Svadyaya: Being A Student Of Life

So today we are continuing our yogic path in the light journey.

We're studying swadhyaya.

So this is one of the niyamas.

In Patanjali's Yoga Sutras there are eight limbs of yoga.

And the first is the yamas,

All the things that keep us on our path.

And then the niyamas,

Which is what we're going to talk about today,

Are the things that are on our path.

These are the things we want to move towards.

These are the things we want to expand into.

So it's kind of like assuming the yamas have already taken place.

Assuming we're not in places where we require ahimsa,

Like where we need violence to survive.

We're already in a place where we're able to tell truths,

We're able to follow satya.

Now we get to say,

Okay,

The decks are cleared,

I can focus on what I really want in life.

And you don't have to have the decks totally cleared either.

Sometimes simply having a positive focus,

And I don't mean positive like right,

I mean positive being something that builds you or something that edifies,

Something that expands you.

Sometimes all we have to do is focus on that.

And the other things fall away.

It's kind of like,

Maybe you have some relationships in your life that are like really dysfunctional.

It's hard to kind of understand where the hooks are.

Like there's certain people,

It could be colleagues,

Could be family,

Could be partners,

Could be kids,

Could be parents,

Whatever.

And they've been in your life and the pattern is so common.

It's so familiar to you.

We don't even recognize that it's there.

We know we don't feel good,

But we don't know how to get out.

It's almost like the hooks are hidden.

And no matter how much we try to get out,

We don't seem to be able to get out.

So sometimes if we can't get out,

The best thing to do is focus on one of these niyamas.

So for example,

This one is svadhyaya,

Which is self-study.

So self-study can be many things.

One of them is reading sacred scripture.

It could be reading the Bhagavad Gita,

It could be reading the Upanishads,

It could be reading the Tao Te Ching.

And you sit down one day and you're reading this sacred scripture.

And all of a sudden,

A different pattern gets in your head,

A different connection between self and God,

Self and the universe,

Self,

Or even you're reading it and suddenly something goes inside and says,

Wait a minute,

Maybe that's why I'm here.

That really resonates with me.

And it's like a different pattern is placed inside of you that feels so peaceful.

Then all of a sudden your mind is like,

I could do more.

I'm going to take that painting class I always want to take.

You know what,

I'm going to go and do the thing.

Maybe like I have friends who don't drive and for whatever reason,

Sometimes it's cultural,

Sometimes it's just circumstances.

And what if someone else and they suddenly got this thing inside that said,

You know what,

I am going to learn to drive as an adult.

I am going to do this.

Yeah,

I'm going to do it.

And it's all exciting.

It's like,

Yeah,

This is great.

And then all of a sudden,

You're around those people that you find difficult,

But you can't quite put your finger on how to change that relationship.

And you say,

Well,

I'm going to learn how to drive.

And they say,

Well,

That's stupid.

You're 45 years old.

What the hell are you doing that for or whatever.

And suddenly,

The pattern has changed.

And you look at them and you say,

I think it's a great idea.

And something changed.

Something happened,

A hook was released,

Something changed,

Because you were taking a step forward in something on your path.

And that can happen by reading sacred texts.

In yoga,

There's many paths of yoga.

There's a video I think on YouTube and there's definitely one on insight timer called the many paths of yoga or what kind of yogi are you.

And for some people,

They're very hatha based.

And all that means is you find God or you find yourself through the physical world,

Not necessarily asana practice.

But maybe you feel close to yourself when you go for a run,

Or when you go horseback riding,

Or when you swim in the ocean,

If you're very physically based,

Or maybe you love shifting your diet to feel pure.

Maybe you love doing cleanses and that helps alleviate this is all hatha yoga.

And so if that really resonates with you,

Then you're a hatha yogi.

Maybe the simple act of service is simply looking at someone and saying,

What can I do for you,

I'd really love to help.

No obligation,

No nonsense,

Genuinely from the heart.

And you come home from whatever you did,

And you feel truly at peace with self.

And you're a karma yogi.

Maybe you truly love to imagine the divine.

Maybe you love to consider Jesus or you love to consider Brahman or you love to consider even a saint,

Or even like St.

Mary Magdalene and you sort of go,

You know what,

I'm going to embody this divinity.

And then it's sort of that,

What would Mary Magdalene do?

Or what would Neem Karoli Baba do?

Or what would Jesus do?

Or what would you and in that moment,

You're going to embody or what would Hanuman do or whoever you really floats your boat.

And you kind of do this.

This is bhakti yoga.

This is why people who chant kirtan,

They repeat the names.

That's what kirtan yoga is.

It's just simply repeating the names of the divine,

So that that resonates in you.

So that you become more like Saraswati,

You become more like this.

This is why you chant kirtan.

This is a bhakti yoga path.

Swadhyaya and reading the books.

This is called a jnana yoga path or J N A N A.

And this is all about that peace you find this is me like this is why I've got the books.

I swear that's why the universe gave them to me.

Because if I'm spinning out of control,

It doesn't matter what the topic is.

It could be relationships.

It could be the world.

It could be politics.

It could be my own health.

It could be anything.

If I pick up a book,

And I open it and I start reading it,

Within five minutes,

I will be right back in my center.

This is the path of this swadhyaya.

And you don't have to be a jnana yogi.

We're really all a little bit of all of them.

We just have preferences that work really,

Really quickly.

So that's really the foundation of swadhyaya is the study of ancient texts.

And of course,

What's interesting is,

When you really think about what's in all of these books,

There's books here on so many traditions I've never even heard of.

I don't know what the Sarada Tilaka Matantram is.

I've never even heard of this before.

There are so many schools of thought,

But they all have the same goal.

Every single one of them.

They all have all these different stories,

All these different teachers,

All these different rituals,

But they have one singular goal.

And that is the merging of the self with the divine.

So swadhyaya,

Sua means self,

The soul,

The human soul,

Our own self.

That's what sua means.

Adhyaya means contemplation,

Meditation upon the study,

The lectures,

Reading,

Things like that.

So swadhyaya officially means the study of the self.

But it's also the study of the books because what are the books about actually?

The self.

The books are actually about not just this physical self,

But the divine self.

That's what they all are.

The only reason there's a million books is because there'll be one little story that will be told just in the right way that will resonate with you.

And that will be the key that unhooks something,

Unhooks some karmic thing,

Some samskara,

Some pattern,

And you go,

Oh,

That's what I was looking for.

But every one of us is so incredibly unique,

And we have such unique paths and unique experiences on the planet,

We need lots of different stories.

So this is swadhyaya in the purest sense.

What else is really interesting about swadhyaya is it's self study,

Study of the self,

But it's also study by yourself.

So we can interpret it many ways,

Right,

That we're really looking at self,

Which I'm going to talk more about actually studying this very physical self,

The emotions and all that.

But this is a study we do on our own.

Swadhyaya isn't something we do with a teacher.

It isn't something we do in a study group.

This is something we do on our own between us and our own God,

Our own wisdom,

Our own self.

And we find the book or the teaching that really resonates with us.

And it's between us and that teaching.

That's the dance.

And this is,

This can often be very new.

Because we're really accustomed to learning from a teacher.

We have a real expertism thing going on in our world,

All over the world,

That those people know better than I do.

But the true path of yoga is only about you.

It's about you and your God,

However you understand that.

It's about you and your soul's journey.

You kind of go back to that.

We're all born as little babies.

And who are we?

We came out of what?

The divine nothingness,

The cosmos,

Who knows.

But we incarnated here on earth.

We have a million experiences.

And then we close and we release back into that infinite space.

The journey is ours.

Only ours.

There is no teacher.

It's funny,

My friend Nelda,

Some of you guys have met Nelda,

Super intuitive woman.

And the other day,

She said,

So in the Christian faith,

We'll say things like,

We are the children of God.

And she was helping a friend of mine and she said to them,

There are no grandchildren of God,

Only children.

Which is such an interesting statement that there are no intermediaries.

Nobody gets to that enlightened state.

No one gets to that place of wholeness through another person.

It's not through your teacher.

It's not through your parents.

It's not through your whoever.

It's you and your divine self.

It's you in the universe,

You and consciousness,

However you understand that.

So this is the whole thing with Swadhyaya.

This is your journey.

So this is you sitting down and going,

The light of truth,

Swami Dayanda Saraswati.

This is you sitting with the book and saying,

What do I think of this?

And not what do I think of it so that I can tell other people,

But how does this resonate for me?

And this is a very interesting point because so much of our world is focused outward.

All of our senses are created to experience the outside world.

Our eyes look outward.

Our ears hear outward.

Our touch is outward.

Everything is outward.

So imagine this human body was designed to experience the world out there.

So this is where we kind of depend on other things to give us input.

So suddenly we close our eyes.

We shut down all of those senses,

Which is why we learn all of these things like pratyahara and things like that.

We shut down all the senses and we focus inward and we experience something else because our senses experience the transient kind of ever-changing world.

But inside when we study the self,

The self is not changing.

The self is stillness.

The self is eternal.

The self is divine.

So we actually have to turn our eyes inward to look at that.

So it's a very interesting thing to even philosophically for each of us to say,

So when I read the book,

And I'm just using a book as an example.

When I read the book,

I'm considering how this affects my personal journey.

What does this enlighten for me about my path?

What does it open in my path going forward?

What does it help me understand from my past?

Self study directed by you.

And this is really interesting because we're just not accustomed to it.

We kind of think,

Oh well,

But I don't have an education in that.

I don't have,

I'm not enlightened,

I'm not whatever.

How could I possibly study this?

It's like that's the point.

On Mondays,

We read from the radiant sutras.

This is the entire point of sutras is to read it and let it permeate your body.

Let it bring up whatever it is it's going to bring up.

So the path of yoga is really ours alone and the yama is the first limb of yoga.

This is really about other.

Ahimsa,

Satya,

Brahmacharya.

How do I make sure I stay on the path because other is going to distract me.

The niyamas,

Sauccha,

Swadhya,

These ones,

Santosha,

Like last week.

These are just our path.

Sometimes that might feel kind of lonely.

It's like,

So I'm not studying with anybody and it's a bit funny,

Right?

Especially when we've been trained in schools and like formal education because we kind of have this idea that if I get something,

Then I should kind of get a gold star,

Right?

Like someone should be able to say,

Good for you.

That was a great revelation.

It's a bit of a pisser when all of a sudden nobody's doing that.

And don't get me wrong,

I loved being a good student in school.

I like getting that pat on the back and oh Katrina,

That was really good.

I loved that.

So it's a real transition to actually go within and start to almost feel that satisfaction within that feels better.

It's almost like the happiness we get from the realization of something is so beautiful.

We no longer need the validation of others.

And don't get me wrong,

I'm a chatty Kathy,

You guys know that.

So if I have a big revelation,

Everyone's going to hear about it.

But in my world,

My friends,

It's not like they sit there and they go,

Oh,

Good for you,

Katrina.

Good for doing the work.

They don't do that.

They're like,

Awesome.

You want a coffee?

It's just kind of a,

It's kind of expected that we're all on the journey.

We're all doing stuff.

We're all sorting things out.

And maybe something in my little story,

Twig something for them or vice versa.

So self study is interesting to really kind of take the reins of your own chariot and say,

All right,

Where are we going to go next?

What do I need to know?

And maybe you're called to read the Tao Te Ching,

Maybe you're called to read the Bhagavad Gita,

Maybe you're called to read,

Who knows what sacred text is really calling you.

So then the question becomes,

What kind of text could you read?

I leave this up to your discernment.

But the Swadhyaya really isn't reading self help books.

Because self help books often can be fad oriented,

That here's an idea.

And I'm going to run with this idea.

And sometimes they're helpful and interesting.

And God knows I've written them,

Right?

So it's not like,

I'm not against the reading of books.

But sacred books are different,

Because there's this element of always merging the divine with the self.

Since the self help world isn't always about that.

The self help world tends to often stay in the 3d model.

And so we might learn great things and have great realizations in our own life.

But we're not necessarily on a journey to the big S self.

We're not on a journey to that really big self.

So you'll notice some things a sacred text that you really want to read or study.

So another aspect of Swadhyaya is studying self like actually being aware of this very 3d DNA expression of God.

That we actually turn our minds inward,

And we observe our emotions,

And we observe our thoughts.

And we're aware of our reactions.

And we're aware of our patterns.

Word in Sanskrit,

Samsara,

Not Samskara,

But Samsara.

It talks about the cycle of reincarnation,

And how that this earth,

This place that we are,

Is the Samsara,

The place where we can be born and die and reborn,

Have rebirth and do this thing.

But what's weird about this word Samsara is it also means wandering,

Like a place of wandering.

And what's interesting about that is it's almost like this spirit of when we're caught in the Samsara,

We're caught in this cycle of birth,

Death,

Rebirth,

But we're doing it blindly.

We're just wandering.

We're just like kind of at the whim of our five senses.

Every single thing we do is about survival.

Every single thing we do is reaction to the outside world.

And we just sort of live our whole life in reaction to the outside world.

But essentially,

We're just wandering through life because no one's driving the chariot.

No one has any higher wisdom within.

And we're just kind of living like this.

This is Samsara wandering through our lifetimes kind of blindly.

So Swadhyaya says,

We can stop,

We can close our eyes,

And we can observe our patterns.

We can start to see these cycles that we're living in.

We can see that why does that person always get me going?

Why do I get so triggered when they say that thing over and over and over and over again?

It's one thing if it happens once or even twice,

But when it's like the 20th time,

We really have to stop and say,

Why am I literally repeating the same TV show?

My soul is not expanding.

What's going on?

I am literally in a loop.

Well,

What's the point of being in a loop?

So Swadhyaya sits back and observes and says,

Huh,

All right,

Here are the players.

Here are the emotions I feel.

Here are the thoughts that come up.

Here's what seems to be happening.

Hmm,

Interesting.

The contemplation of self,

That living in your witness mind and observing self with kindness,

Without judgment,

And without prejudice.

It's only helpful if we can observe self without prejudice or judgment.

And this is a huge deal.

It is a huge deal because I know even.

So this morning I was saying that I was feeling a little floaty.

And I was laughing at myself because I love to eat anything I want really.

I don't like changing my diet.

It's not something I'll do.

I'll do a million other things.

But that one,

I just like,

I like wandering through that one.

But what's interesting is if I apply Swadhyaya to that aspect of my life,

I am not able or part of my journey,

I struggle to observe myself without prejudice.

Because I have ideas in my mind about what's right and what's wrong.

And as long as I have prejudice,

As long as I have ideas that this is right and this is wrong,

I cannot observe myself clearly.

Because those things that I don't want to be,

I will not allow myself to see.

I will talk myself around and around and all that kind of thing.

I'll talk myself around them.

What if I have an inner prejudice that says people who have strong willpower are good people.

And maybe I am not a disciplined person.

And I have this prejudice deep inside of me.

Oh,

When I observe myself,

I'll avoid the fact that maybe I lack discipline.

Maybe I lack self-discipline.

That is not without prejudice.

So I'm still honing,

I'm trying to see myself through a certain light because I want to be that person.

So Swadhyaya,

When we observe self,

We must be able to do it without prejudice and without judgment.

And that's a really big deal because that prejudice is so deeply ingrained in our society that these are good character habits or good character traits.

Healthy people do this.

Enlightened people do this.

These are prejudices.

Like to really understand these are very strong ideas in our minds that have nothing to do with divinity.

That has nothing to do with our highest self.

They are all just ideas based in this 3D world that we live in,

Created by man.

They're not real because we'll have different opinions in different societies all over the earth as to what good behavior is,

What proper discipline is.

These are all just created.

Nothing to do with the true study of the self.

And so it's really interesting.

So the first step of this self study is being aware of this personality that I was given.

My divine self was given this version of a human to play in this cosmic theater that we're all in together,

Playing roles in each other's drama.

That's all we're doing.

It's awesome.

Like I'm not saying it's all we're doing.

I'm saying it's awesome.

We're playing roles.

So the first thing we have to do is be aware of the role we were given.

We have to study the self in the way that I understand me and I'm really honest with me without prejudice or judgment that huh,

Okay for some reason I'm meant to play someone who loves this,

Loves that,

Doesn't like doing that,

Hates doing that,

Always falls for that,

Tends to get triggered by that and we just own it and we just say yeah,

Okay,

Interesting.

From there we can look at those pieces and say so which of those bits are harming my yogic path?

And when I say yogic path I mean my path to my own happiness.

That's all we're here to do is have fun and experience joy and experience freedom,

Moksha,

Liberation.

That's why all the books,

If there's anything these books also are all about is experience the freedom of the soul like actually diving into that divine self here on the planet.

Imagine how amazing it would be to be alive on this earth to get to swim in the oceans and smell the grass and just eat the food and make love and do all these amazing things with the awareness that we are divine beings.

Like does earth not become the most amazing playground in the whole world?

So if this is the goal after we practice this swadhyaya and we really understand self with a little bit of joyful observation and we say you know what?

That over there we need to look at that.

That thing that happens every time you go to a family event we need to look at that because that's really getting in the way of your happiness.

So let's look at it,

Let's open it up,

Let's figure it out,

Let's do whatever we've got to do you know.

And my daughter lives in an apartment in a town close to here and right beside there's this company called the anger management place.

It's basically a place where you just smash things.

I was at her place one day when she first got there and I said wow do you think like the neighbors are ever going to finish the renovation?

She said they're not renovating,

They're just smashing things.

I'm not saying that that's the right medicine but it might be if you really do it with a yogic presence and you really say I am going to bust through this thing or whatever.

Anyway that's just one silly example.

So then the cool thing is once we really understand us,

Most people did not get a particularly easy assignment.

Do you know what I mean?

There's a lot of families of origin that have been happening for generations and generations like our family of origin was a little bit easier than the family before them,

Before the family before them.

Like we're not coming out of a utopia.

So a lot of us really have had some tough roads to hoe in life,

Some really tough times.

So even this study of self to really look at who we are,

Where we're still hurt,

What our traumas are,

What traumas are still alive.

It's not that how many traumas we've had because very often we really can't heal and then they're not loaded anymore.

So the question is what's still online?

What traumas as soon as you think of it you kind of like there's a live wire,

There's a live program.

So we keep looking at that and then once we kind of get through those bits,

Once we kind of get through all the little loose ends in our life,

That becomes the gateway to experiencing our highest self.

We can't really experience our connection to the divine while we're lost in these painful places.

The painful places are very limiting.

It's like anything.

I mean if you break your leg and it hurts,

It takes a phenomenal amount of our attention.

Anyone who's ever struggled with chronic pain,

You will become immersed in the pain experience.

I remember after I had my son,

I had a c-section and later I found out that it was actually a botch job.

It's a horrible story I'm not going to talk about.

But needless to say I couldn't walk for six months after I gave birth to my son.

I didn't know why until they opened me up for my daughter and they realized everything that was wrong inside of me.

So anyway I crawled on my hands and knees for six months after my son was born.

When you're in that kind of pain all the time,

You're not thinking about anything else.

You're not thinking about self-actualization or the immersion of God in my life.

You're thinking about the pain.

So this is a real thing and it's not something to be skipped,

It's not something to be bypassed,

It's something to be looked at,

Healed,

Sorted and it is part of our journey.

But once we actually heal that,

Something new is possible because that pain isn't owning us anymore.

And that's where swadhyaya,

When we study self,

We start to access something much greater inside.

And this is where all words disappear.

Like I can't actually describe that.

And we've all had glimpses of it.

We wouldn't be here on Insight Timer if we hadn't had glimpses of that greater self,

That greater experience,

That divinity.

I remember reading a book,

I don't know if it was David Data,

And I remember he was going to this tantrika and he had to climb this mountain.

It was all very hard to get to and she was hard to get to and blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

But he finally gets there and they actually are having a dialogue and she says to him,

When was your first spiritual awakening?

And he said,

I don't think I've had one.

And she said,

You wouldn't be here unless you'd had one.

Even if it was this big,

Like even if it was the tiniest moment observing a sunset,

It could have been anything.

But there was some moment that opened you up to the idea that I am not just a slave to my senses or to the world.

I actually,

There is consciousness inside that I can access.

What's really beautiful of it,

It's kind of like,

Sometimes you can imagine it like a continuum that over here,

We're still focused on the worldly things and not in a bad way.

You know,

I love chocolate.

I love making love.

I love walking by the beach.

I love swimming in warm seas.

This world,

This physical,

Sensual,

Literally sensual world is epic.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying this gift of an incarnation.

But we can be very focused here.

And then over here is this expansion into the divine,

Into the infinite,

Into what it's all about,

Into the consciousness,

Into how all of us here today are actually connected.

But of course,

Once we're over here,

We can't really say words.

There's not really words to describe it.

There's not really words to describe the strange thing that all of us here that how come we can kind of feel everybody.

Right?

Even though we're all over the world,

Some part of me can feel everybody.

We don't have words to describe that.

It's beyond our,

Our little English perceptions of things.

When I sit and I go,

No,

I really am part of all things.

I am never alone.

I don't have words to describe that.

So the journey of swadhyaya,

Where does it take us on our yogic path?

It just takes us to the self,

To our greatest self,

To our understanding of how the self fits into the universe fits into the divine.

And it can be through self study.

It can be through meditation.

It can be through yoga,

It can be through journaling.

It can be through anything.

So I just want to talk for a moment about applying this in a very practical way.

So for example,

Let's take meditation.

The when we practice meditation,

Because all meditation when you do sitting meditation,

We're just practicing being meditative in life.

So if I sit and I meditate,

Sometimes the goal might be just to experience blissful stillness.

Sometimes it might be to ask for guidance.

There's a lot of reasons to sit in meditation.

But it can also be swadhyaya,

That you're sitting and you observe your thoughts.

And you're just watching,

Like you're studying self.

You're watching the thoughts that are going through your mind.

One of the things that's really interesting to me lately that I really think about a lot,

I don't have a big answer for it.

I'm sure it's growing into something I don't know,

Is how weird it is that our brains just have all these random thoughts all the time.

It actually is very difficult to control the thoughts in our mind.

That doesn't make any sense to me.

If I lift this arm up and down,

I'm controlling the arm,

The arm is mine.

It's part of my nervous system.

I'm controlling it.

If you were to say to me,

And I'm doing this,

And you're like,

We'll stop moving your arm and I say,

Well,

I can't.

It just keeps on going.

It just keeps on going.

It's so weird.

It just keeps on going.

And they're like,

Just put your arm down.

And I go,

Really?

I can just do that?

And I guess,

Oh,

I put my arm down.

Because I decided,

Why isn't the brain the same?

Why do we feel so at the whim of whatever random thoughts pop into our head?

Why can't we control our brain like we can control our bicep?

And so what's really interesting is imagine you sit in meditation.

And these thoughts are flowing through your mind.

But you're not judging them.

We're observing without prejudice and judgment.

And we're just watching going,

Hmm,

That's interesting.

That's an interesting circuit that I'm pondering right now.

But it's all just about this observation.

We don't criticize ourselves like,

I can't believe you're doing this and you're wasting your meditation time.

It's just self-study.

Fascinating.

Or maybe you're doing yoga.

I teach Kundalini yoga.

So we do Kriyas,

We do sets of exercises.

And you're doing this Kriya and it's particularly difficult.

But of course,

It's never about achieving anything,

Because that's not the point of yoga.

The point is what happens in the journey?

Why does this exercise bring up these thoughts and these emotions?

So all of a sudden,

You have this beautiful vision of Svadhyaya while you're practicing whatever yoga practice you do.

But you're always watching.

You're watching your mind,

You're watching your emotions,

You're watching your body.

It's just interesting.

You're just learning about you.

And then imagine all of life is the same.

That you just have this beautiful awareness as you walk through life,

Going,

Hmm,

That's fascinating.

And not just fascinating like,

Oh,

Aren't I fascinating?

But isn't it interesting,

This how I fit into the cosmos?

And isn't it interesting is how I can't remember how this one time somebody once said,

They were talking about how we cannot see the world clearly through someone else's eyes.

Because we do that when we have the ideas of that person and we've overlaid them in my head.

And the ideas of that institution,

I've overlaid that in my head.

Maybe this book I read,

And I've overlaid that.

And now when I try to look out my eyes,

I'm looking through the filters of other people.

Well,

I can't actually see clearly,

Because this being this particular DNA sequence is perfect.

Your vision of the world is perfect.

The key is to actually be perfectly you.

We can't have any other filters.

I keep imagining it like a kaleidoscope,

But it's not really a kaleidoscope.

But we keep maybe like binoculars.

You know when you have binoculars and you have to keep adjusting to get the focus properly?

It's like that.

It's like everything we do and we just keep focusing,

But we're focusing to our frequency,

To our resonance.

And if I can get it exactly 100% Katrina focus,

Then I'll be able to see the world clearly.

So it's a fascinating thing to kind of live your life as this perpetual student of life,

Which begins with the study of self,

The awareness of self,

The awareness of the filters.

And maybe I'm actually seeing the world through my parents' eyes,

Or I'm seeing the world through what I imagine a spiritually enlightened person might think,

Might think,

Not where I really am.

But that's swadhyaya.

It's a beautiful focus to just stay with all the time to really help us keep expanding and keep expanding in life.

How do you shift from self study to actual application?

I find myself stuck searching for the answer and never making any steps towards progress.

So back in 1999,

I was sick,

And lots of you guys know this.

And I had breast lumps.

My mom had just died of breast cancer.

And a man appeared in my life,

This teacher,

Jim.

And this whole story is in my book,

What If You Could Skip the Cancer?

And what he taught me was that there were three stages of prayer,

And that the only reason we pray for guidance is to get an action step.

It's not just about understanding something.

It's kind of like karma.

If you have a pattern that you're circling in,

Just the sheer understanding of it isn't going to fix anything.

You actually have to take action to get off the merry-go-round.

You actually have to get off the merry-go-round.

You can't just be aware that you're cycling.

You have to take action.

So he would say that there are three steps to prayer,

Or guidance,

Or intuition,

However you want to understand it.

And the first is asking.

What are you really asking?

And that's a huge deal.

That's not a small question.

It's not an easy thing to say.

It's like,

What are you really asking for?

Because we're really accustomed to wandering,

To kind of being buffeted by other people and circumstances and stuff.

It's like,

Okay,

With this happening and this happening and this person's opinion and this and everything going on,

What do you want?

That's the question.

What do you want?

Ask.

Second is listening.

And this is no small step to actually be able to say,

To actually be able to understand and listen and recognize the guidance.

Sometimes,

You know,

It can be like there's 25 voices in your head.

Which one is the guidance?

And that's a journey to actually understand which one feels right.

And then the third step is taking action.

And that's really interesting.

And what's really interesting is when you choose to take action,

Real miracles start to happen around you.

Miracles and relationships that you can't even imagine,

Things appearing in your life that you couldn't have fathomed could have happened.

And what's really cool is when you know that you're actually asking for guidance because you're going to take action,

We start to ask better questions.

It's almost like if we know we're going to do something about it,

We don't ask questions that don't lead to an action step.

So if you find yourself sort of stuck and not taking action,

The question becomes,

What is it you don't want to do?

Caroline Mays used to say that sometimes when you're in a dark night of the soul,

We've asked for a guidance,

We've received guidance,

But we don't like the answer.

So we basically plunge into a dark night of the soul because there's only one answer.

There's only one next step.

And if we don't like it,

We just throw ourselves into limbo because I'm not ready to make that step.

So it's always interesting when there's something that you kind of know you should be doing or you could be doing and we're not.

And not again,

Not with judgment or prejudice,

Just gentle kindness,

Observing self,

Learning about self,

Swadhyaya,

Going,

Why is this so hard?

Is this a pattern I've lived many,

Many times in many lifetimes?

Is that what's going on here?

Who knows?

What can I do to step off the treadmill?

Yesterday there was a shooting at a 4th of July parade in my hometown.

And yesterday I felt like I picked up the pain from the band kids running from the shooter.

I just absorbed it as if I was in the parade too.

Do I just need to observe that I do this sometimes?

Totally.

But then you have to open up your own divine exit point also to really understand that you are this incredible channel of divine energy.

And when we are really sensitive like that and we absorb things from outward,

We then release it back into the divine.

We don't hold it in our system.

We don't carry it.

We release it back.

We allow,

You know,

They see those tauruses,

The big,

The beautiful,

Like a donut,

The energy kind of goes through us and out and around it keeps or it goes this way,

However you understand it,

Going this way.

You have to release it back into the cosmos.

Give it back to God.

Give it back to infinity.

Let it flow through you.

So thank you so much for being here.

I hope you have a wonderful day.