podcast is a space to have a little fun, to learn something new and get into some friendly debates.
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 That's right, join us five days a week to see how life can look from the bright side.
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We'll hear from celebrities, authors, experts, and listeners like you.
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Whether it's relationships, friend advice, or figuring out how to navigate life's transitions, we'll talk through it all together.
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Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine every weekday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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 Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we're the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
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It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
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Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
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 We're back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up and become a more responsible and better adult, one life lesson at a time.
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And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you.
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So let's figure this stuff out together.
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This season, we're going to talk about whether or not we're financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership.
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 We're going to figure out the benefits of a high yield savings account.
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And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party?
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All that plus so much more.
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Let's learn about all of it and then some.
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Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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 Parents, ready to discover a new educational and interactive podcast for kids?
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Join Stories for Kids by Lingokids, where episodes are packed with fun activities.
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SPEAKER_02
Right, Elliot?
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SPEAKER_02
Oh, yes!
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SPEAKER_02
We learned how to recycle at the beach.
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SPEAKER_02
 That was great fun!
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SPEAKER_02
Cowie, what do you say?
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It was!
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And that time when we did the science experiments and Billy made raisins dance!
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That is so cool, Billy!
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He did!
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Not to mention when a certain Elliot took up swimming classes with Lisa.
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SPEAKER_02
That was me!
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SPEAKER_02
Bet you can't catch me!
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I'm going to get you!
0
SPEAKER_02
 All this fun and more in our Stories for Kids.
0
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Lingo Kids' Stories for Kids is now available on Story Button, the kid-friendly device for screenless podcast listening.
0
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Listen to Stories for Kids on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0
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 And that's, that's, that's amazing.
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I, and I really want to talk about your environmental work.
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The thing that I find that you get asked this a lot and what you did differently, which I think's unbelievable and, and just insurmountable to believe what you were able to do.
0
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But today I know that a lot of my generation, I know a lot of the audience listening, I know you get asked this question.
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We were with someone the other day that.
0
SPEAKER_04
 You know it's just so depressive sometimes to look at the news and people read papers and then they go online and they see videos and there's just so much negativity there's so much depression everything makes you feel down and a lot of people feel like they just feel helpless.
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 to do anything.
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But when you saw pain, you actually use that as a launchpad to go ahead and try and change yourself, but also to change the world.
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Now, how does someone go from that journey?
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So if someone today listening is really feeling like, everything's just overwhelming, and it's bringing me down, how do we deal with that emotion and actually change that experience?
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SPEAKER_03
 There's a saying, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will open.
0
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If we're looking for opportunities to make a difference in the world, as we're connecting to the purpose of love in our life, we'll be looking for opportunities to express that love.
0
SPEAKER_03
 There was a very, very enlightened person from West Bengal in India, Bhaktivinod Thakur.
0
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He wrote many, many books.
0
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He happened to be a family person with a wife and ten children, and at the time, during the British rule of India, he was a judge.
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He was a judge in the court system, but he was a very great
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 spiritual, compassionate lover of all beings and of God, who he called Krishna.
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And he wrote probably a hundred books and thousands of beautiful poems.
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And one line really affected me.
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He wrote that wherever there is the greatest necessity
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 there's the greatest opportunity to serve.
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So yes, when we see the apparent insurmountable problems within the world, who are we, just little people, to make a difference?
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We could become very depressed.
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 Or we could just ignore the problems as far as possible, so we could just go on with our life.
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But there's another way of seeing.
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Where we see these serious problems, we see an opportunity to try to make a difference.
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And making a difference in the world, like life itself, is not just about quantity.
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It's about quality.
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 whether we make a tiny little difference or whether make an enormous difference in the estimation of people really doesn't make any difference.
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What's important, what gives our life quality and the real contribution we can give to the world
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 is our intent and how we're applying that intent to what we do in our life.
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So yes, there's big problems in the world, but that gives each and every one of us a wonderful opportunity to help, to transform, to make the world a better place.
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 The power of grace is so deep, there's no greater power.
0
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And even the littlest person, if we can connect to that grace within ourselves, we could do great things for the world, whether it's helping one person or 10 people or 10 million people.
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If we're an instrument of grace, any little progress we make
0
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 is tremendous.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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SPEAKER_04
And you've encountered on your journey towards making that change, you've encountered so many difficult situations, so many challenges, so many near death experiences that you talk about in the journey home, so many moments where
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 things were completely going wrong, what's given you in life, what's given you the resilience and the grit to kind of keep pushing on?
0
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Like what has been that driving force and that motivating force that despite all of these really deadly situations, you found a way to continue to move forward?
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When most of us would give up.
0
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Well, if I am to be completely honest,
0
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 I don't really know how to do anything very well.
0
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But that's a blessing in my life because in difficult situations, I really try to sincerely take shelter of a higher power, the power of grace, the power of God's presence within the hearts of all beings and within the heart of myself.
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And when I take shelter of that,
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 and am willing to be an instrument of that grace, then sometimes wonderful things could happen even through me.
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But they could happen through everyone.
0
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 Yeah, it takes a lot to do that, to recognize that we can access that grace.
0
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Today, there's a lot of talk about self-love in the world and self-care.
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SPEAKER_04
And we hear these themes a lot because people are struggling to give because they're like, well, I don't even have, I don't feel good, so how can I give?
0
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And we're trying to find good everywhere or trying to fill ourselves up.
0
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 But actually I've seen in your life, you've often given even what you didn't have for yourself.
0
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Like you've tried to facilitate for others what you may not even have had in your journey.
0
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And I've always found that fascinating by observing your work and your life that you've constantly gone out of your way to give other people the facilities that even you never had access to.
0
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 And when I observed that, I just think, wow, that's such a beautiful way to live because even the studies show that when we serve, even if we're in a bad position, our mental health increases, our happiness increases, our joy increases.
0
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Even if we're struggling, when we choose to help someone else, it actually benefits us immediately as well.
0
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So even when we're in a tough situation, we can still find a way to give and that will actually benefit us back.
0
SPEAKER_03
 So.
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A cellular phone, which many people are familiar with.
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Yeah, definitely.
0
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They can perform so many functions.
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But they can't perform any function properly unless they're charged.
0
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True.
0
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So it's really important that we put some time aside
1
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 to charge our own hearts, our own minds, our own consciousness, through being with enlightening people, through putting time aside to really cultivate enlightenment, positive thought, connection with the divine, with God within our hearts.
1
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When we become spiritually charged like that, then
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 values, character, and compassion can be infused in whatever we're doing in our life.
1
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It's important that we can't give something we don't have.
1
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So when we're with uplifting people, like watching your show, Jay Shetty, it infuses people with positive
1
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 energy, with a positive outlook in the world, when we're with people, or we have some, whether it's through books or social media or personal exchanges, people who uplift us, who bring us closer
1
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 to the love that's within ourselves, who open the doors to actually understand the beauty of God within ourself and everyone, we become charged.
1
SPEAKER_06
 And then we actually see how whether we're in business or entertainment or whether we're monks or anything else, whether we're fathers or mothers or students, we can make a difference in the world, a wonderful difference, individually,
1
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 and collectively, a few like-minded people who have high spiritual values can make a tremendous impact toward peace, toward love and compassion in the world.
1
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We should never be discouraged.
1
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 When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence.
1
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Radios were smashed.
1
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Cassettes burned.
1
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You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules.
1
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And yet, Afghans did it anyway.
1
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
1
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 The danger they endured.
1
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They said my head should be cut off.
1
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The joy they brought to the nation.
1
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You're free completely.
1
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No one is there to destroy you.
1
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I'm John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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 A new season of Bridgerton is here.
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
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I'm your host, Gabrielle Collins.
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
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Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
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Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
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 Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown's pen.
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We're discussing it all.
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I sit down with Nicola Coughlin, Luke Newton, Shonda Rhimes, and more to offer an exclusive peek behind the scenes of each episode of the new season.
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Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
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Then,
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 Fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
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 Guess what, Mango?
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What's that, Will?
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So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
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I know, that's why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
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It's about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it's called Earthquake House.
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Mango, I'm going to cut you off right there.
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Why don't we just tell people about our show instead?
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Yeah, that's a better idea.
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So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world's most important questions.
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Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
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 is William Shatner's best acting work in Esperanto.
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Also, what happened to Esperanto?
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Plus, we cover questions like how Chinese is your Chinese food?
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How do dollar stores stay in business?
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And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese?
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There absolutely is.
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And we are risking our lives by talking about it.
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But if you love mind blowing facts, incredible history and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part Time Genius.
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Listen to Part Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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 Yeah, we have to fill our own batteries if we want to charge others up.
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And that's a beautiful reminder to us all.
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And actually, that's why I love spending time with you.
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I really feel that as humans, we're all operating on different frequencies and different vibrations.
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And most of us are exposed to people who are at the same vibration and the same frequency.
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 So I live here in LA and Hollywood and naturally I have some wonderful friends, but there's a frequency and a vibration and New York has a frequency and a vibration.
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But then when I'm spending time with you and spending time with other people that are enlightened or living with higher values and a deeper purpose, then that forces us to upgrade just as I, you know, I've, I've heard you say before that, you know, an analogy would be that if you want to,
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 become a millionaire or a billionaire, you have to spend time in those circles.
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And so if you want to be someone who's living on higher values and higher frequencies, then we have to spend time with people of higher frequencies and vibrations.
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And I definitely feel that with you.
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And it's one of the reasons why I try my best to spend as much time with you as I can, because for me, that's such a important way
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 to be reminded of what's really important and to experience it.
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And I think that's what we don't have enough of in the world is we may be reminded, but we don't experience it.
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And when you experience it through a person, that frequency is the most penetrating to the heart and it really uplifts.
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And so I would encourage anyone who's listening and watching right now
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 to really try and spend time with that frequency and that vibration.
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Of course, you can do it through video and audio, but when you can be in the presence of someone, I think it's truly something that has to be lived through and experienced.
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It's not something theoretical that you can kind of do sitting in a laboratory or sitting in your home.
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You have to go out there and find it.
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So thank you for being that in my life, for sure.
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Radhanath Swami, you definitely are that in my life.
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 I'm not much of anything but I do like to serve.
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Amazing.
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One of the things that I see and I'm asking you things that I feel I've been asked by my audience and I really feel that you can shed more light on it.
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So one of the biggest things I see today is that there's just such a
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 You know, hurt people hurt people.
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So there's so many people in the world today who've been hurt.
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And now because of that hurt that they've received, they're giving out hurt.
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And this creates a very vicious cycle that keeps perpetuating itself.
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And so the challenge is that a lot of people have to figure out how to heal from that hurt they're receiving.
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A lot of people now have to figure out how to forgive.
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 And so I would love to ask from your perspective, how have you learned in your life to heal from pain others have caused you?
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Or have you seen that people have best been able to forgive and let go pain and hurt they've received from other people?
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Because I think we're carrying this weight and burden of
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 pain and hurt, and then eventually we have to give it off to someone else.
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So how do we actually purify and get rid of that pain?
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From your experience, anyone that you've advised or anything you've seen, how do we learn to forgive?
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In a building, however high we build, however ornamented it may be, it is built upon a foundation.
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 If a foundation is very strong, then even if earthquakes come, or to speak of windstorms and sandstorms and snowstorms, it will remain.
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If we build our house on a weak foundation, then when the storms come, it collapses.
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So it's important that through the company we keep, where there's positive energy,
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 An example is the recovery programs, 12-step programs.
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People who have been alcoholics or drug addicts, when they're with each other, they get the strength to resist those deep temptations that are still there.
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Like the redwood trees, the redwood trees keep growing even in the
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 worst of storms and earthquakes, because the roots, the roots of the redwood trees, they reach out to embrace and intertwine with the roots of other trees.
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And this way, every tree in the forest is being supported by every other tree in the forest.
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That's a foundation.
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So it's important through the company we keep and through
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 through the path of inner discovery and spirituality, that we can actually make a deeper connection to inner happiness, inner meaning, inner purpose.
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And that's a foundation.
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When we connect to that, then
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 pain that we inevitably endure, especially pains of betrayal and abuse, it's very difficult.
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It can make us depressed.
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It can make us angry and vengeful.
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 Or it could help us to recognize other people who are enduring that pain and give us a very, very special opportunity to know what they're going through and help them.
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 So if we're looking for the opportunity to help others because we understand what they're going through, then it can transform our life from something that's destructive to something that's constructive.
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 Yeah, absolutely.
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It's a great example you gave actually because this building that we're in right now, I was here during the earthquakes and I felt them for much less time because this building actually has roller skates underneath it, I was told.
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So the building during the earthquake actually has the flexibility and adaptability to move a little left and right to deal with, the foundation is built that way so that it can actually deal with the shock.
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 And I thought that was such an interesting way of looking and now you're making me look at it from a spiritual point of view.
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I didn't think of it when I first heard it, but just having that adaptability and flexibility.
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In one sense, the idea of yoga, we often think of it as a physical thing to make us more flexible, but actually yoga is meant to go deep and
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 Give us a frame of mind.
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Harmonize the body, the mind, the intelligence with the heart and with the living force, the soul.
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 And when we have that foundation, then we become very flexible.
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When situations come, even the most difficult situations, we learn how to adjust and make a positive difference in our own life, in our loved ones, and for the world.
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 That's really the idea of yoga, that's the idea of spirituality, that's the purpose of religion.
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To make that connection within ourselves and to be with communities of people who help us to value that inner transformation actually makes it all so possible, so real.
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 And then we adjust ourselves to whatever storm may come in life in such a way that we could be instruments of peace.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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And I think it's important when we're training ourselves in that way.
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 for flexibility and adaptability, I find that the reason why we struggle with flexibility and adaptability is we're trying to hold on so hard to something that's trying to change.
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Like we're trying to keep things the same when things are trying to change, and we're just trying so hard to hold on.
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And when you're holding on to something that's moving, then you're shaking with it as well.
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And I find that flexibility and adaptability comes from when we realize that everything has to change, everything has to move,
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 And hopefully that spiritual realization allows us to move a little bit every day, to just recognize that things aren't going to stay the same, and we start developing that flexibility and adaptability.
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I don't know, that's just some of my thoughts on everything you're sharing.
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Here in California, when I'm driving, I see people surfing on the ocean.
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Something we don't do so much in the Himalayas.
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You snowboard.
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 Surfing is like life.
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The wave is flowing, and the surfer can't change the wave.
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The surfer has to adjust herself or himself in such a way that we can stay on top of the wave and keep moving forward.
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So whatever may happen in life,
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 In the ocean of life, there are so many different kind of waves that will come.
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And we have control over some things, but ultimately we don't have much control.
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We have to start growing old, sometimes we get diseased, sometimes people honor us, sometimes they dishonor us, sometimes there's pleasure and pain, there's heat, there's cold, there's honor.
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All these things are always changing in this world.
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It's the nature of the world.
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 dualities and changes.
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And greatness in life is not just the quantity of how much we accumulate, but how we remain, we maintain our character, our integrity, our compassion, and we're living with love.
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That's real wealth.
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Unfortunately, people are so much obsessed with external forms of wealth.
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 But oftentimes we can have so much power, so much control, so much property and money, but we're like in poverty within.
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We don't have inner satisfaction, inner fulfillment.
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Real wealth is to love and to be loved.
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 Things can give some degree of satisfaction to the mind and senses, but only love can give satisfaction to the heart.
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And our real experience in life is our heart.
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But sometimes our heart is crying.
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 crying for inner fulfillment.
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And we try to deal with it by just running outside and trying to find so many alternatives.
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But we never really do.
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So inner wealth needs to be harmonized with our pursuit for outer wealth.
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It's not one or the other.
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It's a synthesis of inner growth
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 as well as, you know, trying to grow outside of ourselves.
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So a good surfer adjusts to the waves so that he or she could just keep moving forward.
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And life is very much like that.
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 Yeah, I love that example.
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That's a really wonderful analogy and way to look at it, because you're spot on.
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You can't control the wave.
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You can't try and say, oh, I want the wave to happen in the same way as it did last time, or I hope we see that wave again.
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You can keep thinking like that, but it's very unlikely that that wave will repeat itself in exactly the same way.
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And so unless we're adaptable, and we're aware, and we're observant,
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 that wave will just, you know, can take us down.
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Sometimes those waves come by how other people treat us, by how the society and the world and the politics are, or sometimes the waves are within our own minds.
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You know, we have habits of the past, conditioned experiences of the past, and sometimes they're like
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 tsunamis that could really invoke very, very detrimental actions and words.
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We have to learn by having a good foundation, by having a connection to higher values, purpose, and satisfaction, then whatever waves come externally or within our own minds,
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 they actually help us to move forward.
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Absolutely.
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No, that's beautiful.
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I love that.
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However, when you were making that point about inner and outer wealth, and I was thinking about one of the biggest challenges in the world today is comparison and comparing.
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And we see now that we live in a world where we're exposed to everyone's success.
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So when you look on social media and you see
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 what car people are driving or what home people live in or what beautiful holidays and vacations people are going on.
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And envy and comparison just seem to be such strong emotion where we, like what you were saying, we always feel like, you know, internally poor.
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 we feel poor both externally and internally and in a deeper sense.
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How can people start, the foundation example is beautiful, how can we start to stop comparing ourselves to others?
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How have you advised others in the past to stop comparing their experience of life and what they're getting in their life to what others are getting?
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There's that famous saying which I believe you have spoken many times that if
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 a fish is evaluated by how it can climb a tree, then that fish is going to feel itself very stupid throughout his life.
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A fish's ability is to swim.
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A monkey's ability is to climb a tree.
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And each and every one of us is unique.
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 Each and every one of us has a sacred, beautiful purpose that we can contribute to the world.
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And as we said before, it's not a matter of the quantity.
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If we have the capacity to do something with great quantity, and we build it on the foundation of a quality value of life, then that's wonderful.
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There's a story in Lord Ram's Leela
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 Ram was an incarnation of God, and he was one of his devotees, Hanuman, who was very, very powerful, great, great devotee.
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 He was building a bridge across an ocean by making big rocks float.
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So Hanuman was carrying a gigantic mountain peak.
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And as he was walking, there was a little spider in front of him.
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 And that spider was doing the best he could do to help build the bridge for Ram by kicking one grain of sand at a time with his little tiny legs.
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He was trying so hard.
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And he was in Hanuman's way.
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 Ram said to Hanuman that that spider is doing the best she can, and you're doing the best you can.
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In my eyes, what you are both doing is equal.
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Because the greatness of life is we're doing what we can with what we have.
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 When we compare ourselves to others, it should be to learn lessons in life.
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Not to be arrogant because I'm better, or to be jealous, envious, or depressed because I'm not as good.
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These are all very, very wasteful distractions to the human mind.
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 The more we find satisfaction and inner peace and inner love in our own heart, the more we are truly trying to be a well-wisher to others.
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 Real enlightenment doesn't mean being from this particular religion or this particular organization.
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Real enlightenment is when we really see others with equal vision and we become a well-wisher because we see everyone as a child from the same source as we are.
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 So this tendency to compare ourselves to others, whether it's in beauty or wealth or fame or power or athletic abilities, it's simply a distraction from real happiness, real peace and real meaning in life.
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 Each of us is special.
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Each of us is a sacred child of the all-beautiful Supreme Source of everything.
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And if we just try our best with the right intent,
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 to be in the mood of service to God and service to others, that is a historical success in life.
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 Absolutely.
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Yeah, no, a hundred percent.
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That's a beautiful, beautiful answer to understanding that I think so often we're just measuring ourselves on someone else's metrics.
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And it doesn't make sense when you're measuring yourself by someone else's standards of success and someone else's internal potential and not realizing our own.
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So often we're just so oblivious because we've never taken the time to get to know what potential we truly have.
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In the human body,
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 The lungs cannot do what the kidneys do.
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But it's not that the kidneys are thinking that I can't breathe and provide oxygen like the lungs do.
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That's not what the kidneys do.
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 The kidney understands the contribution that it is making to the body.
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And when each part of the body, whatever our profession, whatever our position, when each part of the body of human society appreciates the value of what we can contribute, then we can also appreciate what others contribute.
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 Absolutely.
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Amazing.
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Can you remember a time in your life when you think that you may have failed and how you overcame that failure?
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I know I've heard you many times tell stories of failure and struggle in so many ways from spiritual texts and also from real life.
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Can you think of a time in your life when you feel that you failed and that you had to overcome it or somehow learn something from it?
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And what did you learn from that failure actually?
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 Failing is healthy because it humbles me to actually appreciate other people's success.
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And it also humbles me to find shelter in the higher power that's within all of us.
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 So I'll give an example that's just crossing my mind now, that when I went on this journey to the East, I was supposed to come home after two months.
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 It was just a summer trip after one semester of college that I was in Europe.
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And my parents didn't hear from me.
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And I think it was four months later, they got a letter from Iran, from the deserts of Iran, saying I decided to hitchhike to India.
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And of course, there was no return address because I didn't have any address.
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 So years went by where every now and then I just sent him a little letter telling him I was still alive.
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Can you imagine what a mother and father are thinking when their teenage son is away from home in these mysterious places?
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So I really failed my parents in that sense.
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 It gave me the impetus to really try to make it up to them, and through really trying to understand