Ishvara Pranidhana: Communion With Our Highest Self

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41:39

Ishvara Pranidhana: Communion With Our Highest Self

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Let's explore the yogic niyama: ISHVARA PRANIDHANA. "Devotion to a Higher Power". Imagine full communion with your highest Self, love, and humanity. This is the foundation of all the limbs of yoga. Let's explore how to expand this consciousness every day. Part 10 of The Yogic Path Series.

Ishvara Pranidhana Love Yoga Consciousness Sutras Yamas Higher Self Sanskrit Karma Meditation Specific Sutras Higher Self Connection Divine Self Connection Illusions Spiritual Practices Spirits

Meet your Teacher

Toronto, ON, Canada

Meet your Teacher

Toronto, ON, Canada

Transcript

So today we are completing our Yogic Path in the Light series and the topic today is Ishvara Pranadana. And what this means is devotion to a higher power. So this whole series is based in Patanjali Sutras, The eight limbs of yoga that he talks about there. The first two limbs of yoga are the Yamas and the Niyamas. And it's really interesting because this one in particular, This devotion to a higher power, Is actually considered the foundation of all the limbs of yoga, Not just the Yamas and the Niyamas. And if you haven't listened to the other nine classes, There's five classes about the Yamas and this will be the fifth class about the Niyamas. They're all on my YouTube channels. They're all on Insight Timer as audios also. And you don't have to have listened to the other ones to be here today. But this one is the foundation of all things. So if you imagine the eight limbs of yoga, Thousands of years ago Patanjali went around to all of these thousands of schools that were popping up all over India. They were all yoga. And to really understand that yoga isn't a thing. Yoga isn't a practice of asana. Yoga isn't meditation. Yoga isn't, That's not what yoga is. If you practice yoga, You haven't actually said anything yet. No one knows what you're doing yet. Because yoga is simply a Sanskrit word that means that which yokes together, That which brings together the higher power and the human, The divine and the physical, That brings us together into oneness. Because something happened, Whether something happened thousands of years ago that split us apart, Disconnected us from our highest self and turned us into kind of animals or robots or something. And suddenly we became obsessed with survival. We became obsessed with this idea of scarcity. We became obsessed with the idea that we're separate from each other. And we have to, We have to stay clear because people are scary. I don't know what happened. There's a lot of really interesting theories as to what broke that. Because there's a lot of interesting, Whether they're true stories, Mythology, Whatever we understand, Of really great civilizations of the past. So anyway, I don't know, I don't know what the true timeline is. But something happened that suddenly changed our consciousness. And we got disconnected from what it really was to be human. And so all over India, All over the Southeast Asia, Because not just India, China, All over there, All these amazing schools started rising to help us reconnect with our true self. This is yoga. How we get there, That is multidisciplinary. But the actual act of yoga, If I am being yogic, I could be riding a horse. I could be cooking. I could be meditating. I could be doing an asana practice. I could be reading the Bhagavad Gita. I could be doing anything. As long as in my spirit, My goal is to reconnect me to my highest self. Or just to simply be human. I kind of believe that when we, I really believe that this is just the world according to Katrina. But I genuinely believe that the earth is in a time of great shift and ascension right now. And I genuinely believe that as we come back into who we truly are, And we remember who we really are, All of the teachings of yoga will disappear because they aren't necessary. It's kind of like if you have an illness and you take certain herbs and do different things to heal it or you do different, You change your diet or you change your mind or you change whatever and you heal, You no longer need medicine. So in many ways, These practices of yoga, These teachings of yoga, The yamas, The niyamas, I believe that there'll come a time that these won't be necessary. But as we heal, As we shift, As we live in this strange illusion of separation, We need these philosophies. We need the yoga practice. We need the meditation practice. We need the pranayama. We need to practice asana in order to realign ourselves with us. So this is why Ishvara pranadana, The connection to the highest self, Is in many ways the foundation of all the practices of yoga. If you have an asana practice and the intention is not to connect with your highest self, Then you're not doing yoga. You may be doing an epic human mobility stretching exercise, Which is awesome. There is nothing wrong with having a physical practice that moves your body, Strengthens your limbs, Increases balance, Allows for focus. Fantastic. But it isn't actually yoga as the Sanskrit word yoga, What it means. If you're doing a meditation practice and you're actually just torturing yourself because you can't do it and you hate it, You know, It's so stupid. We're not doing yoga. You need to find a different practice. You need to find a way that actually helps you connect with self. And so Ishvara pranadana has many, Many aspects to it. But one of it, One is listening to your highest truth and even understanding that there is guidance inside of you right now. That your highest self holds guidance for your path here. So when we say Ishvara pranadana, What we're saying is I surrender to that guidance. I surrender to a higher power. And maybe it's a devotion to God. Maybe those words mean something to you that help your whole being go, Yeah, That feels great. But these words don't mean a lot to a lot of people. So it's really interesting, Especially when we use Sanskrit. When we think of even these words Ishvara, And if it was to be spelled, It would be I-S-H-V-A-R-A or I mean, It's Sanskrit. So it's just English transliteration, Right? It's not really how it's spelled. But Ishvara means your highest self, A higher power, God, It could be a deity, It could be your true self. It could be human consciousness that you devote yourself to love, That you devote yourself to consciousness. So Ishvara, This is what's beautiful about Sanskrit is your unique human design, Whoever you are, Gets to listen to this word and choose the one that rings true for you. So even the word Ishvara, What does this mean to you? What really clicks? Is it supreme being? Is it Brahman? Is it God? Is it my highest self? Is it human consciousness? Is it my true self? It's kind of like, You know, When we were kids, I don't know if you guys did this, But we had these like cut out dolls and you get to pick the clothes you put on them. You get to choose what Ishvara pranadana means to you in perfect resonance that really lines you up. What creates your personal vertical alignment? And then pranadana means devotion, Surrender, Abstract contemplation, Meditation, Prayer. So if you put these together, Is it devotion to a higher being? Is it a contemplation of my true self? Is it a surrender to Brahman? Is it a devotion to humanity? What does this mean for you? And that's all that matters. Everything we're going to talk about today hinges on whatever this means for you. So imagine this, Imagine in your own being, You have your personality, You have however you were born, What gender are you? What nationality are you? These are all just surface-y things. They're not intrinsic to who you are inside. We're all just us. But all of these things really make a difference. Where we were born, Who we were born to, The experiences we've had up until this point, Our preferences, Our gifts, The things we understand inherently, The things we've learned, These all matter. This is all our very physical world. But there's also this inner reality, This sacred space that's fully connected to the divine. And so the pursuit of this is for you to live in full communion with your highest self. So imagine you're like walking down the street, Then everything you say, Everything you see, You see with your highest self and this self. Every person you talk to, Your personality is going to interact with them. Because this is all full of magnetism. This is all full of interesting things in the world. It's earth, Fire, Water, All these interesting things. We are very manifest here on this planet. That's what meets other people is all of this and our karmas and our samskaras and all this. So it creates dramas and it creates fear and it creates attraction, It creates repulsion, It creates all these things. This is our physical world, Which is awesome. But imagine also living with that divine consciousness inside of all of those experiences, All the attraction, Repulsion, Joy, Pleasure, Pain, Everything. This is the goal of Ishwara Pranadana, Is to live in communion with our highest self. So I've told you guys this story a few times, I think. But I have a good friend who is in Alcoholics Anonymous. And she used to take me to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings all the time, Because she knew that I had a bit of an obsession with the connection to the divine in a day to day context. She'd heard me complaining how in many tantra communities, They just completely delete the divine as if tantra isn't a spiritual path. In the same way that most in most places in the world study yoga without any spiritual context. Besides just simply mentioning Shiva or Saraswati, But I mean, Actually having a spiritual context. And I've had a bit of a bone to pick about that kind of thing in my life. And one day she said, You need to come to an AA meeting, You'll love it. And so what's interesting about AA is the first step of AA, And there's lots of pros and cons to all these systems. So I'm sure we all have opinions of these things. What's interesting about the first step is that in the context of alcohol, The idea is that if you actually are an alcoholic that needs AA, You actually have a reaction to alcohol that creates a craving in your body. So it isn't just like if I am not an alcoholic, I don't have that, That's not a thing for me. So if I have a drink, Whether I even finish the drink is a question. It has no reaction in my body, Except for it might make me tipsy or it might make me feel sick. Those are my only reactions. Whereas someone who has an issue with alcohol, They will have a drink and it will actually set up a craving inside of them for another. Almost like, This is not a fair comparison, But for me it'd be more like sugar. If I have sugar out of my system, I don't desire it, I don't want anything to do with it. I have one cookie, That's it. I mitzen my system again and now I want more and I want more and I want more. Other people couldn't care less whether they had sugar. It doesn't make any difference at all. And again, Very poor comparison, But the best I can do right now. But what's interesting and why the first step is that I recognize that I am powerless before alcohol. This is the first step and this is going to relate back to Ishwara Pranadana, I promise. Is that although I have this craving and I know that it only is going to create more of a craving, I have this compulsion in my brain to keep doing it. So this compulsion, Even though I know the effects of me taking that first drink, I still have the compulsion to do it. So the first step is saying, I am powerless before it. I don't know what my problem is. And it's not a lack of willpower. It's not a lack of anything. It's just what's going on in my brain? What's wrong with this? And again, We can all imagine our own addictions, The things that I mean, I just I know I shouldn't do that thing, But I just want to anyway, Whether it's quitting coffee, Sugar, Whatever the thing is that you want to stop doing or not exercising or whatever. It's like, I know better. Why am I still not doing it or doing it? It's this weird thing we have going on inside of us. So then the second step says, Because I know that I can't get over this weird compulsion craving dichotomy that's driving me crazy. I recognize that there is a higher power out there within me, However I understand it. And I recognize there's a higher power that is not subject to these cravings or the compulsions. And this is a step that is really hard to come to. One, The idea of God has been so bastardized and misinterpreted and just, Just to the point that you just almost have to reject it, You know, Because it's just so it's so impossible to put your head around in a really practical way, Especially if you've had a hard life. So that's the second step. And then the third step is handing your will over to that higher power. So what does this have to do with Ishwara pranadana? One of the greatest challenges in the yogic desire, The desire to actually bring ourselves back together, Feel inner peace, Be happy, Is we have this compulsion to engage in the dramas of our life. We know that we shouldn't argue with Uncle Charlie, We know that we shouldn't get hooked every time mom says this thing. We know better. And yet, We do it anyway. We dive in. It doesn't matter how many books we read, It doesn't matter how many things we do, That person keeps triggering me every time they open their mouth every time they do that thing, Even though I know better. I know they're goading me. I know they're broken. I know they're messed up. And yet, I am going to take the bait every time. Why do we do it? Why do we dive into the dramas? Why do we succumb to our fears? We know better. We know there's nothing to fear there. We know that everything's going to be fine. Why are we such a victim of our fears and the people around us that just trigger us and throw us off all over the place? This, For all intents and purposes, We all have bad days, All of us. And on those bad days, Wow, Can the fears come in. Those programs, Those ancestral lineages, Those inheritances, The emotional patterns, The samskaras, The karma, All these things, They rule us. I remember when I first met Jim, My teacher, Years ago. For anyone who's new, I wrote a book called What If You Could Skip the Cancer? And it was my journey through illness. A lot of people consider crisis, The word crisis, Is an opportunity of healing. So for me, Having breast lumps after everyone in my family dying of breast cancer became an opportunity to change direction. And a man appeared in my life, A teacher named Jim. And Jim was hilarious because he would walk around and he would say things like, I don't even get humans. Why do you walk around all stressed out all the time? You could walk around in a state of full orgasm 24 seven, And yet instead, You choose to think about things that upset you. Why do you think about things that upset you? It's hilarious. And in many ways, This is a curious thing. And you really consider your life and you consider the things that bother you, The things that upset you. And again, Don't get me wrong, There are lots of things that we are meant to chew on, Sort, Dive into, Get the juice out. That's how we overcome our karma. That's how we overcome our samskara patterns. We have to actually dive in. We can't just ignore them. That's not what I'm saying. But it's interesting to note how we become driven by them. One person can say something that can set us off for a month. And we're going to repeat that thing they said to us like a mantra torturing us in the mind. Why do we do that? When we know this person wasn't acting out of character. If one of my friends who's super intuitive or really loves me or something like that, They suddenly say something sideways to me or something that is really judgmental of me, I'm going to really listen. I'm going to really listen to what they're saying. I'm going to say, Wow, If they said that, I should pay attention. Because I know they respect me and I know they love me. And they wouldn't have said that. And I consider them to be solid people. They're conscious, They're aware. They're not acting, They're not knee jerking out of their subconscious or something. They're conscious people. But if there's someone in our life that has been hurting for as long as we've known them, Whether it's a parent or a sibling or a partner or a child or a neighbor, Who knows. But for as long as we've known them, They've been mean. They've been offensive. They've had compulsive behaviors that damage other people. We've always known that. Well, Why would we repeat something that they said, We already know. So this is where the AA thing is a really interesting parallel. Because we know better, Yet we dive in. So it's an interesting thing to almost say to ourselves, Isn't that interesting that this personality seems to really want to go there? I seem a little powerless for some reason. No, It's not a judgment thing. It's not a lack of willpower thing. It's not a character flaw. This is a huge thing in AA to really understand or NA or whatever anonymous program we're in to actually go this is not a character flaw. This is a human nature thing. That there are things that for some reason, We just dive into. Who knows why? But we do. And we love ourselves anyway. And we say, Huh, I guess this was part of my human experience, Whatever. So the second step being this. Well, What if there's a higher power out there within me that isn't drawn into the dramas, That doesn't care for the drink or the smoke or the drugs or whatever, Right within me? What if there is an eternal presence also, And I can tap into it anytime. This is Ishwara pranadana. This is communion with our highest self. And imagine how differently our experiences when we allow this. And isn't it even interesting that there's sometimes a real pushback to saying, I'm going to live in communion with God, That I'm going to live in full devotion to human consciousness, That I'm going to live according to my highest truth. Like, Isn't it funny that whether it's the religions of the world that have just made it really hard to dive into anything that sounds like that or uses the same words. So it's a really personal journey to notice is there any pushback here. And again, Sometimes the pushback is our exceptional addiction to the drama. Well, If I go inward, And I access my highest truth, So I'm not going to get triggered all the time. And I'm not going to get angry all the time. And I mean, And it sounds really silly the way I'm saying it, But we like it. There's a juice in there. There's a something. It's like when we aren't actively humans love to be feel alive. We love to feel our heart pounding, We love to be excited. If we aren't personally creating something that's exciting to us right now, We're going to look for other ways to get our hearts pumping. We're going to look for some way to feel. Yeah, Maybe it's anger, Maybe it's frustration, Maybe it's self righteousness. We all have our drug of choice inside of us. That gets our heart pumping. I love it. I mean, If I have to think about this and this and this and it fuels myself righteousness, Do I feel alive? If that person said this thing, And they're wrong, And they shouldn't be doing that, And I'm so angry. Yeah. So it's very interesting thing when we're attached to that juice. So then the question becomes, We have to kind of recognize it. And then we have to say, Maybe I need to build in my life in a different way. What if I took my eyes off of that, And focus it over here. And I finally wrote that book, Or I started to study or I started to practice CrossFit. Or I decided to take horseback riding lessons. And I start putting the excitement into being on the back of a thousand pound animal, Or 2000, I don't know how heavy a horse is, Get on the back of an animal and get your excitement out there. Feel some real fear. What if we actually started living in a different way? So suddenly this juice of all the drama, That's not so interesting. I'd much rather feel the excitement skydiving. I'd much rather feel the excitement of, I actually published the book, Whatever. So it's a very interesting thing when we don't want to give up the juice, Because that's what Ishwara Pranadana asks us to do. It asks us to say, There is another reality that is not caught up in all the drama. And the crazy thing is that when we commune with our highest self or the higher power or God Brahman, Higher consciousness, However we understand it, There is a joy in that bliss. In that, And it's not all quiet either. Like I want to say quiet, Because it can be extremely passionate and extremely exciting. It's like the beautiful river of energy, Of creation in our life. It is the most exciting place to live. That we're actually in our cycle of birth, Death, Change, Rebirth. And it's exciting to be alive. The only reason we have to spend so much time in meditation and silence is to just silence the, Well, There's a lot of reasons to meditate, But some of it's healing and some of it's recognizing those voices and letting them pass through and getting accustomed to letting the distractions pass through. But once we're actually capable of focusing all of that Kundalini, All of that energy into something, Life is so exciting and joyful and fun and silly and it's just, It's so great. But we've been sort of brainwashed to believe that the dramas of life and the pain of life is what we must focus on, Which is why Ishvara Pranadana is such medicine. It's a medicine that says, Try this instead. Let's also look within. The other big obstacle to this limb of yoga is the illusion of control. There's a lot of reasons again, Because we've lived in a real time of darkness, Like a real couple millennia of darkness, The desire to control our environment is real. It's not a mal adaptation. It's a real thing. If you were raised in homes that you weren't safe, Which seems to kind of be the majority, Whether it was abuse overtly, Or it was psychological or emotional, Or just simply the sins of the forefathers or karma or whatever. In a crazy world, There's a desire to like, Ah, I kind of want to control my environment, Including all the people in it. But we also know that that's not real. It's not possible. And if we live our life trying to control everything, We will live a life of complete frustration. We can't control anything. We can't control, We can control ourselves. That's who we can control. We can't control the people around us, And we just can't do that. So it's a really interesting thing too. Once we start going within, And we start communing with our own eternal self, We feel a lot more safe to release the reins, Like to release that need for control. When I know that no matter what happens, I can always close my eyes and ask for guidance, And guidance will come. I don't really need to control you then. I trust that whatever is meant to happen will happen. I will follow the guidance I'm given. And we'll see where the cards fall. We'll see where the chips fall. It's a very, Very different existence than that one of just trying to hold the steering wheels of every single person's life in our lives. So a huge part of this communion with self, Or communion with our highest self, Or communion with God, I don't know, Is sort of understanding our place in it. And our place in it isn't, Even when I say surrender, It isn't like an I am this lowly servant of this. It's not that. It's that I within me. When we talk about our chakras, These top three chakras are divine. The lower three chakras are what govern our land and through in our experience in the 3D world and the physical. But these top three, These are literal satellites to the universe, To the galaxy, To the divine. It's our makeup. So all we're doing when we surrender, We're not surrendering to something else, We're surrendering to our own actual true human potential. It's not something out there. But for some reason, We've been taught, Our egos have been taught that these upper chakras don't actually exist. Not really. All that really matters is money, Control, Power, Wealth. Here's what matters. Just pretend, You know, Don't look at this up here. It's not really you. That's for gurus and holy people, Not really you. But it's right inside of us. A thousand-pedaled lotus connected to the divine, Connected to infinite possibility in every single one of us here. That's what we're surrendering to. And then when we actually get that, When we really own the fact that we are this incredible microcosm of the macrocosm, That we really are divinity and the physical. And again, I'm saying this like it's so easy, Like, Oh yeah, Got it, Next. You know what I mean? Like, It's not that easy, But it's really worth contemplating. And then the more we move towards it, The less we even want to control anything in the world, Because we're almost intrigued to see what's going to happen next. We really become the explorer of Earth, Wandering around going, Well, That's interesting. Look, Look what the humans are doing. You know, And that may sound funny, But it's sort of a really interesting perspective. And then this happened, And this happened, And this happens, And this happens. And you just sort of look at it and you think, Wow, Isn't that bizarre? And maybe you do try to understand it. And maybe it's triggering something inside of you, Maybe an old pattern or a karma or a samskara. And you kind of go, Ah, That's really interesting. Huh. It's fascinating. But you don't want to control it. It's like, This is why like I love Taoism, Because Taoism literally as a foundational principle is accept what is and flow with it. And it's not that you don't make change. And it's not that you don't create, And it's not that you don't live. But it's kind of more like the Buckminster Fuller theory. He always said that you don't fix an old system. You just build a new one. And the other one just disappears. Just build a new fire. Like we have this thing about going and fixing all the old stuff. And sometimes you have to destroy something to create, Right? Sometimes you bring in that Shiva kind of thing, Right? But you also can just create. You can just create a new fire. And then slowly the energy will come towards that. And whatever, Kind of like in a forest, Trees fall, Other things live, The tree that fell becomes fodder for the critters in the soil. But you don't sit and stare at the tree that fell. You stare at the tree that's growing. So it's a very interesting thing to when we focus within and we really focus on that eternal self, We create. We don't worry about what's wrong in the world. We see the earth and we go, Okay, What can we make here? But oh, But look at all this is it's like, Yeah, But what can we create right now? We are all co creators, Like we start to take this very seriously, That there isn't some person out there that's going to fix everything. They're just a person like us. There's not a single person on the planet that's more interesting than any of us sitting here. We all can just create right now. The other interesting thing is that in study of the niyamas, So in the eight limbs of yoga, The yamas are the things that help clear our path, Things that help keep us in places that we're able to grow. And the niyamas are the things we focus on. And three of the niyamas that we've talked about in previous talks are tapas, Svadhyaya and isvara pranadana. Now these three actually are often grouped together. Tapas is the fire inside that makes us want to make change. Tapas is the passion. It's our life force. It's the thing that makes us go, Yes, I am alive. I am doing this thing. It's also the thing that says, I'm going to do this yoga practice every day because I'm going to get better. I'm going to meditate every day. I'm going to go for a walk every day. I'm going to drink eight glasses of water every day, Whatever it is that we do. I'm going to read this thing every day. I'm going to write a chapter of my book every day. Tapas, That's that. And then svadhyaya is the study of self, Or the study of humanity or the study of what is this curious incarnation I'm in to truly understand it deeply. And then isvara pranadana is sort of understanding that the goal is merging it all together. So these three are very interesting in our lives to mix together. Because again, This communion with self isn't just like sitting in communion. That's not it. It's studying self to understand this incarnation. What was my assignment? Why am I here? Why was I given these particular challenges and these particular gifts? How am I meant to weave them together here on this earth? What's going on there? And tapas helps us make it happen, Right? It's the conviction. It's the chutzpah, That kind of makes things happen. But tapas also helps us break free of karma. If you were to imagine that we all it's a very real thing, Like it's easy for me to say, Oh, Just connect with your highest self and let all that stuff go. That's that's pretty easy and shallow thing to say. But the reality is, We do come in with some tough programs. We come in with some tough patterns that we are kind of unconsciously walking through. That's a reality. Every single one of us is struggling with some kind of weird pattern that's limiting us that's hurting us. And if you were to imagine these as karma and not as a punishment, But as simply unfinished business a pattern that we need to complete, We need to find our way through it somehow. How do we do that? Ishwara Pranadana helps us say, You have help. You're not alone. You're not just a pawn in someone else's chess game. You don't have to succumb to the drama. You don't have to succumb to your fears. You have help all the time. Swadhyaya helps us look within and recognize the patterns and say, Interesting. I see that. I see what I'm doing there. Okay, That's interesting. Then I can ask for help. And tapas is the power inside of us that says, And now I will make a different decision. And now I will break the pattern and make a different choice. So all three of these are really, Really important in our yogic path, Whatever our yogic path is, Whether it's whatever tradition we follow. So on a day to day level, On a day to day basis, How do we integrate this? One just even consider the idea, Like to actually kind of bring your higher power or your highest self or your true self along for the ride, No matter what we're doing. Whether you're making dinner, Whether you're making love, Whether you're reading a book, Whether you're at work, Whether you're on the subway, Just to always kind of imagine that, Okay, Here's me the physical person. I'm also an eternal being. What in the world does that mean here sitting on the subway? It's just contemplation. We don't have to find an answer. We just have to sit in the possibility and allow it to kind of play with ourselves of our being. When we honor the fact that we actually have a divine self, We'll check in with that divine self. Wherever you are, Whatever's going on, Just check in with self and say, Where are we really? I understand where the personality is. My personality is mad as hell or sad or really excited or whatever. Because sometimes even real excitement, You have to go, Hold on a second. What's going on? Am I being taken by a charlatan here? What's going on? And not to be negative, I'm just saying that no emotion is better than the other for hiding us from our truth. When we use this, We ask for guidance all the time. It can be really small things like what do I want to do next? What feels right? What would allow real flow in my day? When we meditate, To actually sit in meditation and actually imagine feeling these higher chakras. To sit in meditation, Feel your body and even imagine energy flowing up through your chakras, Up into this infinite well, Back down into the physical world and just feeling these flowing together and that it's natural, That it's normal. This is your birthright. This is a completely human experience. It's not just for gurus and avatars and holy people, That all of us have this design. You can imagine how this is the foundation for all the other. So if you have an asana practice, To do your asana practice within this context, If you have a meditation practice, To have this as your foundation. You imagine if you're going on a silent retreat, Imagine this is your foundation. So thank you so much for being here and I hope you have an amazing day.