by Jay Shetty
For heroes like Satyarthi and for monks—and ideally for all of us—there is no us and them.
FOLLOW THE PAIN IN YOUR HEART
An infinite number of people and causes need our help now. We need everyone in the world to do everything. The benefits to them and us are immediate.
While we should never avoid helping others when we see their need, we can and should develop a sense of what sorts of service we’re best at and focus our attention on them. Choose where to serve based on your own compassion. Buddhist scholar and environmental activist Joanna Macy writes, “You don’t need to do everything. Do what calls your heart; effective action comes from love. It is unstoppable, and it is enough.”
TRY THIS: SERVE THE PAIN THAT YOU KNOW BEST
One route to service is through healing the pain that we know best. Write down three moments in your life when you felt lost or in need. Maybe you were depressed and could have used support. Maybe you wanted an education you couldn’t afford. Maybe you needed guidance but didn’t have the right teacher. Match a charity or cause to each area of pain. A teen hotline. A scholarship fund. A mentoring program. A politician. Now see if any of these options have opportunities to serve that suit your dharma.
Serving through your dharma, healing the pain that you connect with—this approach is very much in line with the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, which likes to meet you wherever you are and encourage you to reach higher. When I was a monk, I prepared food for children with Annamrita, cleaned temples, always carried food to hand out to strangers, and otherwise served in the ways that made sense for me at the time. Now, with a different platform, I’ve been able to help a YouTube campaign raise nearly $150,000 for the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation of America. On Facebook my community raised over $60,000 for Pencils of Promise. ($75 provides a year of education for one child.) The sense of meaning and gratitude I feel has been constant as my path of giving evolves.
Here’s the life hack: Service is always the answer. It fixes a bad day. It tempers the burdens we bear. Service helps other people and helps us. We don’t expect anything in return, but what we get is the joy of service. It’s an exchange of love.
When you’re living in service, you don’t have time to complain and criticize.
When you’re living in service, your fears go away.
When you’re living in service, you feel grateful. Your material attachments diminish.
Service is the direct path to a meaningful life.
MEDITATION CHANT
We have explored how to connect to people around us through gratitude, relationships, and service. As we do this it is fitting to incorporate sound meditation into our practice to connect with the energy of the universe.
Sound transports us. A song can take us back to a high school memory, make us want to dance, get us fired up. Words themselves have power—they can change how we see the world and how we grow. When we chant, we ourselves are generating this energy. Sound meditations allow us to connect with our souls and the universe through words and song.
Ancient spiritual texts including the Agni Purana and the Vayu Purana discuss the why and how of chanting, suggesting that the repetition of sound purifies us. The sound is immersive, like giving our souls a regular bath. You can’t put one drop of water on your body and be clean—you have to go underneath the water.
Recognizing the value of sound has carried through to modern times. Legendary inventor Nikola Tesla said, “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.” Tesla experimented extensively with machines that created healing fields using vibrations. That may strike you as a bit woo-woo, but modern science is actually resurrecting Tesla’s research on vibrational healing. Modern brain research is also starting to uncover scientific explanations for the healing power of ancient healing rituals, like how repetitive drumming and singing can open pathways to the subconscious.
Monks harness the power of sound by repeating affirmations or mantras during meditation. An affirmation is a word or phrase you want to set as an intention. Virtually anything that inspires you can work. One of my clients says her favorite is: “At your own pace, in your own time.” A friend of mine read a book called Brave, Not Perfect by Reshma Saujani and made the title her mantra for a while. I also like: “This too shall pass.” Or a phrase from a poet, such as “Live everything” (by Rilke); a sports quote, like “This moment is yours” (from Olympic ice hockey coach Herb Brooks); a song lyric, like “Brush your shoulders off” (by Jay-Z), something from a movie, like “Woosah” (courtesy of Bad Boys II). Anything that connects you to the energy or idea you want to cultivate in your life can be effective. I recommend adding a mantra to your morning and/or evening meditation practice. It is beautiful to wake up or go to sleep listening to the sound of your own voice chanting.
Where affirmations change the way you speak to yourself, mantras change the way you speak to the universe. Mantra in a deep sense means “to transcend the mind,” and a mantra is a spiritual sound expressing thought and meaning that summons a power greater than ourselves. Mantras can be chanted or sung in unison. We meditate to listen and find clarity. We pray to share and find connection with a higher power. Chanting is both—a dialogue with the universe.
The oldest, most common, and most sacred mantra is Om. In Vedic texts the sound is given many shades of meaning, from infinite knowledge to the essence of everything that exists to the whole Veda. Om also is called pranava, whose meaning can be described as “the sound by which the Lord is praised.” In chanting, om comprises three syllables—A-U-M. In Vedic tradition, this is important because each sound embodies a different state (wakefulness, dreaming, and deep sleep) or period of time itself (past, present, and future). You could say that the word om represents everything.
The vibrations from om have been shown to stimulate the vagus nerve, which decreases inflammation. Vagus nerve stimulation is also used as a treatment for depression, and researchers are looking at whether chanting om may have a direct effect on mood. (It’s already been shown to calm one of the brain’s emotional centers.)
When a mantra is put to music it’s called kirtan, a type of call-and-response chanting, which we often used at the ashram. A similar experience is fans chanting in a stadium—minus the alcohol and foul language. But the atmosphere that can be created has the same feeling of united energy.
Though sound itself is of value, when I temporarily lost my voice for medical reasons, I reached out to a monk teacher. I said, “I can’t chant mantras. How can I meditate?”
He said, “Chanting was never from your mouth. It was always from your heart.” He meant that, as with all acts, what mattered was whether the intention was full of devotion and love. The heart transcends instructions and perfection.
TRY THIS: SEEING THROUGH SOUND
For the sound exercises I describe below, begin your practice with the following steps.
Find a comfortable position—sitting in a chair, sitting upright with a cushion, or lying down.
Close your eyes.
Lower your gaze.
Make yourself comfortable in this position.
Bring your awareness to calm, balance, ease, stillness, and peace.
Whenever your mind wanders, just gently and softly bring it back to calm, balance, ease, stillness, and peace.
Chant each of these mantras three times each. When you chant them, bring your attention to each syllable. Pronounce it properly so that you can hear the vibration clearly. Really feel the mantra, repeating it genuinely and sincerely, and visualizing a more insightful, blessed, and service-filled life.
1. OM NAMO BHAGAVATE VASUDEVAYA
“I offer praise unto the all-pervading divinity present within every heart; who is the embodiment of beauty, intelligence, strength, wealth, fame, and detachment.”
This mantra has been chanted for millennia by yogis and sages. It is cleansing and empowering, and connects one with the divinity in everythi
ng. It can be recited especially when you are seeking insight and guidance.
2. OM TAT SAT
“The absolute truth is eternal.”
This mantra appears in the Bhagavad Gita. It represents divine energy and invokes powerful blessings. All work is performed as an offering of love and service. This mantra is recited especially before beginning any important work, to help perfect and refine our intentions and bring about balance and wholeness.
3. LOKAH SAMASTAH SUKHINO BHAVANTU
“May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.”
This mantra, popularized by Jivamukti yoga, is a beautiful reminder to look beyond ourselves and to remember our place in the universe.
Conclusion
I hope this book has inspired you, and perhaps you will come away from it planning a fresh start. Maybe you’re thinking about how to change your routines, to listen to your mind in new ways, to bring more gratitude into your life, and more. But when you wake up tomorrow, things will go wrong. You might sleep through your alarm. Something will break. An important appointment will cancel. The universe isn’t going to suddenly give you green lights all the way to work. It’s a mistake to think that when we read a book, attend a class, and implement changes that we’ll fix everything. The externals will never be perfect, and the goal isn’t perfection. Life is not going to go your way. You have to go your way and take life with you. Understanding this will help you be prepared for whatever may come.
There is no universal plan for peace and purpose. The way we get there is by training our minds to focus on how to react, respond, and commit to what we want in life, in our own pace, at our own time. Then, when life swerves, we return to that focus. If you’ve decided to be kind, and someone is rude to you, you know what you want to come back to. If you wake up resolved to focus on your dharma at work, and then your boss gives you an assignment that’s not aligned with your strengths, it’s up to you to find a way to put your dharma to use. When you fail, don’t judge the process and don’t judge yourself. Give yourself latitude to recover and return to a flexible focus on what you want. The world isn’t with you or against you. You create your own reality in every moment.
Throughout this book, we have encountered paradoxes. We talk about getting close to fear to move away from it, finding the new in our routines, having confidence and humility, being selfish to be selfless. We live in a binary world, but the beauty of paradox is that two opposing ideas can coexist. Life isn’t a computer program—it’s a dance.
In The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi says, “Never trust [a] spiritual leader who cannot dance.” When we dance, there are no rules. We must be open to whatever song comes on. We have strengths and weaknesses. We might fall, or hesitate over our next move, or have a moment of overenthusiasm, but we keep flowing, allowing ourselves to be messy and beautiful. Like a dancer, the monk mind is flexible and controlled, always present in the moment.
THE MONK METHOD
I can think of no better tool to help you find flexibility and control than meditation. Meditation helps you figure out what move to make in the dance. In meditation, we find clarity on who we need to be right now, in order to be our best in the moment. Our breath connects with our minds, our souls are uplifted in song, and in that place of energy and unity, we find answers.
I have introduced you to three different types of meditation, and now I’m going to give you a daily practice that includes all of them: breathwork, visualization, and chanting. I practice some form of this meditation every day. I recommend that you make it the first thing you do in the morning after brushing your teeth and showering, and last thing you do before bed. Start with twenty-one minutes once a day, using a timer to give yourself seven minutes each for breathwork, visualization, and mantra. When you are ready for more, expand to twenty-one minutes twice a day, ideally first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Make sure you always begin with breathwork. Like a warm-up before you exercise, it should not be skipped!
Find a comfortable position—sitting in a chair, sitting upright with a cushion, or lying down.
Close your eyes and lower your gaze. Bring your awareness to calm, balance, ease, stillness, and peace. It is natural for the chatter and clutter to be busy in your mind. Whenever your mind wanders, just gently and softly bring it back to calm, balance, ease, stillness, and peace.
Make yourself comfortable in this position. Roll back your shoulders, stretch your neck and body, and find a physical space of calm, balance, ease, stillness, and peace.
Now become aware of your natural breathing pattern. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Take a deep breath. Breathe in for a count of 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. Breathe out for a count of 1 - 2 - 3 - 4.
Align your body and your breath by breathing in for the same amount of time as you breathe out.
Do this for what feels like five minutes. At first you might want to set a timer with a pleasant tone to signal that the five minutes have passed.
Ask yourself, “What am I grateful for today?” Breathe in gratitude and breathe out negative, toxic energy.
Now visualize a joy-, happiness-, and gratitude-filled memory. Think of five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Absorb the love, joy, and happiness. Take the love from that moment and visualize it flowing through your entire body. From your feet, to your legs, to your hips, to your stomach, to your chest, arms, back, neck, and head. Give love, joy, and gratitude to each part of your body. Do this for five minutes.
Ask yourself, “What is my intention for today?” Is it to be kind, to be confident, to be focused? Set that intention now.
Repeat the following to yourself 3 times each: “I am happy about who I am becoming. I am open to all opportunities and possibilities. I am worthy of real love. I am ready to serve with all I have.”
To finish your practice, repeat this mantra 3 times: Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. (See page 273.)
HOW TO KNOW IF IT’S WORKING
A novice monk went to his teacher and said, “I’m terrible at meditating. My feet fall asleep, and I’m distracted by the outside noises. When I’m not uncomfortable, it’s because I can barely stay awake.”
“It will pass,” the teacher said simply, and by her expression the novice knew that the conversation was over.
A month passed, and the novice took his teacher aside, smiling proudly. “I think I’ve figured it out! I feel so serene—more focused and centered than I’ve ever been. My meditation is beautiful.”
“It will pass,” the teacher replied.
There is no measure of success, no goal, and no end to a meditation practice. Don’t look for results. Just keep doing it. Practice consistently for four to twelve weeks, and you’ll start to notice the effects.
The first sign that you’re doing it right is that you’ll miss it if you take a break. You only miss a person when you don’t see them. When you eat every day, you don’t think much about nourishment and fuel, but if you don’t eat for a day, you quickly notice the power of food. The same is true for meditation—you have to develop a practice before you know what you’re missing.
The second effect you’ll notice is an increased awareness of what’s going on in your mind. If you meditate and feel tired, you’ll understand that meditation is telling you to get more sleep. Meditation is a signal or a mirror. If you meditate and can’t focus, you’ll see that you’re living a distracted life and need to feel order, balance, and simplicity. If you can’t sit with your thoughts for fifteen minutes, it’s a clear indicator of the work to be done.
The third and most important benefit of meditation is that, though you won’t emerge feeling calm and perfect every time, you’ll gradually acquire a long-term mastery of self. When you drink a green juice, it doesn’t always taste great. A nice glass of f
resh orange juice looks better and tastes better. But, long-term, the less delightful green juice will better serve you. When you are adept at meditation, you’ll feel a shift in your general attitude. Your intuition will be sharper. You’ll be able to observe your life more objectively, without being self-centered. Your expanded perception will give you a sense of peace and purpose.
NOW AND FOREVER
Life begins with breath, breath carries you through all your days, and life and breath end together. Monks try to be present in the moment, but we are always conscious of now and forever. We measure our lives not by how big or small our impact is, but by how we make people feel. We use our time to establish how we will live on, through giving love and care, through supporting, communicating, creating—through the impact we have on humanity.
How will we be remembered? What will we leave behind?
Ultimately death can be seen as the greatest reflection point—by imagining the last moment you can reflect on everything that leads up to it.
Among the most common regrets dying people express are:
I wish I’d expressed my love to the people I care about.
I wish I hadn’t worked so much.
I wish I’d taken more pleasure in life.
I wish I’d done more for other people.
Notice that most of these regrets address something the person didn’t do. Monks believe we should prepare for death. We don’t want to arrive at the end of our days knowing we haven’t lived a purposeful, service-based, meaningful life.