Episode Transcript
My name is Ken Hanuman, and this is my wife, Dr. Anne O'Hare .We both work in healthcare and have been meditating for many years. We also enjoy a happy and fulfilling marriage. Come listen and see how to demystify spirituality and bring it into your home, your hearts, and in all your relationships. We will share our experiences and how we use these principles in everyday life. Welcome to the spiritual relationship. Hello everyone. Welcome to the Spiritual Relationship Podcast. My name is Ken Hanuman and this is my wife. Yeah, Anne O'Hare. And today's topic it's the big question that everybody have. What is the meaning of life? So the topic is actually relationship and the meaning of life. What we are going share is from our experience, and I would say that the meaning of life is the pursuit of happiness, love. Everybody wants to feel they have a sense of purpose and they're accomplishing that. There's a feeling of wanting to feel whole and complete, Love and happiness can manifest in many forms of relationship. You can get it within family, you can get in a relationship with God. You can get it in the way you relate to nature. So the one example that I would like to express is the relationship with God. I found in my spiritual practice that when I surrender myself fully, like let's say madly in love with God, it's like I'm removing all the impediments, all the limitations, all the mistrust. I don't have any doubts and, I, I'm able to clearly open my heart. What I find in my yoga with God in this relationship, this complete trust, it allows me to grow and to understand who I am at what do you call that? Elevated. Yeah. In a very elevated, way. I mean, in a sense, like, I wanna say you go down to the depth of the power of love. That's what I was trying to, to really say that love or happiness has degrees to it, and you can't get, you can't experience that if you don't fully surrender. So the same goes for a relationship in a marriage also or in a family. Mm-hmm. So I don't know if you want to, add something Yeah. in this podcast we are sharing from our experience, but hopefully we're also sharing principles. So it's not like we're telling anybody what to do. Like we're looking at this in terms of principles. So what's the principle? The principle is that relationship has some connection with meaning in life. I was talking to someone today. Who is a young lady, she's 31 years old, and she's now thinking, well, I never wanted to get married before, but now she's thinking about it and whatever,, and I just was thinking that's not to say that everybody should get married again, it's, everybody has their own personal choice, but there's something to be said about relationship and happiness and meaning, and it all seems to be connected somehow. Yeah. So Ken was talking about what it means to him. What? What it means to me is I would like to feel in terms of meaning of life. I would like to feel like I know myself. That would be meaningful to me, if I really know myself. And that would make me feel as though all my relationships are real, because I am really there. I know who I am. And then. They get to be who they are and somehow it's real. There's no falseness or manipulation or fear or anything there. It's just a pure relatedness. And how does that bring meaning? Well, it's meaning because it's really me and it's really them, and we're just being together. There's a beingness and you wanna say authentic, something like that. So I feel that it's hard to do that by yourself. Yeah. I don't even think it's possible. That's my opinion. I don't think it's possible. The reason I brought up that person I was speaking to, that I said what I had said to her about getting married or whatever. I said, if you feel like you wanna have that experience, then have the experience because there are things you get out of it that you can't get without it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, like a marriage. A marriage is a unique relationship. There are things you get out of a marriage that you can't get out of any other relationship. That's why this podcast exists actually, because we're talking about that. But in terms of meaning of life, Ken was talking about love. I'm talking now about self-respect and knowing the self, loving the self, understanding the self, and to me that also makes me close to God, and I'll try to explain a little bit what that means. I feel that if I am trying, honestly to better myself or be kind or learn how to be good, that's gonna make my energy similar to God's energy. And the more I practice and the more I become that way, I feel naturally closer, naturally closer. Like I don't have to try. And how does that bring meaning in life? Well, I. I don't think there is a, like a objective meaning of life for everyone. I think each of us is unique and each of us has what we think is important or what we think is, helpful and that we benefit from that, and that's the meaning in life. And I did wanna share a little bit about our relationship because it's important that what a relationship can also give is support. Yes, definitely. A relationship can give a lot of support. And what I have found is that before we became a couple, my experience, and I believe Ken was the same, was like we had kind of written off relationships because we were like. We're done. I'm done. It's too painful. and the reason I'm sharing this is because maybe some of you, feel that way too. I would imagine. And even this girl I was talking about today, she's like, well, I don't even know if I want, I said, the thing is to understand that a relationship that's good. A relationship can actually be a support towards your destiny or your purpose in life. You, that relationship can support you. So in our relationship, I know we're supporting each other every day, all day. We're supporting each other every day, and there's a lot of respect and a lot of care, and it's a wonderful thing. The thing with God is also like that and God, what you were talking about before about total surrender, obviously human relationship is different from the God relationship in the sense that even if, everything disappeared. I could still feel like I'm with God. So that's beautiful, it's different, but it's also a support. Yeah. One, one thing I find though, it is common in all relationship that you have to go in to it with trust and with an open heart. Yeah. Maybe the safest one to start with is with God. Yes. Because we know that. His guidance or directions or example is something that will not lead you astray. I've seen where, Einstein, somebody says that if you connect with nature, if you have love for nature, nature will never break your heart. it's, yeah, and if you understand nature, you understand life. The thing with nature is that we love, let's say when you, by the ocean, whatever nature, we feel like you can trust nature. Many human beings of other human beings, especially in these days, they come into marriage or they have a friendship or something, and, but it doesn't last for long and, and you get hurt. And if someone gets hurt, then they feel they can never trust, and they go through a life carrying this, guarded way of interacting. And they're afraid to let go or to allow. But happiness can only come when there is a strong connection. Only when there is a, if you want to say a heart to heart, that you, someone will feel valued. Understood. And, that they have worth. You know, that's what you, when we have selfless love, or you might see, you may hear about the word Agape love, selfless love. Then it really energize or inspire or motivate others, you know? And you were talking about support. If you look socially in this society. people don't wanna be lonely. Yeah. It's very destructive. Yes. Actually to the self-esteem. Yes. And so social support that you get your relationship, it, it does great things for, for anyone's self-esteem and self-worth. Yes. And so on. So relationship, the meaning of life. It's not so much the possession that you have, but how life makes you feel. And so you have to be careful with the way, you enter into a relationship. It, you have to be, you want to protect yourself, and you want to be careful. You don't want to get hurt, but at the same time, you don't wanna imprison yourself or wall yourself off from everyone. Okay, because you'll end up, you'll see later in life there'll be such loneliness and disconnect that you'll feel like something that you wanted out of life, you never got to experience. I'm sure there are a lot of people listening to this that either have been heartbroken in relationships, have, feel like they're writing them off. Maybe feel a little resentful, like they don't want to get into a relationship and things like that. I guess what we are sharing today is that there is value in relationships and in my experience, and I like how you said that God is the best relationship to start with because when we understand who God is, you know, when we, when we start to understand that God is a soul. I'm a soul. God's a soul. And God is a pure soul. God is a benevolent soul. God is the ocean of love, the ocean of peace. These are some of the words that we use to describe God because maybe we learned about God in a different way before, that God is, has vengeance, or God is whatever. And God is holding a grudge and God is judging me and God, whatever. Yeah. And know and he sees what I do and yeah, things like that. He's watching me and I have to feel guilt. Like in, in the, what we are, what our understanding of God is God is a subtle spiritual being, a soul like us, but he's very unlimited, with beauty and peace and power and purity. That soul, I start to remember that soul and bring that soul or the idea of that soul, that understanding that I just described into my consciousness, that can create a safe space. For me to feel connected to someone no matter what your situation is. And I was not in a good place. And I know you were not either. I was not in a good place, but I felt You said to me, God was my only friend. Yeah, and it's the truth. I was in a situation where the relationships were not good and all the relationships were not good. And I was in a situation in all areas of my life where it wasn't supportive and it was not good. And I started meditating. And with hope, like it kind of ignites the hope in your heart, right? Yeah. So that ignited the hope, and then things grew. And look, now there's a marriage and the relationship with my family has all been taken care of and work and my health and everything else is all taken care of. So maybe we could say that relationship with God is the best one to start with because that's the one that's gonna help support all the rest of the relationships. But the fact that, back to the point of you to do this in isolation, I don't believe is possible. I think we're meant to be in each other's hearts, like at some level. Yeah. And God can help us to purify that and help us to get better so that we can enjoy our relationships. Yeah. I wanna share something about yoga or meditation. in the beginning when we are trying to meditate, it's a struggle because of the mind and how overactive it is, and you go through a lot of periods of, doubt and feeling self being defeated. And then there are so many values that we have accumulated, you know, as we go along, this is right, this is wrong. I can never make it. this is only for certain people and, I'm not there yet. Some people actually believe I can't make it in this life. I'll wait until somewhere like later on to able to do that. But what I wanna share is that yoga actually is love. Because what I recently, went to India and there we were in the silent retreat and I know, I have love when I'm trying to be in yoga and I wanna stay here. I don't wanna have to just struggle to be up there. Saying wonderful things intellectually about how God loves me and so on. I wanna feel it. I wanna be able to be able to let go of the past or this mundane experience and to experience lost in love. I had this question in the yoga, you know, and being in silence and you're not really communicating or interacting with other human beings. And there's only one direction. That is God. Where else there's nobody to talk to 'cause they're not allowing it. Right. And that taught me something that you can really experience God, not only as a Father but He's your Friend. He is your Companion. You combined with him. He listens. He and the thing about, because he's pure. He doesn't really see your past or what you might consider mistake. He only sees your future, what your potential is and where you, and that makes so much sense. So when I'm in this, I'm in meditation, right? And I wanna be there when I'm really go into the depth of all this, the teaching and, the laws that govern relationship, the laws of karma and everything else, his ity or his vision of me. It was like almost a blessing. It was always welcoming. It was like his arms is open and this feeling of surrendering into it, it, it took away a lot of the self-criticism or the self-evaluation or trying to figure out if I am a worthy of this relationship took it away completely. There was a kind of an equality in that relationship. Wow. Yeah. And getting lost in there eventually, staying in meditation was no effort. Hmm. And I hope you all heard that. Yeah. It was, I hope you all heard that. No effort, love, love has a way of, of, um, like you're, like you're in an ocean and and you are willing to let go and it just heals you. It, it, it really makes you. Feel happy. And the great thing about this, it's not dependent on anything on the outside. It's not dependent on somebody praising you and it's not dependent on, physical possessions or role or anything like that. It was almost like a child in the lap of the parents. And in that, I realized then, like I had this intuition. Or feeling like he's saying now, practice the same kind of love with everyone that you know or anyone in your life. And there were the people that I knew around there and I was practicing it. And then I realized how much you can think of others and you can connect with them even without physically talking. You can have a warm feeling, an open heart, and seeing their qualities. Almost as like you develop a godly vision towards others. Mm-hmm. And the amazing, the magic of that is that you feel like you're in another world. We call that like more like an angelical experience where you truly giving out your right energy and what is coming back is pure, you know, it's good. You don't need to define that. You don't need to put it in language. You know, as Shakespeare said, rose is a rose no matter whatever name you call it. So love is something like that. It's something that you surrender and the more you do that, what comes back is you know's a million fold return. So yoga is love. And it also, in the beginning, in your spiritual thing, we can, we have to step away from human being. What I find you, you actually have to love everyone, not I love you. I actually do care what we call like bhavna or deep feeling. And the truth is you can do this in your meditation. You can do this in the morning, or whenever you have quiet time with yourself. And you will get the benefit of it and it will come out. But it doesn't mean that when you come out, you have to go hug everyone or give away all your possessions or anything. No, That's not what it means. It means your heart is there's no walls, there are no divisions, there's no fear. There is just a childlike wisdom and innocence in, in the quality of the love. So I think we should leave it there. I, I hope that through our experiences you've heard that what these things mean to us, so the meaning in life is what it means to each of us. Like I can't tell you what's meaningful to you. Yeah. I can't tell you what's meaningful to you, but through this spiritual. You wanna say practice or relationship through this relationship with God and that relationship as it develops, it changes me and it enables me, like you were just describing so beautifully, to be like God or God the way we would like God to think God is right, loving, powerful, beautiful, helpful, like that kind of way we can be that way with others. And is that enough meaning in life? I would say. Yeah, I, I think it is because the degrees to love the degrees to happiness and you'll spend the rest of your life experiencing greater and, and going into greater depths. And you'll be amazed at what life can offer to you. And this, to me, it's a fulfillment of life. Wonderful. So, alright, so we'll finish there and thank you for listening and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. When you walk into a room, life gets little. You.
