Episode Transcript
My name is Ken Hanuman and I've been practicing Raja Yoga meditation for over 40 years. In these episodes, I will share the experiences and insights I've gained from meditation and how I've integrated them into my everyday life and all my relationships. Welcome to the Spiritual Relationship Podcast. Hello everyone. Welcome to the Spiritual Relationship Podcast. In the last episode, we spoke about the power of discernment and then the ability to make decisions and to have the determination, to have a goal, to be fearless, to you have the courage to put this discernment, the ability to know what is right or wrong or beneficial or not to actually put it into action. Bring about some kind of, of transformation. So today, the power, courage to face when you look at the world today and all that is going on and so many things are happening and it's so fast, and, we don't even know. Like people are living in a state of confusion. They're, fear of what will happen tomorrow, what will happen, maybe next month or so on, because the, when life challenges increase and things are getting more chaotic, or you have leaders that are not in your, understanding, like they're not really making right decision, then you have to deal with this anxiety that you might have inside this stress as a result of feeling like you have no control and you feel overwhelmed. So we need courage to deal with that. So let's see, the power, this courage to face, if we can put these powers through meditation, if we can develop and we can accumulate, our understanding of them and make it a part of our life, to the point where I can live in a chaotic world, but still maintain my peace, protect my peace, my sanity, and try to remove the fear and the anxiety. So what is really courage? So courage is really the ability to pursue aims no matter what. The essence of courage is faith and the faith in our aims and deep understanding of why we have why we have chosen this particular path that we are on. So we are talking about determination, patience, enthusiasm. We need good company to encourage. It's hard to do it on your own. So if you are in like, company that are on the same path, we tend to feed off of each other, you know, it helps. So once the goal is set, it becomes a matter of self-respect for you to be able to move forward and to progress. So we cannot give up or we cannot give into negativity no matter from where or from whom it comes. Because this world is, the, for you to survive in a world like this. Like I said, things might even become worse pretty soon. So in that case, to become negative or to lose hope and enthusiasm actually shouldn't be an option because the consequence will be dire where your psyche, your mental health can be affected by that. So let's use the spiritual knowledge. Let's use the moments we spend in contemplation to look at the thoughts, look at the problems, become more solution oriented. There's always a solution to a problem. Spirituality allows us to go within, to be able to understand my spiritual values, to understand that as a soul, I am immortal. I am an incorporeal being, I will that never die in the sense that the body dies, but the soul consciousness where I, I always have this awareness that I'm alive that you know, I can think, I have this awareness of existing. So there's always an option, let's put it that way. So when the world gets too much for you, it is nice that you have this ability to go within, shut the world out, be go into your peace. Create that sacred space within where you are in the company of God, where you're in the company of a Supreme Being or of a divine entity, a being that is loving, that will listen, that will not judge that you can always turn for solace and, guidance it, you're able to experience that if your mind is calm. If your focus, so this is why we don't give up in the world. If you give up and you have nothing else to turn to, no other support, what happened? Many people will actually, become mentally ill. The anxiety level goes, stress level goes up. We're always have complaining. Sometimes people become hopeless. You don't wanna go down that path. So it's better to go the spiritual path. So some of the guidelines that we can follow to develop this ability would be that let us accept that there'll be many small and big obstacles that will come to you daily. It could be They're unexpected, but it doesn't mean that you can't use them to learn. That is, they're like stepping stones, you know? And if you have that attitude that then you'll find that as you are, you're able to manage, you're able to, survive that and learn, you become stronger. This is a great thing about the courage to face. Every time you learn, you are building your own self-esteem and self-confidence. It's like you're building character. There has to be some kind of resistance. You know, if there was never any resistance or things to solve, um, difficulties to overcome, you are not actually challenging your ability, you're not really growing. So that's one way to, to look at it. Rather than becoming stressed and anxious and feeling defeated. So trust in my aim and decisions creates the courage to make the impossible possible. Losing even a small amount of trust or faith creates, like it creates this feeling of loss or the feeling that I'm not good enough or that. You know, I like you wanna give up. So we, you should always, when you wake up in the morning and you're doing your meditation, you affirm daily. I will, I'll keep trust and keep faith in who I am and where I'm going. So this is, self-talk, the positive self-talk that we need to remind ourself every day. This is what we meditate on. This is in our relationship with a divine being, we're building a relationship and we are drawing on that relationship to be able to face the day. At the end of the day, we can review the day and we, even though there are times when we were not successful, we can still learn. Knowledge is the greatest gift. Knowledge is actually even more valuable than money. 'cause once you have knowledge, you can always make money, right? So rather than using words like, because and if, and perhaps, and maybe procrastinating, things like that It's better to sort of face things don't run away, because running away doesn't mean that it's gone. It just means that, you know, you might be weaker. 'cause when it does come, you still did not actually have any new insight or strength to, you didn't come up with a with a solution. So then you might be running all the time and therefore you recede back into stagnation or, like not being happy, you'll be unhappy. So always remember that I will regularly renew my aim and direction. Never carry yesterday event in today. Forgetting the past. Especially the negative things about the past, the good things you would remember, the negative things about the past. Let it go. Don't let the defeat and the negativity and the bad experience and the trauma, try to let it go. Try to, leave it in the past. That is a new day and no two days are the same, so it doesn't, so we have to try and have courage, have enthusiasm, have determination, and you'll find that you will be, you'll experience growth, you'll experience more self-confidence, faith in yourself. And, the stronger you become within, the, greater faith you'll have in yourself and God, and also that strength of character will be very inspiring to others around you. You know, in today's world, children are growing up in a different world than we grew up in. Life was a lot simpler, I would say. So what they're going through. They will need some kind of support. They would need some kind of strength or someone to look up to. So why not be that one? And this is how you're able to do it. So pay attention to, to these things. Um, situations in life actually comes for you to learn. And I know that doesn't, not at how, that's everybody would like everything to be easy. But the truth for everyone is, it's not like that. No. Nobody goes through life without something to deal with. Right? So this quest for inner peace or feeling of liberation from negative forces, we, this could be accomplished by focusing on building character. Resilience, perseverance, enthusiasm, billing your self-esteem, billing your self-confidence, be solution oriented. Try to, change your attitude towards the challenges in life. I'll give you one example of myself. Growing up you know, it was not easy. We had a, it was a life of poverty basically, and, but, and there was a struggle, but eventually what happened is that. I decided that I am not gonna give up. And in the place where we grew up, it was, education or good teachers or a good school was not really an option. There was just one school for the whole entire, island that we grew up into. But I was lucky that I. That I pass, the exams and then I had a choice of going to the city to go to high school and I decided to do it. The president of that country, he is the child of one of my teachers. And you know, to see where people have come from and where they are today, all because they kept courage and perseverance and determination and you look back and you know, you feel very fortunate. So I think that would be one example for me and, that you'll never give up. Because in spiritual life when you have to face up with all the fears and anxiety and the things within you, there are so many thoughts in there. The people, the more anxious you become, the more you have thoughts. The more you have worry, the more you have fear, the and to be bombarded with those emotions. It can sap all of your energy and you feel like giving up. But if you know that it is possible for me to control my mind. It is possible with patience and with time 'cause it's not easy. I think one of the most difficult thing to do is to change yourself, is to become someone who is benevolent and who have compassion, who has mercy, who feel like they wanna be an inspiration to others. You know, it takes a lot of courage to do that, is it's, I think it's even more difficult to do than going to the moon. And you can think about it because physically sometimes you have the money or whatever, you can do things. But to overcome anxiety, to overcome depression, overcome these mental illness, you have to have great insight into how your mind works, how your intellect is working to recognize the habits, the personality traits that are working against you, the values that you grow up that might be self-defeating, the self-criticism that we have the feeling of shame, the feeling of guilt. These things are, it takes a lot of work to get over them, but you can with courage. If you can have inner victory, then the victory outside will be easy. It'll, you'll definitely be victorious outside if you can have victory within where you are at peace. Your mind is your friend. You have the self-confidence, you have the soul consciousness. You have the feeling that you are related and you feel close to a divine being. So think of that and, contemplate on it in your meditation. Never give up. Peace is your nature protect it. With that I will close. And I always try to remind every, everyone that we do offer free online classes on Zoom and you can find the link in the description and also they access to free meditation commentary that you can use at home and practice meditation that is also available in the description. So thank you for listening and as you can see, I'm not trying to be perfect here. I'm just trying to share my experience. I'm telling you from my own experience how spiritual values and how things work in my life, and I'm hoping that maybe something might be helpful to you. So with that, thanks for listening again. Goodbye. We'll see you in the next episode. When you walk into a room, life gets little, you. You.
