[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Connecting with Your Natural Self. The pop-cars that will help you
[00:00:29] master the mindset of an ancient Vedic scholar. I am Udhaya Ravishankar, your host and guide of
[00:00:35] Journey. I am a developer in Artificial Intelligence with 12 years of experience in publishing
[00:00:42] conference and journal articles in that area and which is heavily ingrained in mathematics.
[00:00:48] On the other side, I have personally gone through a Vedic transformation myself and become
[00:00:53] bogged by the way religions and cultures of today are operating. In each episode of Connecting
[00:01:00] with Your Natural Self, I will share with you my Vedic insights and strategies that have helped me
[00:01:06] in my journey back to be learned which I achieve by understanding what commonly binds us together.
[00:01:14] As a scholar, I also expect you to be able to pass on the same your students or in fact inspire them.
[00:01:21] You will learn how to overcome some spiritually mental challenges, get answers to some of the
[00:01:27] most deep most burning questions and reach your goals in developing the real Vedic mindset.
[00:01:34] You will also get tips and tricks that you can use right away to improve your skills and knowledge.
[00:01:41] Today's topic is about meditation, an important way of connecting with your natural self.
[00:01:52] You know especially after learning from the previous podcast episode on Nature's Healing Power
[00:01:58] that all of us have an earth inside our heads that's common to all of us.
[00:02:02] So in this episode let's delve deeper into it.
[00:02:04] So what really is the point of meditation? I mean just by sitting cross-legal idly in a room
[00:02:13] like what everyone does when it comes to doing meditation and closing our eyes,
[00:02:19] what good you think can really come out of this activity. To me it seems to be an interesting way
[00:02:25] of sleeping. Well not really because some meditation schemes require you to mumble a mantra.
[00:02:32] Either loudly or inside your head just to possibly stop you from snoring instead.
[00:02:40] Turns out this whole process of closing your eyes is what makes your mind move away from the
[00:02:45] world outside to the world inside of you. Yep and if I quote my previous episode it's literally
[00:02:53] moving from the earth outside to the earth inside because you see it's your eyes that's the most
[00:03:00] problematic for your brain and mind. It is by far the one sensory organ that takes up most of
[00:03:08] the information from the outside world you know compared to the other sensory organs and because
[00:03:13] of this your brain ends up becoming very busy processing this large chunk of information
[00:03:23] every millisecond you know considering whatever is the frame rate of our eyes. By the way speaking
[00:03:29] of which here's an interesting thought at what speed other than zero should something be moving at
[00:03:36] such that it still looks like it's not moving or rotating to our eyes. I'll leave this question for
[00:03:43] the next Einstein to answer but for now let's go on with meditation. So as you can see
[00:03:51] the whole process of meditation is to close your brain from processing anything more from the
[00:03:55] outside world and begin processing what it sees inside. You know all the junk it had already collected
[00:04:03] from when your eyes were open but now with all this junk what do you think your brain starts doing?
[00:04:10] If you guess that it begins racing here and there to connect all the junk you thought right
[00:04:16] and this again makes your brain busy and possibly it ends up bringing more work than what it did
[00:04:22] when the eyes were open and so in all senses ends up making you more restless like in a literal sense
[00:04:30] and you end up becoming more stressed by doing meditation and then you begin thinking that it was
[00:04:37] a bad idea to do meditation in the first place. Sleeping seems to be a much better option because
[00:04:44] it's the one task you knew well that it was time to switch off your brain. So from this you can see
[00:04:50] where the mistake was. Closing your eyes wasn't just enough for you to do meditation it also required
[00:04:58] you to switch off your brain so you have you have to think of going into sleep mode also while
[00:05:05] doing meditation and this is where the biggest confusion of all comes in. You would be asking me now
[00:05:13] if I think of going into sleep mode during meditation don't I think I would end up literally
[00:05:18] sleeping or snoring instead? My answer to you is this it lies in the gray area. You see the earth
[00:05:27] inside of you lies in the centroid as a form optimum much like the sun in the solar system
[00:05:34] and if you delve deeper into the Bumi Sukta which we talked about in my in the early episode
[00:05:42] you would see that the eternal self that the veil is predominantly represent other sun
[00:05:47] rooted itself in the centroid after the earth was created. This meant that while the earth became
[00:05:54] the reachable and tangible optimum considering all real world constraints the sun on the other
[00:06:01] hand became the unreachable intangible global optimum. And so the eternal self which we usually
[00:06:11] term as a divine lies in the centroid living in the gray areas of practically everything.
[00:06:21] In fact the veil is according to my Guru describes it as neither this nor that.
[00:06:29] In Sanskrit it's Nadi Nadi and so the whole process of meditation is to try touching this centroid
[00:06:37] if you do so you will begin becoming someone who lies in the gray areas. You know like the
[00:06:43] eternal self itself but how do I know this? How can I assure you that you would actually end up
[00:06:53] becoming someone like this you know in the gray areas, the divine. Well for this let me tell
[00:07:00] your little story. If you listen to my earlier podcast episodes you would know that there was a
[00:07:06] period in my life when I began working towards daily learning and what helped me through was
[00:07:12] continually harnessing the alpha state of mind. Turns out being in this state helped me touch my innocent
[00:07:19] zone to help me make all sorts of connections about the Vedic deities and learning what all those
[00:07:24] implied and the more I did it the more my knowledge grew and it ended up giving me a real holistic
[00:07:33] understanding of how things work in the universe we live in. The kind of understanding that many
[00:07:39] scientists would love to show off about but instead since I touched the innocent zone or practically
[00:07:46] the kid's own to put in mobility terms, I ended up becoming a kid along with the royalness of
[00:07:53] possessing big knowledge and it was because of this you know getting back to my supposed best friend
[00:08:02] who was the puppet of breaking my mind one night while we were having a beer he told me in a very
[00:08:10] infuriated way that I was neither a duface of an Indian that is you know predominantly the
[00:08:16] stereotype of an Indian abroad nor the one who wants to feel too overblown by assimilating
[00:08:23] westernism but somewhere in between that's what he told me and that is when he it struck me that
[00:08:32] people who want to break other people requires stereotypes grounded in specific buckets of characteristics
[00:08:39] because it's a tangible set of qualities they can really tamper with and being in the gray area
[00:08:45] on the other hand makes this makes them lose that capability because of its intangibility.
[00:08:53] If you really think about it you know on a daily basis most of us feel in some way overblown
[00:09:00] about ourselves after a certain age that we begin stereotyping people we see or meet and this
[00:09:08] is because we witness so much stupidity in the world that we in turn devalue people and other things
[00:09:20] and then all of a sudden if you see a person who you can't pocket into any stereotype
[00:09:26] you begin to see some value in that person now to some this may be an interesting thing
[00:09:34] but to others especially those who want to act big or be big this actually infuriates them so deeply
[00:09:42] by the sight of that their eyes begin to plop out probably even the tongues as well because they
[00:09:49] have just gone mad. Spiritual if you see and if you're like familiar with the vastu chart
[00:09:56] and how the purusha reclines diagonally with the feet touching the niruti block and the head
[00:10:04] you know by the esanium block and if you apply monispathy is varna beginning from
[00:10:12] the feet of purusha all the way to the mouth you will see that it depicts the stages of development
[00:10:18] not casteism but stages. Let's suppose I simplify the niruti block to rahu you know because rahu
[00:10:28] is positioned there in the Navagraha chart which is almost as equivalent to the vastu chart
[00:10:34] and if I put esanium to shiva because esanium is his epithet you'll begin to deduct that learning
[00:10:43] and development takes you from the rahu block to the shiva and in this process you attain
[00:10:49] royalness you know by management you know which the monispathy calls it the vizia and then
[00:10:57] sovereignty which is the shatriya you reach all this before you do this before you reach
[00:11:05] the serenity which is the brahmin and at this last stage you touch the gray area between being a
[00:11:12] child and having this royalness if you use a tumble word for this you know for the royalness
[00:11:19] it's Rajatandram and I think this is a much more badass word to use so maybe I'll use this from now on.
[00:11:31] Likewise if you see the shoelace stage it is the initiation stage and it's where everyone
[00:11:38] begins their journey, practice it everyone you and me it doesn't matter whether you are from the
[00:11:44] Brahmin caste or whatever caste you start from the shoelace stage. In fact if you visit the epithets
[00:11:53] of Bharat if you're really confused about what I just told you you'll find that you know even in
[00:11:58] the Walmi ki Ramayana when he talks about Ayodhya you will find that it describes that people
[00:12:04] possessed such gray area qualities you know possessing great knowledge and wisdom but yet touching
[00:12:10] their inner child on a daily basis by activities in the city of Ayodhya and it was everyone regardless
[00:12:19] of which stage they belong to. It's almost like you know the elves in lot of the rings or any other
[00:12:26] avian story you would have come across. Lanka on the other hand was more mortal combat
[00:12:35] and then later on in the Mahabharata you will see that Bharat became more mortal combat
[00:12:42] this means that when you read the Mahabharata and even the Bhagavad Gita
[00:12:46] in all honesty you will have to put in your mortal combat hats on to be able to feel the story
[00:12:57] correctly or what is being conveyed correctly. You don't believe me? Well let's revisit something from
[00:13:06] Mahabharata Princess Draupati's Swaiamvaram. The story goes as follows. Draupati after learning a lot
[00:13:17] about Prince Arjuna and his warrior capabilities wanted to marry him and so with the help of
[00:13:23] her father King Drupada of the kingdom of Pandjal she built a machinery in an open arena that had a
[00:13:30] bow and a mark that required fire arrows to make only one among them to reach that mark within a
[00:13:39] single shot. And this was something she believed or she thought that only a guy like Arjuna would be
[00:13:47] able to crack mortal combat stuff right there. And then during the Swaiamvaram she actually
[00:13:57] sat at the center of the arena on a throne watching every Prince who would attempt to crack this
[00:14:07] do whatever they tried. And then when Karna came he was Arjuna's equivalent rival and just as he
[00:14:16] was about to set the machinery right to hit the mark she stopped him saying that because he is
[00:14:22] actually of an unknown lineage you know the word Suta she wouldn't marry him even if he cracked it.
[00:14:31] It was at this point Karna got pissed and then left. Mortal combat stuff right there.
[00:14:39] Let's fast forward to Arjuna then disguised as a Brahmin you know like the stanz of Sanakya but
[00:14:46] bearded he goes ahead and hit the mark finally and wins Draupati. Then later on the five Pandavas
[00:14:57] after all this happened went to the place of stop at Pandjalab a hut where their mother was
[00:15:02] and Arjuna showed to her what he had won and their mother Kunti happy to hear it but by a mark of habit
[00:15:10] told all to have a share and rejoice it. It was here she realized she made a mistake she was like almost
[00:15:19] like oh crap what or not did I say after this the whole situation in the hut became quite awkward
[00:15:27] because the five Pandavas were actually used to abiding by whatever their mother told them
[00:15:33] and so it was here that Draupati and it all because of our womaness accepted to marry all five
[00:15:40] just not a break that habit. Mortal combat stuff right there think about it
[00:15:51] so there's actually nothing wrong about being in the gray area it's just that people today find
[00:15:58] that extremely hard to live with so in order to touch the centroid the major factor is learning
[00:16:06] and development and this is why I'm doing a program in Vedic math just to help you as my
[00:16:12] petrines student learn and develop yourselves but going all the way to the philosophy you know
[00:16:18] it's principles taken right from the summer way up so that you can also gain that royalness
[00:16:23] you know the Rajatandran in knowledge as well as in character. However to further help you gain
[00:16:32] the will to achieve that royalness meditation is required to help you tune your mind
[00:16:39] so far I've explained the closing eyes part but there are other props you will need in
[00:16:46] to be able to do this properly. The first thing apart from closing your eyes you would need
[00:16:54] is to be in a quiet space so that your ears don't process any noise
[00:16:58] then you need to be in a lightly lit room a place that is not too dark and not too bright
[00:17:06] you know the gray area and that lies in between all of this so it should be slight but only
[00:17:14] the thing is it should be slightly more inclined towards the dark because you like I told you earlier
[00:17:21] your brain has to go into the sleep mode. The next prop is a small lit lamp you know like a jyoti
[00:17:32] and then if you want to have any god idols or pictures or both in front of you you can go ahead
[00:17:37] and put those but it's optional and while complete quiet complete quietness can put your
[00:17:45] and put you off to sleep or get your brain to start processing things it's recommended
[00:17:52] to engage your ears in some kind of music so that your brain can shift all of its work towards it
[00:18:02] and for this I've created a list of 14 tracks you can listen to to raise that Shiva
[00:18:09] inside of you you know because we are moving from the Rahul blog to the
[00:18:14] Shiva blog that's the whole idea and so this music that you would be listening to while meditating
[00:18:25] is intended to raise the Shiva inside of you so that you can control your mind while at the same
[00:18:31] time receive that Royalness quality you know the Roger Thundram in your brain that will help
[00:18:37] you want to achieve new heights yet staying humble.
[00:18:42] Summing up everything the steps to reach your centroid primarily requires learning and development
[00:18:51] but while this can sometimes be discouraging if you aren't able to get things right
[00:18:56] another way round is to consecrate the Royalness or the Roger Thundram of Shiva in you through meditation
[00:19:04] that can help you break those barriers which as you do this will give you the mental provisions
[00:19:12] for self confidence and that is like a magical prop that can take you to new heights
[00:19:19] and once you are or once you have hit the centroid but somewhere near it
[00:19:30] you will lie in the gray area of you know being a child and king the qualities that defines
[00:19:39] serenity that Shiva himself possesses