MALE SPEAKER: Good afternoon.
It's my pleasure, privilege,
and honor to welcome to the
Googleplex Radhanath Swami, a
renowned Vedic scholar, bhakti
yoga teacher, and an author.
I first came across Radhanath
Swami in a Burning Man video.
Believe it or not, he
does get around.
And in that video, he said a
statement that a stuck with me
for a very long time.
And that statement
was, everybody
is looking for happiness.
But to find your happiness, you
don't need to change your
externalities.
All you need to do is to change
your consciousness.
And the second time I came
across Radhanath Swami was at
the Wanderlust Festival
at Lake Tahoe.
So I told you, he
does get around.
And he was there with Moby and
Ziggy Marley, and he was give
a talk on environmentalism.
And at that time, he gave me a
copy of his book, "The Journey
Home, an Autobiography of
an American Swami."
And it's an extraordinary
story in this book of
adventure, of love
and mysticism.
And in this book he talks
about, I read with
fascination, of how a young man
called Richard Slavin from
the suburbs of Chicago,
a little hippie--
he did have long hair back
then, should-length hair,
believe me--
left on a trip around the world,
seeking something,
something that is calling
out to him.
And he went on this trip
through Europe, Western
Europe, Eastern Europe, Central
Asia through Iran,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and
finally found himself
meditating in a cave in
the Indian Himalayas.
And along the way, he lost all
of his possessions and his
diaries at least five times,
sometimes just washed away by
the River Ganges.
And yet, when you read this
book, you'll be struck by how
striking is his recall
of minute details,
going back 20, 30 years.
And through this journey that
he documents in the book--
you can get a copy of the
book at the back--
Radhanath Swami discovered that
the fundamental problems
in life are really caused by
what he calls the frailties of
human nature, and that there
is a path to happiness, and
that there is a path to solving
world problems that
entails what he calls shifting
your consciousness.
And to talk about that more,
please help me welcome to
Googleplex, once again,
Radhanath Swami.
RADHANATH SWAMI:
[CHANTING IN SANSKRIT]
It is my great pleasure
and honor to be
with all of you today.
This company, Google, started
in a small way not long ago.
And it's come to a level where
it practically influences, in
every aspect of life, almost
everyone on Earth.
I have observed this
as I travel around.
Even little swamis like me,
when I come to speak to
somewhere, almost everyone
says I googled
you before I came.
Not to speak of buying things
for the household or making
investments.
Such a great power of influence
your company has on
so many lives throughout
the world.
I'd like to begin by speaking
something about networking
from the perspective
of nature.
Just a few days ago, I took a
walk with one of my very dear
friends to a redwood forest.
Have you been to Muir Woods?
Every year I go with one of my
dear friends while I'm in this
area to the Muir Woods, just
to get away from everything
and the beauty of nature.
And there, some of the largest
and greatest trees on the
entire planet have been standing
for hundreds or even
thousands of years old.
And as you're walking along the
little pathways, the bark
of the trees is so thick, and
there's so many such trees
hardly any sun comes down,
because it's blocked by all
the leaves and branches.
And footsteps are kind of
absorbed in this thick bark.
So it's a very mystical
silence.
And as we were walking, we came
to one of the largest
trees in the forest.
There was a group of Chinese
tourists in a circle around a
park ranger.
And I happened to stand just
behind the tourists to hear
what he was saying.
He was about to tell what he
said the underground secret of
the redwood trees.
Now an American coming from
the 1960s, I still have an
inclination to hear underground
secrets.
And he asked a question.
He began by telling how these
trees in this forest have
stood over hundreds or thousands
of years through
massive snow storms, windstorms,
and devastating
earthquakes, and yet they keep
growing bigger and higher and
higher and higher.
Now for most trees to have
strength, they need roots that
go very, very deep.
But the redwood trees, their
roots do not grow very deep,
and they're in an area
with very loose soil.
And it's a hilly region.
How do they withstand these
storms and earthquakes and
keep growing?
And then he paused for about a
minute so that we could all
ponder this question.
How do they survive?
And as I was pondering, I was
thinking of all the storms
that come in life, individually,
collectively,
socially, nationally,
internationally.
Then he revealed the secret.
The roots of the redwood tree,
they grow outward underground,
reaching for the roots of
other redwood trees.
And as soon as they come in
contact with each other, they
intertwine and make permanent
bond between them.
They're interlocked.
This means that one tree is
locked in its root system with
another tree on one side
and on another
side with other trees.
And the trees that are on the
other side of the trees that
they're interlocked with are
interlocked with other trees.
And the little baby trees, their
little tiny roots, these
big ancient giants wrap their
roots around them.
In this way, practically
every tree in
the forest is connected.
Their unity is their strength.
Even through storms, winds,
and earthquakes, they hold
each other up and keep growing
and growing and growing.
This is nature's lesson
of networking.
United we stand.
Divided we fall.
In our lives, our heart is
like where our roots are.
And when the roots of our
care, our concern, our
affection actually connect
with each other, we can
develop such incredible
strength.
Even when the storms come-- the
storm of temptation, the
storm of fear, the storm of
reversals and challenges--
we can hold each other strong.
And this is very much a
spiritual principle.
There's a very beautiful verse
in the "Bhagavad Gita." When I
first heard this, I thought,
this is what I've always been
looking for.
You see, I was born in a Jewish
family near Chicago.
And in my life, I had a natural
inclination towards
spirituality.
But I saw so much hate and
division in the name of a
loving God.
This was extremely
disturbing to me.
Either I have to reject the
whole concept altogether, or
is there something deeper,
something that actually is
there, in an essence, that
unites us and awakens real
character and real love,
something common?
I believed in that essence,
and I was
seeking that essence.
This is written about in this
little book I wrote.
I hitchhiked from London through
Europe through the
Middle East, travelled through
India, studying various
religions under various
masters, trying
to find that essence.
And a particular verse in the
"Bhagavad Gita," when I heard
it, I was thinking, yes.
This is what the world needs.
This is what I need.
Would you like to
hear that verse?
In Sanskrit, [SPEAKING SANSKRIT]
Real wisdom, it is defined not
by how much data we collect
within our brains.
Real wisdom is not how
many degrees we have.
Real wisdom is not how many
followers we have.
It is to the extent we have
the capacity to see every
living being with
equal vision.
Whether one is man or woman,
black, white, red, yellow, or
brown, whether one is from the
East or the West, whether one
is a Christian or a Jew or a
Muslim or Hindu a Jain or a
Buddhist or a Zoroastrian
or a Sikh or an
agnostic or an atheist.
The "Gita" goes so far to say,
whether one is a human or an
elephant or a cw or
a dog or a cat.
Wherever there is life,
it is sacred.
Life is sacred.
When we understand how our own
life is sacred, we will
understand that sacredness and
respect it wherever we
experience life, in every tree,
in every plant, in every
living being.
And then the "Gita" goes
on to explain, what is
the nature of life?
[SPEAKING SANSKRIT]
That the conscious force that's
seeing through the eyes
and hearing through the ears
and tasting through the
tongue, touching through the
flesh, thinking through the
brain, loving through
the heart, that
living force is divine.
It is Sat Chit Ananda, eternal,
full of knowledge,
and full of bliss.
It's indestructible.
The body is constantly
changing.
The mind is constantly
changing.
The witness of these changes is
constant, and that witness
is our true self.
[SPEAKING SANSKRIT]
That means it cannot be cut
into pieces by any weapon.
It can't be moistened
by water.
It cannot be burned by fire.
And it does not die
with the body.
According to the "Gita,"
the body is like a
car or motor vehicle.
Some drive Mercedes, BMWs.
Some drive Fords.
Some drive Volvos.
Some drive Hondas or Toyotas.
And some drive Hindustani
ambassadors.
According to how much money we
have and according to the
choices we make, we get a
particular type of car.
The "Gita" explains similarly,
according to the choices we
make and according to what we've
invested in, in what is
called karma, for every action
there is an equal reaction, we
get a particular type of body.
And there are so many different
varieties of bodies.
And there are so many different
differences,
differences in the ways
religions describe things,
their languages, their rituals,
differences in habits
and cultures, in ways of life,
in physical appearances.
But to understand the unity
within diversity is the secret
of actually finding peace and
being an instrument of peace
within this word.
That atman, or that
living force, that
soul, is the true self.
And at the time of death,
according to the "Gita," when
this car of the body is no
longer suitable to us, we go
into another car, according to
the choices and the desires we
have created in this life.
Human life is very special,
because we have such a vast
capacity of free will.
You'll never see a cow jumping
on rabbits and devouring them,
and you'll never see a tiger
grazing on grass.
Because they are programmed--
you people are the best computer
people in the planet,
so you'll understand
it better than me--
with a particular
consciousness.
But a human being has
such free will.
We could be saints.
We could be serial killers.
We could be envious.
We could be everyone's
well-wisher.
We could be respectful and
self-controlled, or we could
be completely wild
and impolite.
But with that power free choice
comes responsibility.
The Bible says, as ye sow,
so shall ye reap.
In the Vedic text, this is
called the laws of karma.
For every action, there's an
equal corresponding reaction.
But the soul, the atman, is
beyond all these things.
But when the atman, due to the
ahamkar, or the false ego,
identifies with this temporary
body and this mind, instead of
understanding I am in my body,
when we think I am this body,
I am observing life through
this mind, I am this mind,
there's a big difference.
If we identify with it and
forget our true nature, then
we're deeply affected by every
situation that comes to us.
Yoga means to reconnect.
And interestingly, the Latin
word religio, which is the
root of religion, means
to bind back.
They really mean
the same thing.
They don't mean just to be a
particular sectarian group
that feels that I
have knowledge
and nobody else does.
Religion actually means to
reconnect with our own
essential self and with the
grace of God and to be an
instrument of that grace
in whatever we do.
And when we make that connection
with ourself to
understand our own eternal,
pure, loving nature, then we
can actually see it in everyone
in a dormant state,
and then even nature, our
environment, our ecology.
When we're in harmony with
our self, we'll be in
harmony with nature.
We'll be in harmony
with each other.
I write about this
in the book.
In 1971, I got a very wonderful
lesson from an event
that we might see every few days
something like this, but
we don't really take
it seriously.
The Bible said, seek
and ye shall find.
If we're really seeking wisdom,
it's amazing where
we'll find it.
We'll find it everywhere.
I was sitting on the bank
the River Ganges.
It was the summer, very hot,
probably 110 degrees
Fahrenheit.
And nobody else was
there at the time.
It was actually at Prayag, the
place where the Kumbh Mela
takes place.
I was just at Kumbh Mela.
And the day I bathed in the same
spot, according to the
government 35 million
people bathed.
35 million humans bathed in
that place on that day.
But in 1971, when I was sitting
there, I was the only
one around.
A hawk was flying overhead.
This hawk was hovering lower
and lower and lower till he
was just a few meters
above me.
I looked up at him.
He had brown, what, and kind
of gold feathers, with his
wings expanded, and extremely
sharp claws.
And its beak was curved down
and pointed very sharp, and
yellow eyes that seemed to be
unblinkingly gazing at me as
he was coming lower and
lower and lower.
So naturally, I was thinking,
maybe he's hungry.
Maybe I'm his food.
Suddenly, he dove right into
the water and went
underwater a little.
And there was a skirmish.
And about 30 seconds later, he
emerged from the water with
the flapping fish
in its claws.
That fish was about
a foot long.
And it was really bewildered.
It was just a few yards
in front of me.
And I looked into the
eyes of that fish.
He or she--
I couldn't tell.
And I don't want to call it, so
I'll just call him he, just
for conventional purposes.
That fish looked so disoriented
and bewildered.
And I was thinking, he was
probably just going about his
day like every other day,
swimming upstream, swimming
downstream, maybe with
family, friends,
looking for food, playing.
Did not expect that at the least
expected moment it would
be a ripped out of
its complacency
by the hawk of destiny.
And I was thinking how many
people I know, how many people
I hear about.
Very much like that fish,
they're just going about their
days, and all of a sudden
they're diagnosed with a
terminal disease, or they're
betrayed by a loved one, or
they get in an accident, or
there's an earthquake that
devastates everything
around them.
It happens every day.
No one expects it.
That hawk of destiny is kind of
flying over everyone's head
and could come down to get us.
And I was thinking how we
shouldn't be complacent.
We should make priorities in
our life of what really is
sacred, what really
is important.
I remember Martin Luther
King speaking.
He said, if you do not have an
ideal you're willing to die
for, you have nothing meaningful
to live for.
Do we have that ideal?
Moments pass, and we're just
so preoccupied with
superficialities.
How much time do we really
invest in trying to discover
what's really meaningful
and important in life?
And then I reflected how if that
fish was swimming deeper,
the hawk could not reach it.
And similarly, if our
fulfillment, if our pleasure
and meaning in life is deep,
then whatever happens in this
ever-changing world cannot
really disturb what we have
achieved within ourselves and
cannot alter the integrity and
the character in
which we live.
This is a beautiful building.
But how many of us are thinking
how wonderful the
foundation is?
The foundation, like the
roots of those redwood
trees, cannot be seen.
It's something deeper than what
the eyes can perceive.
But yet, the integrity of the
building is completely
dependent on the strength
of the foundation.
The Bible tells like
this, build your
house on solid rock.
Then any storm that
comes will not--
It may disturb it, but it's just
a temporary disturbance.
But if you build your house on
shifting sand, then when the
storm comes everything
crumbles.
How much are we really taking
seriously developing the
foundation of our lives, a
deep inner fulfillment?
In 1971, I lived with Mother
Teresa for some time.
And I remember she said
something to me
that was quite profound.
And it was the same thing I was
hearing from so many great
sages in the Himalayas, that the
greatest problem in this
world is hunger, not hunger
of the stomach,
hunger of the heart.
What is the one thing that
nourishes the heart?
Love.
It's the most essential
need for all of us, to
love and to be loved.
If we have everything else but
not that, there will be no
fulfillment to the heart.
And if we have that, whether
we have everything else or
nothing else, there's an
inner fulfillment.
Because fulfillment it's not the
ever-fleeting experiences
that come before our eyes or
that we touch with our skin.
Those things are fleeting.
Or even fame and prestige, they
come and go in the mind.
Fulfillment is a thing
of the heart, to
love and to be loved.
And the origin, the universal
principle of all these great
spiritual paths is to
the origin of that
love is within us.
It is our inherent nature.
In the theistic paths, it is
to experience the infinite
love of God, who has many names,
who has appeared in
this world in many times in many
forms to feel that love
and to love.
And the "Bhagavad Purana" tells
that when we experience
that love and we reciprocate
with that love, it's like
watering the root of a tree.
When there is love of God, it
naturally extends to every
living being, just as watering
the root of a tree that water
extends to every leaf,
every flower, every
branch, every twig.
It doesn't discriminate.
It's natural.
According to the yoga
principles, it is that
spiritual experience that is
the deepest fulfillment.
And when we find that deep
fulfillment within ourselves,
then the ever-changing world
and all the challenges that
come cannot disturb it.
The hawk of faith cannot go deep
if the fish are swimming
in a safe place.
But if our happiness and our
purpose and our meaning in
life is based on all these
ever-changing, superficial
conditions, at any moment
it could be changed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, he said
the reason why our society
lacks unity and lies broken and
in heaps is because man
has lost connection with
himself or herself.
This is a transcendental
universal principle, to
actually connect to that essence
of who we really are.
If a person has chronic boils,
boils are extremely painful,
and you have to let them go
through their natural course.
I've had many in my life.
We have to treat the symptoms.
We put salve on it.
We treat that boil in
a particular way.
But if the cause of the boils
is a disease in the blood,
unless we treat that, then
there will just be
continuous--
We treat one, we make it better,
and another comes.
Some years ago, I was sitting
in the New Delhi Airport.
I had just taken a pilgrimage of
several thousand people for
about two weeks in a place
called Vrindavan, and I was
really tired.
I was waiting for a flight to
get back to where I live in
Mumbai, and I was really happy
to kind of just be alone
waiting for the flight.
And then somebody came up to
me and said, the Union
Minister of the government of
India for the environment
wants to speak to you.
So I said, OK.
And she came up, and
she challenged me.
She said, what are you swamis
and yogis doing for the
environment?
The rivers are polluted.
The oceans are polluted.
The ground is polluted.
The air is polluted.
And you're just sitting around
chanting your mantras and
meditating and doing your
pujas, your rituals?
What are you doing?
We need action.
So that was a challenge.
It's kind of like a storm.
It's like an earthquake,
actually.
Very powerful lady.
And she stared at me, waiting
for an answer, because she
really cared.
She really cared about
the environment.
And I remember responding by
using the same example.
When we're covered with boils,
we do have to treat the
symptomatic problem.
But if the cause is a disease
in the blood, we
have to treat that.
What is the cause for all of
this crime and all this hatred
and hypocrisy in the
name of religion?
What is the problem with the
greed on Wall Street that's
actually creating such a
destabilization in our own economy?
What is the problem in India
among politicians who for
bribes are willing
to compromise and
let the people suffer?
And what is actually
the reason why
there's all this pollution?
It's a pollution within
the human heart.
When our heart is polluted,
through our words and through
our actions and through the
decisions we make, we're going
to pollute the world.
Because what's in is expressed
through what we do and say.
We have to address, we have to
educate people how to live in
harmony with ourself, how to
live in harmony with each
other, how to live in harmony
with God, and how to live in
harmony with nature,
And today's world now, it has
come to a point with all of
our incredible science and our
incredible technology and the
unbelievable development of
industry and the armies and
the weapons and the bombs and
the incredible power of
communication.
If we don't use these things
with the right attitude, with
the right motives we have the
power to really cause serious
destruction.
The purpose of religion, the
purpose of spirituality, the
purpose of yoga is
very simple.
It's not a sectarian idea.
It's to clean the pollution
in our hearts.
Transformation, transformation
of arrogance into humility,
transformation of greed,
toxic greed that
can never be satisfied.
Being a millionaire,
being a billionaire
cannot satisfy the heart.
That's the way greed is.
It's like a fire.
The more you feed it,
the hotter it burns.
And selfishness, transforming
selfishness into a desire to
selflessly or unselfishly
serve others.
Hate into love.
Envy into rejoicing over
somebody else's good fortune.
And actually connecting,
connecting to a grace, an
energy that is within all of us
in everything, that brings
out that love that
is within us.
So I told this lady that we're
trying to do our part.
And you're doing your part, and
we should work together.
Because if we don't clean up
the internal state of human
consciousness, even if you
clean every river, every
ocean, all the air, and all the
ground, as long as that
selfish egoistic greed is there,
they're just going to
pollute it all over again.
And she smiled and said, yes,
we must work together.
This is the potential of those
interlocking roots of the
redwood forest.
We all have our differences.
Some of us are accountants.
Some of us are software
engineers.
Some of us are managers.
Some of us are politicians,
farmers, scientists,
technologists.
In a human body, every part
of the body has a unique
function, but they're not
fighting with each other.
It's not that the brain
says to the kidneys,
I'm better that you.
You do what I say.
And it's not the liver that
tells the heart that you can't
do what I can do.
And the heart doesn't tell the
eyes you are low class.
Every part of the body has its
own color, its own shape, its
own function, but they all work
together for the sake of
the whole body.
And only when that's there
is there health.
When we can see beneath the
external, superficial
differences that we all have
with each other and we
actually understand the essence
of who we really are
beneath, as divine, eternal,
all-loving beings, then we can
recognize how we're all
connected and how every one of
us we could respect each other
for what we contribute, like
the parts of the body.
I may not be able to
do what you can do.
You could probably
do what I do.
Just recently, I spoke at the
HSBC Bank headquarters in
London, and there
was 900 bankers.
I was supposed to
speak to them.
That was the event.
And I actually looked out at
them and started laughing.
Even now I'm laughing just
thinking about it.
And I had to just be honest.
I said, I don't know why you
asked me to speak to you.
You're one of the greatest banks
in the whole world, and
you're among the greatest
bankers in the whole world.
There were all these department
heads and CEOs and
everything there.
And I said, and you're asking
me to speak to you?
I have not had a bank account
and have not signed a check
since 1969.
They looked at me like I was
an alien from a distant
universe, like how
do you survive?
Now I can't say to all of you
that I have never looked at
Google, because everyone has to
look at Google, even people
without bank accounts.
You see, whatever our strengths
and weaknesses may
be, cultured humanity is when
we honor and respect what a
person can contribute, instead
of judging people according to
what I have and what you don't
have, what I can do and what
you can't do, where I'm from
and where you're not from,
what religion I'm from and
what you're not from.
Real love manifests
as compassion.
Real love manifests as having
compassion with equal vision.
Of course we have to
discriminate, but not an
egoistic way.
It's not that you go up to a
tiger and embrace it because
we are one.
That's foolishness.
Well, for most of
us it would be.
We keep a distance.
I was speaking last night.
I lived in the Himalayan jungles
with one yogi, and he
taught me that the leopards
and the snakes and the
panthers, they're all around.
You're sleeping under
trees in the jungle.
And whether you're awake or
asleep, they have greater
power than you.
If you feel that you are better
than them, or if you
have any fear of them,
they will kill you.
But if you see the sacredness of
life and honor and respect
that, don't go start
petting the cobras.
Give them their space, and
they'll give you your space.
And believe it or not,
it really works.
But you know what I found?
That it's much more difficult
to do that with humans.
Because humans have really
complicated egos.
Animals are predictable.
But that is our potential, and
that is how we could actually
make a real difference
within this world in
whatever we're doing.
I am just so happy, so
grateful I have this
opportunity to be with all of
you and to share what I have
learned from my beloved guru,
Srila Prabhupada, and from all
my experiences in life.
Thank you very much.
AUDIENCE: Do you differentiate
between dogma and
spirituality?
And where do you
draw the line?
And the second question is,
you talk about us being
greedy, having negative
energy.
And the question I have is, any
thoughts on why we were
created that way
to begin with?
Why be created ill and then
be commanded to be well?
RADHANATH SWAMI: Can you say
that last question clearer?
AUDIENCE: Why were we created
ill, and then we're commanded
to be well?
RADHANATH SWAMI: [CHUCKLES]
Thank you.
There could be many definitions
of dogma.
But essentially, whatever
religious or spiritual rituals
or beliefs we have are really
meant to be an aid to
transform our hearts.
Just like, for example,
you want to
send a letter to someone.
Of course, these days this is
not a very relevant example.
In the old days, when I grew up,
we used to have envelopes.
And we put the address on the
envelope, and we put the stamp
of the envelope, and
then we'd send it.
Nobody cares about
the envelope.
They want to see the content of
what's inside the envelope.
So our aspirations, our
goodness, our will to be
purified, our will to love
God, our will to be an
instrument of God's grace in
this world, that's what
meditation is for.
That's what ritual is for.
It's a form in which
we can communicate.
When we identify our religion
with the envelope and we don't
really concern ourself with
the content of what is our
character, what are we asking
for, what are we offering,
what are we giving--
In spiritual life, the envelope
of whatever external
forms may be there, it's for the
purpose of giving love and
receiving love.
But if the content in our
heart is envy or ego,
arrogance, and that's what we're
using the envelope of
our religious rituals for,
that's not religion at all.
Then it becomes a very empty
misused form of dogma.
That's one way to
explain that.
As far as the second question,
we are not created ill.
The atman, the living force
within us is perfect.
It is a part of God.
As we said, it is eternal, full
of knowledge and full of
bliss, beyond death,
beyond birth.
But we have free will
within this world.
And according to the choices we
make, it not only creates a
reaction, but it also creates an
internal inclination toward
doing the same thing again.
A crude example, most of
us are not born with an
unbearable craving to
smoke cigarettes.
You make the choice.
It's not that people's shove
cigarettes in your mouth.
Of course, people could be all
around you smoking, and you're
inhaling it.
But you make a choice
at a certain time
to smoke the cigarette.
And as far as I have heard, the
first couple cigarettes
people smoke, usually they
don't like it at all.
They're like [COUGHING].
But it's kind of
cool to do it.
The movie stars do it, and
my idols do it, so
I'm going to do it.
And as you make that choice,
the inclination to smoke
another one becomes more
and more and more.
So we become habituated by
the choices we make.
Similarly, when we do good for
others, doing good for others
is addicting.
When we criticize other people,
every time we choose
to criticize someone, we become
more habituated to
respond to a situation
through criticism.
This is the laws of karma.
Whatever choices we make, not
only does it create reactions
as far as what comes to us in
this world, but it creates
inclinations within us.
So the greed and the arrogance
and the envy and even the
cruelties of this world, as well
as the goodness and the
compassion and the forgiveness,
these
inclinations we have are very
much due to how we have
programmed ourself, by
how we have chosen
to act in the past.
And the present moment is how
we're programming the way we
experience and see the world for
the future, what is going
to be our inclinations.
You see, you can't change what
we've done in the past.
But whatever comes as a
reaction, we have the free
will how we're going
to respond.
If something negative comes and
we choose to respond in a
positive way, then we are
creating positive karma.
And not only that, but we will
have a greater inclination.
There's a Native American Indian
example, which I think
very suitably addresses this
question, that there are two
dogs within each of us.
There's a good dog, and
there's a bad dog.
The good dog represents our
divine nature, forgiveness,
humility, kindness, responsible
self-control,
decency in how we
do our business.
I know some of the wealthiest
people.
They earn their money with
integrity, and they spend it
with compassion.
And they're as competitive
as anybody could be and
successful as anybody can be,
but they built on this
foundation of love.
You see, this bad dog, envy
and anger and hatred and
vengeance and greed and
selfishness, and then the good
dog is there, which is
our good character.
And they're both trying to
demand our attention.
I think we all have
that experience.
For some people, that bad
dog really barks loud.
[BARKING]
And the good dog,
[WHIMPERING].
Which dog is going
to control us?
Which dog is going to bark
the loudest within us?
It's the one we choose
to feed.
Real culture, real humanity is
to learn the art in every
situation, even if it's
challenging, to feed the good
dog within us and neglect
the bad dog.
We are inherently good.
We are inherently godly.
To reorient ourself to our true
nature, it's the greatest
need for fulfillment within our
own lives, and it's the
greatest need within
the world.
Within our tradition, we chant
these mantras, or the
beautiful sweet names of God.
And the purpose of that is
simply like a mirror.
When you look in a
mirror, you're
supposed to see yourself.
But when it's covered with
dust, you see dust.
When we clean the mirror of
the heart through these
beautiful spiritual practices,
then we see the beauty of the
love of our true nature, and we
could reflect that love in
whatever we do.
I'm so grateful.
Thank you so very, very much.
