Mindfulness Awakening to Reality

you think mindfulness is something

you sit in a secluded corner and

meditate

most of people think that way but let me

tell you today

mindfulness is not it’s just simply

meditating at one corner

and trying to stop your thoughts

mindfulness starts

the time you wake up it is all around us

while you are walking towards your

classroom listening to a professor

eating your food or doing any mundane

work possibly you can think of

mindfulness is on and that’s the reason

mindfulness is so powerful in your life

today i’m going to talk about

mindfulness and i thank you all

for you have come to listen to me and

this is my first ted talk

and i will be sharing not many things

which i have not shared any time before

so mindfulness is all about i read up

gita’s quote

mine is your best friend when you sit

under control

and is your worst enemy when it is not

why it has been said like that

because mind plays in a very critical

role in our day-to-day life

mind is the most powerful thing which

control our physiology

this exactly happens to me when i

started working on my life

and i had a lot of opportunities to work

on a different thing

i saw world changing i saw people having

a mental issues

just to get unhappiness you need to

involve your mind

i always thought what is a happiness do

you think eating more

can be in happiness but i felt while you

eat more

you become uncomfortable and when you

eat even more you become disgusted

some people told me technology gives you

happiness

and i felt at one point technology

is a burden technology has its own

challenges and problems to come

then people talk about success you know

building skyscrapers is success

and prosperity if that would be so then

people would not be jumping out of them

to commit suicide i come from mumbai you

know what’s an iconic

construction done was a sea link but

what notoriously known for ceiling to

commit suicide

rather than joining two islands what is

happening to this world just to give you

one data there is a 33

increase in suicide rate from last 1997

to 2017.

about 150 people every day commit

suicide

in u.s and about 150 000 people

try to give their life annually the

number of people making societies almost

to the size of a country

what is happening what is pushing them

to do such thing in their life

and then i started something working on

mindfulness so let me share with you my

journey today

i start i born in a delhi in a family

and i’ve gone to a very nice school but

suddenly what my father got transferred

to a small town of himachal

and i was supposed to live in that small

town and go to a primary school

i went to a primary school i found a

teacher

sitting under a tree and a few children

sitting there in primary i was 10 year

old

i was told to sit on a mat which was

made of cement bag

and teacher was sitting under the tree

the first lesson was

take out your english books i took out

my english book lesson was

galileo and gravity and teacher was

teaching a for apple and g for goat

i had one option either to run away come

back home and i said i will not study

or to accept that reality i don’t know

why i

accepted that reality and now today i

look back

it was my beginner’s mind it was my mind

of that child

that accepted that reality and then

second was acceptance

that taught me how do i can actually

learn things which have not learned

how to jump in the stream which a school

boy from

from urban city would have never done or

climbing a tree

this continued in my life and i lived in

that part of the world

graduated in economics did very well in

my my academics

and i decided to go for my international

business in delhi

life changed back again now it was

turned the table

i was a small city boy or a village boy

in a city of stars

and people told me you have no

vocabulary for english think your

english is so poor

and even either in writing nor in your

original english is so good

you will never succeed and don’t think

even about international business

because kind of vocabulary you need

you have you will take i think a new

life to do that

again i have two options run back to the

comfort of my city

a small town or continue to challenge

the reality

two things i learned non-judgmental

behavior

they are not create the judgment the

people are creating judgment about me

i should not do it about my own self and

then trusting my gut

i’ve been meditating from the age of

seven i was fortunate that i got this

opportunity

to learn meditations and that helped me

throughout my

my thesis to face of my life that i was

able to trust my gut feeling

i did lot of mistakes i tell you many

mistakes i did it i learned from those

mistakes

because there’s about all my mistakes

life continued again

and i was among the top ceos in the year

2000

heading large organizations dealing with

lot many countries i opened the offices

almost every destination in the world

starting from africa to russia

from u.s to china that gave me an

opportunity to learn

various diverse cultures people but i

realize one thing

that is not sufficient and at age of

about 45 i decided to quit everything

and start a new beginning so my

learnings were three there

i should have the power of letting go

letting go

of your what you are holding letting go

and letting go is the one thing which

you keep you alive imagine

you’re breathing all of us breathing yes

or no

and if you just hold your breath what

will happen to you

you’ll die because you will only live

when you let go of the breath you have

taken

and that’s the biggest learning i learn

if you don’t let go of things

it will actually not help you so let go

of your anger

letting go of your greed and many things

and when you let go of things

you build a level of compassion and

empathy within yourself

that gives you a purpose to go beyond

your barriers

beyond your own self and then you start

working for a larger purpose in life

the real voyage of discovery consists

not in seeking

out a new landscape but in having a new

eye

and this exactly happened to me because

i have gone to so many landscape in my

life

in my journey that i am now seeking a

new life see

those things with a different angle and

i needed a new eye for that

and that was my journey starting from

mindfulness

and friends this journey started few

years ago today

i run one of the largest conference in

asia called mindfulness india summit

where the top most neuroscientist

thinkers

and people from all walks of life come

and share the view we just concluded two

days back

i’m proud to say that it’s one of the

biggest one in asia

what happens what is mindful reality so

one world is what you are living in

today

is where you think what do you think if

you i stop

thinking what will happen to me

i just give you one small example

thinking is like

holding a thought and thinking that what

you are today

mind and body works together the body’s

strength and performance depend on

undulation of your mind

and if what you are thinking makes what

your body is most of people think

that what they are thinking is right or

wrong but they’re still stuck in

thinking

and that’s the reason they repeatedly do

the same thinking process

and life gives them the same opportunity

same situation back and again and again

in different form because they are not

changing their thinking

then comes the world called feeling

feeling is a very important world

some people think from the level of

feeling from emotions

we think what is happening in our

emotions we think what is happening

inside

so there are second people one is a

cognitive thinker and one is the emotive

thinkers

we think from heart we feel things we

feel things

so that’s the second level of player

thinkers and feelers

what happens is there anything beyond

that

that was my quest is there anything

beyond

and then comes the mind which observes

you have one thing which observing what

is thinking

and who is feeling and that’s

your observing reality but this reality

doesn’t end here

so thinking reality why i call

thoughtfulness

feeding reality i call it heartfulness

or emotive

and observing reality i call mindfulness

or

wakeful reality or wakefulness and for

that

you need awake to reality

and this awake to reality is which is

observing

who is thinking who is feeling

and who is observing so if you can think

in this dimension

of imagine that you are observing

yourself observing

what is your thinking what are you

feeling and what are you observing

and that is the level of your

mindfulness that is level of your

creativity

so would you like to to experience this

creativity

how many of you if you would like to i

will take you to a small journey i can

explain mindfulness many times but when

you start to experience it

let’s do a small small experience okay

all of you just sit to the straight will

do a very short

okay let’s not spend too much time

take one breath close your eyes or keep

your eyes open

take one breath and just let it go

and then take another breath in and feel

what’s happening in your head now

just observe what is happening is in

your head what are you thinking

do not try to stop it stay with the

breath

and now go to your heart

feel your chest what’s happening in your

chest how are you feeling now

whatever it could be anxiety happiness

fear whatever is happening feel your

heart now

take a breath in and then let it go

so keep the track of your breath as well

while you’re feeling

now take another breath and feel your

stomach feel your gut

and while feeling your gut observe

what’s happening in your head

what’s happening in your chest and just

take your left or right hand

and keep it on your heart

and now feel what’s happening to you

and now bring a thought or that

that i am good i am good

while thinking that think of head

heart and gut and let go of your breath

now you can come back

that’s a mindful moment most of you

would have some of you felt have calm

some of whom would have felt little

anxiety some of you would have felt

when will this end

so this is called mindfulness look

inside and everything what you want

is inside of you is already there it’s

by rooming so you don’t have to search

something

outside what you are looking for is

already with you

i give you on letting go story

you know how in india people catch

monkeys

they put a small pot a matka and put

some chanas in them

in matka or some bananas in the mud car

monkey comes puts the hand in a mudka

and don’t let go of the banana or chanas

and the guy comes and catch this monkey

this exactly happens with us

we hold on to things we don’t let it go

letting go is very important because it

is the part

you start your life with would you like

to know a little more deeper on this

journey what is happening to his

journey and letting go is a very

important part because you can only let

go

when you are in present moment let me

give you some data on your brain

all senses put together is bombarding

your

your brain with 400 billion bit of data

you know how much is your brain capacity

to hold about 100 bit of data

poor things been bombard subconsciously

consciously without data

which i have only ability to be in

attention state about under 220 bits

it is observed that our mind wandering

leave us with the attention span about

47 percent

if you are most of time ruminating in

past or in future

your present is almost lost it is said

that if you stay if you take care of the

moments

the life will take care of your ears so

staying

in present moment is the one key for

your progress for

one key for your creativity and then you

start with something called trust

you start to trust your gut feeling you

start to understand

what am i feeling within myself most of

us has two voices coming

i shall do i shall not do but we don’t

know which voice to actually acknowledge

and to listen to when you start

practicing to stay in a moment and

mindful practices

you will understand you will trust

yourself and then

when you trust yourself you build first

new skill first new skill called

compassion

compassion for your own self and

empathetic about your our self

which leads us to empathy to others and

that leads to gratitude

when we are empathetic we are trustful

we are in a moment we are gratitude for

it because we are acknowledging every

moment

and then our awareness is so vast that

we are one thankful for it

second we are compassionate and we are

trusting which leads to

something called interconnectedness so

if you are thinking your universe is

alone

then you are mistaken because something

called collective intelligence

how you tap into this knowledge how you

tap into this universe

which is filled with so much of amazing

information

on biology on physics on chemistry on

engineering

so many information

when you stay in the present moment you

can only tap into that

when you are really connected within

your own self because

the road to that interconnected network

goes from

inside not from outside more you stay

out

more less connected you are you have to

stay out sometime but you should have

ability to go back in

and then it comes with the kindness the

basic word

the communication tool is kindness i

just told you 60 bits of data

is required for one to one communication

which means

you cannot concentrate more than 660

bits for anything

imagine if so many people talking how

will you get the data within yourself

kindness is one language it is by mark

twain

that deaf can hear and blind can see

if you are kind to people you don’t have

to say something it’s already been

expressed

so my friends today

the learning which i wanted to share

with you it took me a journey of 50

years

to understand you are your best person

this is your best season this is your

best time

every moment is your best time you just

need ability to tap into that

moment connect with your inner being and

i tell you

you will be the most successful you

don’t have to look for somebody what you

are seeking

is already seeking you what you are

thinking is already happening inside

connect with your own self and be

mindful and i’m so glad that i’m sharing

this information with you

thank you very much