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, Dr. Anne O'Hare. And today's topic is the Magic of Simplicity. So in my opinion, there is something extraordinary about simplicity. There's a beauty. It has its own beauty. And the beautiful thing about it is that it's a, it's like you're listening to your heart and it leads your heart. It guides you to truth, it guides you to authenticity. You know, like, there's no pretension about it. You focus on the essentials of life. And that has to be a conscious effort that you decide that I'm gonna remove the clutter in my life, and also to remove the unnecessary thinking and the clutter and the confusion in my mind. So together with this approach. You'll find that there's less to think of. And also, if you remove the physical clutter, It will free up your mind for something sort of like open up, uh, open up your heart to the simple things in life and the things that actually touches your heart. And that is what I find about, simplicity as a virtue that we should all have that. It is cheaper now. It is cheaper also to be simple. That's true. Yeah. You know, I wanna play devil's advocate a little bit here. Yeah. When I think of hoarding. Like people who are hoarding and people, and in the mind too, not to mention the mind, but let's talk about the physical environment, first of all. Mm-hmm. So with people who are hoarding and people who, there's two things about it. One, obviously it's not what's needed. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But isn't it that you get used to it, like you don't even recognize it as a problem. Yeah. Right. People, people like live. You live like that. I'm bringing this up for a reason. Because we could be saying like, okay, get rid of the clutter or whatever, and somebody might not even recognize that it's hindering them. Yeah. I, I mean the, the, yeah. The way society is, that's the value, make it more complex. Yeah. You know, have more go. You might not even finish using something, you barely use it, and then you want something newer, better, greater. Think about like one example. Like how many, how much silverware does one family need? We have like tons of silverware, isn't it? Yeah. Or why do you need, if you have let's say four people in the house, why do you need 17 mugs? Mm-hmm. Why do you need, it's just an example, but I think that what we've done is we've created a culture of abundance, which then became too much. Yeah. Like where, what's that word? Like it's not abundance, it's a excess. Yeah. We've created a culture of excess. And also, um, I've seen now they have people who are living in one room houses, like they're trying to change it. Yeah. Become like a minimalist. Minimalist. That's a See. Yeah. So there's some awareness that maybe this excessive lifestyle is not working right? But I just wanted to say like devil's advocate, yeah, that might sound good if I see that it's a problem. Mm-hmm. If I don't see it's a problem, then maybe I won't change it. But one other thing, now going to the mind, how we know things are a problem is if I'm hurting inside, if I have suffering inside, or if I'm unhappy, I know then that something is not right. And I think this is where we maybe can start the conversation, like the practical side of the conversation where simplicity as a principle of living, not as something that you know, I have to do or fix or whatever, but just think about it as a principle of living. Let's say thinking now, go into thinking now. Wow. How much excess thinking do we do? Yeah. Like really? Yeah. How much excess thinking do we do? And we don't know that that's what's going on. 'cause we think it's normal. And I guess that's where I'm coming. So let me ask you as a question, if I grew up that way, and this is what I think is normal, and not only that, but you know how. There's another thing, sensitivity to things. Like, let's say you have a house, so cleanliness and simplicity both kind of go together. Right? Right. I would agree with that. So let's say you, did you ever have two people that live in a house and one person has a very. Has a low tolerance for dirt or messiness, and the other person has a very high tolerance. So the one that has the lower tolerance will be like, we gotta clean this house. We gotta clean this house. Because it will automatically feel like something needs to change. So my question to you is, let's say with the mind or with the, with our lifestyle or whatever, how can we help ourselves to notice that maybe this is an area that we might want to look at changing and how can we associate whatever discomfort or whatever I'm feeling with that because sometimes we don't think that's the reason. Right? Right. So how can we help ourselves to kind of make simplicity and cleanliness something that I can actually recognize as good? I'll answer that with, with my own example. I recently retired. And I had a good job and the income was good and life was good. I mean, you know, you're independent, have things you have, but I thought, okay, what am I gonna do with myself with the time when I'm retired? My brothers are in business, so I figure, hey, maybe when I finish I'll go and maybe go into business with them. And I tried it. I went. There it's is in another country, and I had that in mind and I went about almost setting up all, all the required paperwork, getting all the required paperwork and everything ready to go. And then something happened, like a sudden realization and I'm thinking, what's, I had a, I have a full life. I've accomplished a lot. Help a lot of people. You know, your brothers and sisters, everybody and so on. And I have an, I have a, a retirement and social security, whatever, and I'm fine. And what is the purpose of life? I wanna be happy. This opens up this new possibility that maybe I don't have to go take on more responsibility. Mm. Why not do the thing you always wanted to do? And that is to really take care of your. Spiritual growth. Maybe look at what is my relationship with my own self and am I really happy on the inside? What is my self-esteem like? What is my perspective on this valuable thing we call life? How do I look at the relationships I've had? Is there anything to be sorry for and can it be changed? And now it's been like almost six months. And it is, I've made that change and I've spent a most, a lot of my time now doing service, trying to use my time towards, projects that will benefit other people and so on. And the thing is that I'm happier be, and I, I am sure if I was in business I would've been so busy, I might've been even busier than when I was actually working in a hospital, which is a little different from business. And the, and I have no regrets that I made the right choice, that the right decision, because now I can spend more time in contemplation. I can spend more time in understanding my mind. I can also able to quiet my mind because there's less, with a mind to think of. Mm-hmm. There is less, challenges or, you know, in business or in life generally. Now, there's so many things that come up, come up in terms of, uh, relationship and, and, uh, difficulties with getting things done and, and all of that. I could keep doing that forever and end up still feeling empty. So I don't know if that answers your question. So less for the mind to be thinking of and more for the, for me to feel to, to feel my, what my heart really wants and to pursue that and be happy based on, um. BA based on this spiritual awakening. You know what you said, one thing that I agree with, I think that anybody can kind of understand, like if you retire, you physically are given more time and you had to kind of think, well what am I gonna do with myself? So you actually, that was a gift in a way 'cause it kind of opened up the conversation. But the people who are not retiring, the people who are out there still, like, you know, whatever. But one of the things you said, I think is universal. You can start thinking about what you really want and how you really feel and think about that. I think that's a very nice spiritual principle. And it does answer the question because I think if I start paying attention to how I feel, I would get in touch with the fact that maybe I am not very comfortable with my surroundings, or maybe I'm not very comfortable with all the worrying and thinking and guilt and everything that's going on. Maybe I do wanna change that. So I think the principle of looking at myself or making a commitment to try to help myself or get better, or feel better or be happy, I think that that is a very good answer, a good principle to start with. So in terms of, let's say I do start saying, okay, you know what, yeah, I do wanna be happy and I do wanna feel comfortable so we can say. So let's talk now about the, the actual simplicity. What does simplicity mean? Simplicity means in your case, what you just shared was that you didn't wanna overcomplicate, you didn't need to over complicate. So maybe one of the things we can do is look around and say, where is there too much? Where is there too much? In the, even in the environment, do you agree that like even fixing the environment changes like you said it before, it changes your mental state? Yeah, it does. It totally does. I've seen this. You, you look at, even in home decoration, do they ever show you a brand new house filled with stuff? No. There's an elegance to space, you know, to, um, you don't need to, like some emptiness or some, like not too much things in it. Right, right. Like there's peace, when it's filled, you can put very, very expensive things and fill it up and, and then it Devalues the, the experience, yep. Is not the same. It's clutter. What is clutter? Even clutter of the mind. Who wants, like, I just had this thought like a swarm of bees. If the bees are flying, if you watch a bee on a flower, maybe two or three bees, like on flowers, and you're like, enjoy yourself. And then there's a swarm, like who wants the swarm? Yeah. Like it takes away, it takes away from, can I say the beauty of life? It. It does. It takes away from the beauty of life. So whether it's physical habits, physical environment, whether it's the mind, whether it's activities or relationships or responsibilities or whatever. We are saying that it might be a good idea with the principle of simplicity to take a look and see. Right. Do I need that much? And if I simplify one thing, I'll just share. Quickly about the home environment. I grew up in the excessive culture also, and I used to think, well, you know, you have to have this for this. Like you have to have this many pairs of shoes and what if I have this and what if I need this? And I, I really have kind of like abandoned some of those old messages. And I, I invite people who are listening to take a look at some of those messages. That we don't need to spend so much money on things. There's a lot of money being spent on things that you never even look at or use. Yeah. And a personal debt is rising. Credit card debts are rising. Yes. And the more debt you have, the more your mind is confused or feel overwhelmed. It's very hard to be peaceful if you're in debt. Yes. It's very hard. Very hard. So why be jealous of the neighbor or running race with others? Why not make it a little bit simpler than that and get some control and feel a little bit secure? Maybe change your values, a little bit to ensure that you can sleep with a peaceful heart. You, you don't need to go to bed. Still worried about when am I gonna be paying for this or this bill or that bill, or, you know, we're so used to buying this on credit, getting this, getting that, don't worry, you know, whatever. That we never even let ourselves feel what it feels like not to be in debt. Our home now is paid for. That was a huge feeling, wasn't it? Yep. It really, I, I can't even describe to you what it felt like. I've always had a mortgage, didn't you? Yeah. Yes. Always had a mortgage. And now to have no mortgage, it's like, wow. And then of course, like we, as soon as we did that, we're like, what else can we pay off? What else can we pay off? Right. Yeah. Because it felt so good. Can we pay off this? Can we pay off that? It really feels good. So debt is another aspect. Yeah. Home environment. The way you. Take care of your clothing, the way you take. Yes. Like everything simple, neat, not excessive. And one last thing, that thing you said about values in the beginning, I said devil's advocate, we can talk about simplicity, but if you don't recognize what the issue is, you're not gonna wanna change it. If we look at the values, that will help us too. Yeah. What am I valuing? Am I following this thing that I learned That this, if two is good, three is better. If this is good, I need to have this much, I need to have that much. Well, do I really? Is it making me happy? It's making me broke. Right, exactly. Is what it's making me. I mean, and that's not to say that people shouldn't spend their money on whatever they want. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that internally. If, if a person is in debt, it's very hard to be happy and peaceful when you're in debt. Yeah. That's it. And so if I simplify and live within my means and then have a nice, neat environment and orderliness also orderly, clean, neat. I think everybody, it's a universally attractive thing, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It, it's universally attractive. You come into a clean, neat room and you feel better so. Anyway. So that's some things to think about. It's not just about physical environment, it's also about our mind, our choices, how we, how we operate. Everything can be simplified. Yes. Yeah. So with that, I hope you can maybe get something of value from this and, and it helps you. Okay. All right. So thank you for listening. Thank you. And we'll see you next time. Yeah. Bye-Bye everyone. Bye-bye. Thank you. When you walk into a room, life gets little. You.
