Richie is a neuroscientist, speaker, meditator and author. He is the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the founder of the Center for Healthy Minds. His work is focused on the neurobiology of emotion and the effects of meditation on the human brain. He has numerous publications in leading scientific journals and is also the author of many best-selling books including his latest, Altered Traits, which provides us with a fascinating view of our ability as humans to shape our brains.

RichardDavidson.jpg

Richard Davidson

<h4
 class="has-text-color"
 id="h-dr-richard-davidson-is-a-prolific-and-well-known-neuroscientist-speaker-meditator-and-author-in-march-2021-richie-was-interviewed-by-thangam-venkatesan-professor-of-medicine-at-the-medical-college-of-wisconsin-and-anagha-matapurkar-ph-d-mba-about-his-life-s-journey-and-latest-initiatives-to-bring-well-being-to-humanity"
 style="color: #0063a3"
>
 DR. RICHARD DAVIDSON
 is a prolific and well-known neuroscientist, speaker, meditator and
 author. In March 2021, Richie was interviewed by
 THANGAM VENKATESAN, Professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and ANAGHA MATAPURKAR, Ph.D. MBA, about his life’s journey and latest initiatives to bring
 well-being to humanity.
</h4>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 AM: Hi Richie, it’s wonderful to meet you. I have been very inspired and
 fascinated by your journey as a meditator and author, and the astounding
 body of work that you have as a researcher.
 



 TV: I completely echo Anagha’s sentiments, and your book
 Altered Traits is the first book I have read twice! It is really
 amazing. So, Richie, can you share some key aspects of your journey?
 Something that I find particularly interesting is your interaction with the
 Dalai Lama. How did you first meet him? Can you describe that inflection
 point for you as a person, a meditator and a researcher?



 RD: Thank you
 for asking. I first met His Holiness in 1992 in India and he learned about my
 interest in meditation, and also that I was a neuroscientist. He was really
 interested in encouraging serious neuroscientific research on meditation,
 which at that time really didn’t exist. I met him at his residence in
 Dharamsala, and it was a pivotal meeting. Up until that point in my career, I
 had been doing a lot of research on the brain and emotions, and I was focusing
 mostly on the negative side of things. I studied the brain mechanisms
 underlying vulnerability to depression, anxiety and stress. His Holiness
 challenged me. He said, “Why can’t you use the same tools of neuroscience to
 study kindness and compassion?” I did not have a very good answer for him, and
 it was a turning point.



 At that time I had been a meditation practitioner for decades. I went on my
 first meditation retreat in 1974 with Goenka when I was a graduate student.
 That was my first visit to India. Most of my professional colleagues at that
 time did not know of my interest in meditation, as I really kept it under the
 radar. So when I met His Holiness in 1992, it was very clear to me that I
 needed to come out of the closet and be much more public about my own
 practice. It was a really pivotal time, yes.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div>
 <figure>
 <img
 width="606"
 height="759"
 alt=""
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/altered_traits2_103e6cf275.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T11:10:10.208Z"
 />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 TV: In the Gastroenterology Department they think I am a little cuckoo, as
 I am a meditator. They just kind of accept it.



 RD: Keep
 cuckoo, it’s good. It’s very healthy.



 TV: Yes. So, talking about positive emotions, I know you are the founder of
 the Center for Healthy Minds. Can you tell us a little bit about its overall
 mission? What are the services it offers?



 RD: The Center
 for Healthy Minds was founded and inaugurated by the Dalai Lama in 2010, so we
 have been in existence for a little more than ten years. The mission of our
 center is to cultivate well-being and relieve suffering through a scientific
 understanding of the mind. And our vision is a kinder, wiser and more
 compassionate world. It is primarily an interdisciplinary research center,
 with faculty from many different departments. Currently, we have around 75
 people working in the center in one capacity or another.



 About four years ago, I founded an affiliated non-profit company called
 Healthy Minds Innovations, with a mission to take the insights from the
 science and turn them into tools that can be used to cultivate and measure
 well-being. So, the non-profit is much more externally focused, and it is
 really to get the insights out into the world in one way or another. The
 non-profit is located in the same university building as the Center for
 Healthy Minds, Madison, Wisconsin. We have an agreement with the university,
 and there are about 20 people working for the non-profit.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div>
 <figure>
 <img
 width="700"
 height="469"
 alt=""
 class="lazyload w-100 h-auto"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/altered_traits3_ec5be6038f.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T11:12:03.931Z"
 />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 TV: I did review your
 <a
 href="https://hminnovations.org/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer noopener"
 >website </a
 >and there are some nice tools that people can use.



 RD: Yes, and
 we have an App that is freely available throughout the world, and it is based
 on our framework for cultivating well-being.



 TV: That’s great. I know we all talk about well-being, but we seem to live
 in a cocoon. When we look outside, we live in this highly polarized world.
 We seem to be caught up in these currents of social, cultural, and racial
 problems, the pandemic and so on. You have referred to innate human goodness
 several times. How do we cultivate this innate human goodness in people? How
 do we all come back together?



 RD: It’s a
 great question and I like the way you’re phrasing it. So, the scientific
 evidence really does show that we all come into the world with a propensity
 for goodness. Young infants exhibit that propensity, and more than 95% of
 six-month-old babies show prosocial orientation. So, it is very clear that
 this is how we come into the world.



 The fact today we see so much conflict, difficulties between in-groups and
 out-groups, and inequalities, is really a product of learning. This happens
 through forces in our culture, which, unfortunately, promote this kind of
 conflict, dichotomy, and suffering.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h5 class="has-text-align-center">
 Our true nature is basic goodness, and when people resonate with
 that, when they get back in tune with that, they feel it. It’s
 palpable and it is recognizable.
</h5>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 The invitation in all this is that we can use the same mechanisms in our brain
 and our body, that have been hijacked by the media and the cultural artifacts
 around us, which promote these unfortunate views. We can train our mind to
 return to our true nature. Our true nature is basic goodness, and when people
 resonate with that, when they get back in tune with that, they feel it. It’s
 palpable and it is recognizable.



 It is something that is enjoyable, and they can sense that it is a very
 authentic way to be. And so, one of the things that we are trying to do is to
 promote strategies to cultivate these qualities in different sectors of
 society, in the education sector at many different levels, in the workplace,
 in the healthcare sector. All of these different sectors are ripe for this
 kind of training, and I think that one of the things the pandemic has done is
 – it has exposed this in a stark way, the fact that the trajectory that we
 were on is not a particularly healthier, sustainable one. And so, we need to
 come back to our senses, we need to come back to our nature and so we’re doing
 everything we possibly can to get this out into different sectors in the
 world.



 TV: That’s great. And then, alter traits, right?



 RD: Exactly,
 alter traits. Through that we can change the world.



 TV: That’s fantastic.



 AM: So building on this, I’m wondering if you have any thoughts on the
 power of the collective efforts of various meditation practices coming
 together for a common cause. Have you studied or plan to study this in the
 future?



 RD: I think a
 lot depends on exactly what you are referring to with collective efforts.
 Certainly, I think that there is power in the collective. There’s power in
 groups of people engaging in these practices. Doing it with others can be
 enormously helpful in supporting our practice. In the Buddhist view, we have
 the sangha, which is the community, and it is the group that supports
 us in the practice. And so, to the extent that we can encourage groups to take
 this on, I think it can be enormously valuable.



 We are trying to do that in the systems we work with. For example, we are
 doing a lot of work in the Madison public school system, as well as in other
 school systems including those outside the USA. And when more and more people
 are committed to doing these practices, it then takes on a sense of the
 collective and the entire organization really begins to embody this change. It
 can be very, very helpful.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div>
 <figure>
 <img
 width="700"
 height="469"
 alt=""
 class="w-100 h-auto lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/altered_traits4_e5ab1932c7.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T11:14:08.478Z"
 />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 AM: You refer to the deep and wide paths in your book,
 Altered Traits, and it seems like only a small minority, who are
 already invested in some form of self-improvement or self-transformation,
 seek such practices. And well-being is a skill as you say. So how do you
 propose to encourage contemplative practices in a real-world setting, like
 you just talked about?



 RD: That’s a
 really important question. The way we promote it, first of all, is by
 encouraging people to take small realistic steps to do this. The second thing
 is in our App – you can engage in practices that are not formal meditation,
 but that are done during the activities of daily living. You don’t have to be
 sitting still. You can be walking, you can be commuting, you can be washing
 the dishes, or you can be doing your laundry. You can be engaged in any of
 these activities of daily living and also engage in practice in the
 background. We find this very, very valuable, and we have demonstrated that it
 doesn’t take much to begin to change.



 You can start with just five minutes a day, and that can actually produce
 discernible, measurable change after just one week. That’s a little more than
 30 minutes of practice a week. It is through this gradual step-by-step
 approach that I think people can incorporate this into their life.



 One of the things I frequently remind people is that when human beings first
 evolved none of us were brushing our teeth. Yet, today, virtually everyone on
 the planet brushes their teeth. When you reflect on that, it’s not part of our
 genome. It’s something we’ve all learned to do, because it is good for our
 physical hygiene. I think most people would agree that our minds are even more
 important than our teeth, yet most people don’t even take the small amount of
 time they spend brushing their teeth to nurture their minds. This is really a
 message that we want to convey to the world.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h5 class="has-text-align-center">
 I think that there is power in the collective. There’s power in
 groups of people engaging in these practices. Doing it with
 others can be enormously helpful in supporting our practice.
</h5>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />


 AM: Commuting and meditating is certainly something I can relate to,
 because I live in the city and have to take the subway. That’s how I cope
 with the commuting – by meditating.



 Our last question is regarding your personal journey and research, which we
 find remarkable to say the least. What do you envision next?



 RD: Well,
 whenever we are with the Dalai Lama, he reminds us that there are seven
 billion people, and we need to do everything we can to figure out strategies
 to scale these practices to nurture the minds and hearts of everyone. This is
 one of the reasons we developed the App, and we’re making it freely available
 to remove any kind of financial barrier so that anyone, anywhere, can use it.
 We are developing different versions of this App for different communities;
 more specialized content for college students, teachers, for example.



 Second, along with this, we need to develop better measures of well-being. You
 can’t really change something unless you can measure the change that you are
 promoting and measure sensitively. And we don’t have great measures that we
 can deploy on a large scale. This is something we are working on intensively.



 Then, we’re doing a lot of work internationally. We have a large collaborative
 effort in Mexico, where we are training a group of schoolteachers and
 principals, and examining the impact of training the staff on the students. We
 have recently worked with 1100 principals and teachers in elementary schools,
 who are responsible for teaching around 250,000 students, and we’re seeing the
 benefits to the students. So, this is a very strategic and cost-efficient way
 to benefit large numbers of students without having to work with each
 individual student. This is something we are exploring in different parts of
 the world.



 AM: That’s wonderful.



 TV: Thank you again for chatting with us. It was really a pleasure. We will
 send you our research on the effects of Heartfulness, and we hope to meet
 you in person soon.



 RD: That would
 be great. I’d be happy to. As soon as we can easily travel again, we’d love to
 have you visit our center.


<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<div>
 <figure>
 <img
 width="700"
 height="469"
 alt=""
 class="has-img-center lazyload"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/altered_traits5_f902e393f7.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T11:15:21.481Z"
 />
 </figure>
</div>

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

<hr />

<h4 class="has-text-align-center">
 Interviewed by THANGAM VENKATESAN and ANAGHA MATAPURKAR
</h4>

<hr />

<hr class="vertical-space1" />

Altered traits

Goodness

Well-being is a skill

Richard Freeman

Slowing down

The art of loving

Listening

Ricky is a 3-time Grammy award-winning composer, an environmentalist, UNESCO MGIEP Ambassador for Kindness, UNICEF Celebrity Supporter, UNCCD Land Ambassador, and an Ambassador for the Earth Day Network.

rickey-kej.jpg

Ricky Kej

<h4
 class="block-heading"
 id="h-ricky-kej-is-a-3-time-grammy-award-winning-composer-an-environmentalist-unesco-mgiep-ambassador-for-kindness-unicef-celebrity-supporter-unccd-land-ambassador-and-an-ambassador-for-the-earth-day-network-he-performed-and-spoke-to-the-crowd-at-the-international-rising-with-kindness-youth-conference-at-kanha-shanti-vanam-in-august-2022-here-are-some-excerpts-from-his-message"
 >
 RICKY KEJ
 is a 3-time Grammy award-winning composer, an environmentalist,
 UNESCO MGIEP Ambassador for Kindness, UNICEF Celebrity Supporter,
 UNCCD Land Ambassador, and an Ambassador for the Earth Day Network.
 He performed and spoke to the crowd at the International Rising with
 Kindness Youth Conference at Kanha Shanti Vanam in August 2022. Here
 are some excerpts from his message.
 </h4>

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 I’m Ricky Kej, musician and environmentalist. These two pillars define
 my life. I believe in the ancient Sanskrit phrase,
 Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, which literally means, “The world is one
 family.” It also means coexistence, and it means kindness. It is the
 base of Indian civilization. We often think it means peaceful
 coexistence between the Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Parsees,
 Jains, etc. – different cultural groups within the human species –
 whereas it actually means a lot more than that. Somewhere along our
 journey, we have completely forgotten that we are not the only species
 on this planet. We are just one among millions of species. So, true
 Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam means living in peace and harmony with
 all life forms. Not only that, we also need to coexist with all the
 elements of Nature – the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the
 land we walk upon.
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <div class="block-image">
 <figure>
 <img
 alt="kindness-to-planet2"
 
 class="lazyload has-img-center"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/kindness_to_planet2_f31f8b9a49.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-13T10:39:28.455Z"
 
 />
 </figure>
 </div>

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 Coexistence and kindness are closely related. We must realize that we
 live in an ecosystem, a very delicate balance of ecology, and that we
 are a small part of it. It’s important that we understand that
 coexistence and maintenance of this delicate balance of nature keep us
 all alive.
 

 
 True coexistence and true kindness are key to our survival. When we talk
 about saving the planet, we’re actually preventing ourselves from going
 extinct. The planet will survive without us. By mitigating the effects
 of climate change, deforestation, species extinction, air and water
 pollution, we are saving the human species. We are protecting ourselves.
 

 
 I think the biggest threat of all is our belief that somebody
 else will bring the change. We are always waiting for
 governments, inter-governmental bodies, organizations, politicians,
 leaders, etc., to make a difference when the truth is that we can bring
 about change ourselves – incremental changes within our own lives – by
 being kind to one another.
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <hr />

 <h4 class="has-text-align-center block-heading">
 Coexistence and kindness are closely related. We must realize that we live in an ecosystem, a very delicate balance of ecology, and that we are a small part of it.
 </h4>

 <hr />

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 
 The reason we are not already bringing about these changes is not
 because we are evil people. It is simply because we have not empowered
 ourselves, we have not been kind enough to ourselves to believe that the
 tiny changes we make in our own lives can actually make a difference. We
 think, “If I stop using single-use plastics, what difference will it
 make?” “If I use public transport, what difference will it make?” “If I
 am kind to others, what difference will it make? I’m a small person.”
 But that’s not true. We have to empower ourselves to believe that the
 small changes we make and the small acts of kindness we do
 can make a difference, can create a ripple effect, and can
 touch millions of people all over this world.
 

 So, let’s believe we have the strength to be kind.

 
 <hr />
 

 <h4 class="has-text-align-center block-heading">
 Illustrations by JASMEE MUDGAL
 </h4>

 
 <hr />

Kindness to the planet

Rifa is a Year 12 student from London, who is passionate about creating space for young people to talk about their mental health. Her goals are to smash the stigma around mental challenges so they get the attention they deserve, and provide support.

Rifa.jpg

Rifa

<h4>RIFA is a Year 12 student based in London. Here, she talks about the struggles of insomnia, how it impacts her mental health, and the importance of asking for help.</h4>Insomnia is when you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, even when you want to. It can make you feel tired during the day, affect your mood, and make it hard to focus on things. It’s a sleep problem that messes up your energy. It feels like an unending night, a restless cycle from which you can’t break free. You are always stuck in a loop, where time stretches out and sleep slips away; the hours drag on, and the minutes seem to go nowhere.&nbsp;Your bed, once a place of comfort, becomes your grave in hell where you toss and turn, searching for that elusive rest. The nights blur into each other, like watercolors bleeding into a melancholic masterpiece; the first light of morning peeks through the curtains, bringing a mix of tiredness and frustration.&nbsp;Desperation clings to you like a layer of filth, a constant reminder of insomnia’s foul presence. The nights become a theater of despair, a grimy struggle for something that always remains just out of reach. It’s not a poetic dance with the night; it’s a repulsive crawl through the muck of sleeplessness, leaving you feeling drained and tainted. It’s hard to explain the feeling of being caught in this cycle. It’s like trying to grasp something just out of reach, always slipping through your fingers. You watch the clock tick by, knowing that sleep should come, but it stays just beyond your grasp. Even though the world wakes up, you’re still trapped in wakefulness, moving through the day in a haze of exhaustion, stranded in a fog of fatigue. It is a struggle to stay focused, to find energy, when sleep feels like a distant dream.However, insomnia isn’t just a solitary concern; it’s a thread that connects with various aspects of my well-being, creating a complex web of challenges that I’ve come to understand intimately. Among these threads is anxiety, a powerful force that shapes my nights and days in profound ways. Anxiety and insomnia, I’ve realized, have formed an alliance. They fuel each other’s fire. Sleeplessness intensifies the relentless chatter of anxious thoughts, while anxiety’s grip makes it almost impossible to find the serenity needed to slip into sleep’s embrace.&nbsp;Anxiety is a storm that brews within, churning up a whirlwind of worries and fears, the voice that never stops whispering doubts and uncertainties, even when the world is quiet. When insomnia joins forces with anxiety, the two amplify each other, creating a perfect storm of restlessness. Fueled by sleeplessness, anxiety gains strength as the night wears on. The more I struggle to sleep, the more anxious I become, creating a cruel loop that feeds on itself. The night is an arena where anxiety and insomnia wage a relentless war for dominance.Amid this ongoing battle, I’ve come to realize that seeking help is not a sign of weakness but an act of strength. Just as anxiety and insomnia form a formidable alliance, there is also strength in seeking support and understanding from those around me. Talking about my struggles has allowed me to connect with others who share similar experiences, remind me that I’m not alone in this fight, and know that I can reach out for help, whether it’s through therapy, lifestyle changes, or other strategies to improve my sleep and manage anxiety.&nbsp;<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Talking about my struggles has allowed me to&nbsp; connect with others who share similar experiences,&nbsp; remind me that I’m not alone in this fight,&nbsp; and know that I can reach out for help,&nbsp; whether it’s through therapy, lifestyle changes,&nbsp; or other strategies to improve my sleep and manage anxiety.&nbsp;</h4><hr>While the nights might still feel long and arduous, and the grip of anxiety might persist, there is a path forward – a journey toward better sleep, improved mental well-being, and a brighter outlook. It’s a journey I’m committed to undertaking, step by step, night by night, as I work to break free from the cycle and reclaim restful nights and peaceful days.

Insomnia

Rig Veda

Water

Riley Reign

<h4>RILEY REIGN shares some tips on how to find a spiritual practice that is right for you, and how to go deeper into it.</h4>Cultivating a spiritual practice is such a beautiful and personal experience, but even still it can sometimes become stagnant or stale. What are we to do when we want to take our <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/love-and-remembrance" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">spiritual practice</a> to the next level? How are we supposed to go deeper into our own experience and the lessons we receive from life?Even in our personal-development and self-improvement soaked society, we sometimes come up against our own walls. The first step is to recognize the difference between a wall, a challenge to overcome, and comfort, a space of contentment. While there is nothing wrong with comfort, to live in that space for too long can create this stagnant energy.So, how can you break through the stagnancy and move into a flow of continuous growth?<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/deepen_your_practice2_min_aaef3cdbed.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T12:32:46.277Z"><h4>SURRENDER TO THE PROCESS</h4>I experienced this lesson in my own meditation practice. After going through a 10-day Vipassana retreat I thought I had gone the deepest I could have, and that I knew how to get back to that oceanic internal space whenever I really wanted to.<hr><h5 style="text-align:center;">Be intentional in everything that you do, especially in spirituality and exploring such a space. I have found that when I have a clear intention, and when I trust in that intention blossoming in its own perfect timing, I let go of that feeling to control or make a specific experience happen.</h5><hr>I spent a few days of my meditation practice trying and trying to make it happen, to take myself within as deeply as I could. The only result I got was a surface-level presence and destructive ego thoughts. This is where I found my shift. I could not try and make this happen, I could never force it. I had to let go just as much as I wanted to experience my internal energy.Surrender to the process and allow yourself to align with whatever experience you want to occur. Never try to force it or create it. This leads to the next principle.<h4 style="text-align:justify;">BE INTENTIONAL</h4>It is all about intention in this space, whether you are giving or receiving energy, whether you are teaching or learning, whether you are a curious beginner or a seasoned meditation practitioner, yogi, or intuitive. Be intentional in everything that you do, especially in spirituality and exploring such a space. I have found that when I have a clear intention, and when I trust in that intention blossoming in its own perfect timing, I let go of that feeling to control or make a specific experience happen.Be intentional with why you are beginning or continuing your practice.Be intentional in why you are trying out a new tool, practice, or technique.Be intentional in what experiences you’d like to try and live.Then surrender and allow the process, and the outcome of such experiences, to be what they will be.This practice of intention in itself will bleed into every other realm of your life and bring with it quite a bit of beauty, more kindness, more giving, more love, more understanding of others and so on.<h4 style="text-align:justify;">BE EXPERIMENTAL</h4>To me spirituality is about exploration and openness, which easily translates into experimentation.Try whatever techniques and tools you feel called to.Some may feel amazing and work wonders for your body, mind and soul, and others may not vibe with you well.Be playful with whatever you are interested in and inspired by, and when something doesn’t work quite right, move on.It may not be that it didn’t work or wasn’t right for you, it may be that it was not the right time for you and you may try something more than once.This experimental and open mindset and intention will open up opportunities for you to experience deeper realms of yourself and your being than you knew existed. It can also teach you what you are ready for, and what you’re not, which can be incredibly insightful as to where you may need to work a little harder to grow in that area of yourself.I hope these points of perspective and guidance carry you along your journey and into some beautiful depths with ease.All of my love to you, Namaste, Riley<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Article by RILEY REIGN</h4><hr>

Deepen your practice

Rishi Ranjan is India Head and General Manager for a multinational cloud services company, with over 28 years in senior IT leadership. A Heartfulness Trainer for nearly three decades, he shares practical spirituality and the Bhagavad Gita through radio, online media, and global meditation and leadership programs.

rishi-ranjan.webp

Rishi Ranjan

<h4>RISHI RANJAN explores the concept of purity and how it can weave our destiny.</h4>Suppose our hands are dirty, what do we do? We wash them to make them clean. If our house is not clean, we remove some added elements that were making it dirty or messy. What are we doing? We are not adding purity from outside, but only removing the outside elements that were making it impure. Hence we do not add purity from outside, we only restore purity, which is already there.We are in fact making our hands the way they were at the start, before doing any activity. We are restoring our house to the condition before any activity, by removing the other elements that made it impure. Hence, when we say ‘restore purity’ we are trying to say restore the original condition.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">We are not adding purity from outside, but only removing the outside elements that were making it impure. Hence we do not add purity from outside, we only restore purity, which is already there.</h4><hr>Therefore, from our understanding,&nbsp; PURITY = ORIGINAL CONDITIONLet’s think about impurity. Can we think of impurity as the first quality for anything? We cannot say anything is impure without the underlying latent idea that there is purity. The idea of impurity does not exist without the idea of purity. So impurity is nothing but a progressive degradation of purity. So whatever we see around us that is impure is away from its original condition.Therefore, from our understanding,&nbsp; IMPURITY = AWAY FROM ORIGINAL CONDITIONWhat creates this movement away from the original condition?andHow can we restore the original condition?IMPURITY = IM + PURITYWhen we add our own idea of ‘doer’ship to our actions, we add impressions. We add the elements of our own individual mind with all its complex functioning, and it is like soiling our hands.PURITY = IMPURITY – IMAll we have to do is remove ‘IM’ from our current condition and we will be moving towards the original condition. In fact, when we say impurity, we are saying IM PURITY, that is, we are stating our original condition.So try to feel IM PURITY. How does it feel to move towards our original condition? That is where, I think, “purity weaves destiny” in the true sense.&nbsp;

Purity weaves destiny

<h3 style="text-align:center;">by Daaji and Elizabeth Denley</h3><h4>RISHI RANJAN offers a chapter-by-chapter reflection on The Heartfulness Way, Book 2, outlining its practical approach to inner transformation and realization.</h4>The Heartfulness Way, Book 2, is a compelling guide to personal transformation written by Daaji, the global Heartfulness Guide, in conversation with Elizabeth Denley. This book empowers readers to transcend mental and emotional barriers, overcome fears, and challenge conditioned beliefs, unlocking happiness, balance, and their highest potential. Daaji outlines a straightforward, practical approach—using <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/a-spiritual-gathering-the-magic-of-group-meditation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">meditation</a>, relaxation, and other contemplative practices—that integrates easily into daily life. These practices foster inner qualities like love, compassion, and gratitude, guiding readers toward a deeper purpose and enduring peace. This journey is open to anyone ready to expand their awareness and pursue self-realization.The Heartfulness Way, Book 2, is not merely a book to be read; it is an experience to be lived. It is not only for understanding but for awakening. Picking up where the first volume left off, Daaji continues his illuminating dialogue, this time with Elizabeth Denley. The result is a seamless, intimate conversation that feels as if the reader is sitting in the presence of a wise and humble teacher, exploring the subtler layers of consciousness and the ultimate purpose of human existence in a simple manner. The book starts with a profound statement: “Philosophy is thinking, Yoga is doing, and Realization is undoing.” The chapters take us along this trajectory, from thinking to doing, and then to undoing. This volume will not only make us understand but also awaken the Reality inside us. The book’s core strength lies in its ability to bridge the gap between ancient spiritual wisdom and the practical realities of modern life.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/THW_2_2_27df34871b.webp" alt="THW2-2.webp"></figure>&nbsp;The Heartfulness Way, Book 2, provides a clear roadmap for anyone aspiring to move beyond life's limitations and find true balance and happiness. The first chapter, “Starting Point: Our Beliefs,” illustrates how belief carries the seed of unknowing; in the absence of knowing, we rely on belief. Life, then, is a story we narrate to ourselves, shaped by these beliefs. They serve as stepping stones, forming the lens through which we engage with the world. Next, the book discusses our connection to the Divine, which emerges not from preconceived beliefs but through subtle experiences—through osmosis and empathetic resonance, as we feel a spiritual presence permeating our consciousness. Introducing this topic in the first chapter is apt, since we need inner openness when confronted with new meaning from beyond our belief systems. A classical illustration of this contrast is found in the figures of Arjuna and Duryodhana: although both had access to Krishna’s guidance, only Arjuna was willing to move beyond his fixed assumptions. This difference in receptivity reveals how transformation depends not on proximity to wisdom, but on openness to it. The chapters that follow build upon this foundational perspective.With this openness, we are ready to move into the next chapter, “Journey and Destination.” Here, Daaji leads us through discussions of goal setting and intention, evolution and freedom, and paradoxes, revealing a complete map of the spiritually transformative journey. We arrive at real freedom when we are free from all conditionality—Babuji called this “freedom from freedom.” Daaji clarifies that resolving life’s suffering does not mean escaping pain and misery, but rather finding freedom from its root cause by reconnecting with our original balanced state.Now we have inner openness from the first chapter and, from the second chapter, some idea of what this transformation is that we have to become and be. With that foundation, we come to the next chapter, “Approach and Attitudes,” which lays out the principles we should inculcate for this journey of transformation. Willpower is a limited resource, but interest is unlimited. First and foremost, we should be interested in our own transformation. If we are interested, we will create a field around us that will help push us forward. Our thoughts will naturally flow upwards. With this heightened awareness, we will start getting restless. Restlessness is awareness of a fine nature. It is a key ingredient for our approach. Letting go, confidence, heartful communication, zero footprint, and moderation are some of the other beautiful topics in this chapter.Having a suitable approach and attitude prepares us to receive divine impulses in our hearts. Now comes the next chapter, “Love and Support.” Daaji beautifully writes, “A person whose soul is able to transmit the impulse of God is a true master, and a person whose soul receives the impulse is a seeker or disciple... when the soul of a seeker is thirsty for those impulses, even when that thirst is subconscious, the Master will appear seemingly by chance.” This chapter is a true revelation. It provides important information on how to connect with the Master. He writes that the heart-to-heart connection is immediate as soon as you think of the Master!After building a foundation of love and support from the Guide or Master, we are now wholeheartedly ready to accept the fourth chapter's topic, “Methods and Training.” Here, we transition to discussing simple methods for meditation, prayer, and journaling, as well as the need for inner purification. The main purpose of this training is to simplify and purify your lifestyle so that you can expand your consciousness into higher realms. The result: the removal of impurities and complexities from your heart and mind, the development of moderation in the use of your senses and faculties, the refinement of your character, and ultimately, the expansion of your consciousness. &nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:75%;"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/THW_2_3_35df3927f1.webp" alt="THW2-3.webp"></figure><hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Daaji clarifies that resolving life’s suffering&nbsp; does not mean escaping pain and misery&nbsp; but rather finding freedom from the root cause of suffering&nbsp; by reconnecting with our original balanced state. &nbsp;</h4><hr>&nbsp;Adopting these “Methods and Training” gradually prepares us for the next chapter, which focuses on building trust and faith. In this new chapter, Daaji explains three means of attaining knowledge and describes the process of developing faith in the Master. He describes true faith as the “lively link connecting the mortal and immortal,” a link that develops through the medium of the Masters and their transmission. Daaji discusses the transformation that occurs when true faith is developed, noting that a simple person of faith cannot demand anything. Instead, such a person sails through life with gratitude, joy, and a generous heart. For them, making a demand would feel like a violent act.When we develop faith as a “lively connection,” the next stage is to make it a permanent characteristic of our hearts. This is our next chapter: “Establishing a Constant Connection.” Because of this constant connection, we maintain a balanced inner state. In this state of near-perfect balance, our consciousness keeps spinning like a top, creating a beautifully integrated state. Once it becomes permanent, it is called Constant Remembrance, which naturally prevents the formation of samskaras, or impressions. We remain in a state of flow. How does this help us in our day-to-day lives? While remaining connected within, we don’t withdraw from worldly responsibilities; we meet them with greater skill because we are more centered and balanced.Beautifully, with this constant connection, we start sailing in the realms of Realization, or Undoing. We are now ready for the next chapter, in which we transcend “The Heart: The Realm of Emotions and Qualities.” Daaji explains the “five Cs” (contentment, calmness, compassion, courage, and clarity) and the “five Ds” (discontentment, disturbance, displeasure, discouragement, and delusion), how we develop the spectrum of sympathy, empathy, and compassion, and how we move from “me to we.” When samskaras control our lives, we rely on states of external fulfilment to experience “C” states. Otherwise, we remain in “D” states. As we remove samskaras through purifying <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/a-users-guide-to-living-part-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">spiritual practices</a>, experiencing “C” states no longer depends on satisfactory experiences. Daaji also explains the need for character development, which allows us to hold the inner states gifted on the spiritual journey; it is spiritual evolution that promotes the development of fundamentally human qualities.Having completed the chapter on the heart, we now move to the next chapter, titled “The Mind: Learning to Yield.” This transition marks a major step in “undoing,” as the focus shifts to yielding and letting go of the layers of identity we have created. The process of yielding the “I” culminates in its total absence, where we no longer exist for our own sake. This journey of yielding leads us to the beautiful condition of sharanagati. Sharanagati is not a state of defeat. Rather, it is the feeling of being under the care and protection of a beloved. It brings joy. Such is the state we enjoy upon reaching sharanagati.We are now arriving at “Destination: Realization and the Center.” How have the previous chapters helped us in this last stage of undoing and realization? The mind yields and the heart is vacuumized, so that the divine essence may flow unto us. Then we are ready for realization. Daaji explains our connection with the Universe, the science of the Center, traditional Yoga, the current era, and the state of samadhi.&nbsp;<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Daaji explains our connection with the Universe,&nbsp; the science of the Center, traditional Yoga,&nbsp; the current era, and the state of samadhi.</h4><hr>&nbsp;The Heartfulness Way, Book 2, closes with the following promise:“So Daaji, does this distilled, simplified approach of Heartfulness affect the length of time it takes to attain realization?“Yes, this is now possible within one lifetime—or even a part of it. God-realization is possible for anyone who has a craving and an interest. Practice sincerely and authentically with the help of a master of caliber.”The Heartfulness Way, Book 2, is a compassionate, insightful masterpiece. It equips seekers with the tools and wisdom to realize their ultimate potential. Its strength lies in its profound simplicity and in its emphasis on experience as the true measure of spiritual growth. Daaji offers a practical, heart-centered approach to life’s deepest questions. He provides a beacon of hope for a world grappling with stress and a lack of purpose. Ultimately, he guides us back to the stillness and transformative power of the heart.Reading this book felt like the ocean whispering to the waves, with the realization that the waves and the ocean are just expressions of the same water.

The Heartfulness Way, Book 2

Rob Theunissen

Align, execute, renew

Robert Charles Swan

Threat to our planet

Robert Chilton is an IT specialist based in New Jersey who works internationally on projects to preserve and share the literary and cultural heritage of the Indo-Tibetan traditions. His current project is www.gompaservices.com. With a BSc in Computer Science and an MA with focus in Tibetan language and Buddhist literature, Robert's interests include philosophy, music, physics, cognitive science, and contemplative practices.

Robert-Chilton.jpg

Robert Chilton

<h4>ROBERT CHILTON has spent most of his adult life keeping alive the written
 traditions of Buddhism in the Tibetan language. The significance of this work is that many of the original Sanskrit
 texts of the Buddha and the early Buddhists were lost, so now these Tibetan texts are the most accurate record we
 have of the Buddha’s teachings. Here he shares with ELIZABETH DENLEY how he
 ended up in Kathmandu and eventually took on this archival work of preserving one of the world’s great traditions.
</h4>
Q: Robert, you’ve been involved with the Tibetan and
 Nepalese monasteries for some time. Can you tell us what you have been doing there?
RC: Well, in a sense it started because I was a
 seeker. I was trying to find a way to have some sort of an authentic spiritual life, first within the Christian
 tradition, and then by a number of interesting ‘coincidences’ I managed to find myself in Kathmandu in Nepal.
I met Tibetan lamas there, and they were not only as knowledgeable as the best
 professors I’ve had at Duke university, but they also had the other side, which was they’d developed a humanness.
 They were both the best scholar you might meet as well as your favorite grandfather or grandmother, who would just
 know what you needed and find a way to give it to you. And I thought, “Okay, this is an authentic path.”
When I first came back after spending about a year and a half in Asia – Nepal, India,
 China – my family and close friends said, “So did you convert to Buddhism?” I said, “No, no, it wasn’t like that. As
 I’ve learned more about the teachings in the Indo-Tibetan tradition, I’ve realized that it’s what I’ve always
 believed. That’s what makes sense to me, and that’s the world I understand and experience. And if that’s what
 Buddhists believe then I’m also a Buddhist, because it makes sense.”
Q: When was this?
RC: This was in 1986, 1987, 1988. Then in 1989 I
 went to the University of Virginia and got a master’s degree.
Q: In Tibetan?
RC: They called it Religious Studies, but my focus
 was Tibetan language and Indo Tibetan Buddhist literature and philosophy. So that was a change, because previously
 I’d studied psychology. I was a major in psychology and computer science at Duke.
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tibetanjourney1_min_886342a727.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T11:49:59.784Z">

Q: So, the best of both worlds!
RC: In a certain way, but they all pointed in the
 same direction: I was interested in human consciousness and what it could be.
It became apparent to me at that time that Western psychology was really in its infancy
 and that in the East there was much more development of the knowledge of consciousness, psychology, and how to
 develop as a human being. The West was good at developing the material world, but if you wanted to develop the
 human, the mind, at that time it was much, much better to go to Asia.
After I got my degree I had knowledge of Tibetan, and a fair knowledge of Tibetan
 Buddhism. I’d done meditation practice for several years in India, Nepal and also in the USA, as well as studying
 Zen and Insight meditation. And I heard there was a project where they could give me some work, which would combine
 my IT expertise with the fact that I could read Tibetan and knew Tibetan script. It was a project to save Tibetan
 books digitally.
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tibetanjourney3_min_2805299bee.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T11:51:43.019Z">

Of course this was originally an Indian tradition. They were Sanskrit works that were
 translated into Tibetan – many of the Sanskrit originals were lost subsequently – but they were also translated into
 Chinese in some cases. The Chinese already had concepts and philosophy so they tried to map it, and it wasn’t always
 a very good map. The Tibetans really didn’t have philosophy, so they just had to make up new terms to match the
 Sanskrit. So there was a very good correspondence between the meaning they had in Tibet and meaning they had in
 Sanskrit. So in a sense, many of the lost Buddhist treasures of Sanskrit knowledge were preserved in Tibet.
I worked for that project for 15 years as the Technical Director, and it employed
 Tibetan refugees, first in the monasteries and also later in some of these refugee settlements, to type the books.
 They could read Tibetan, and we taught them how to use a normal keyboard and type the Tibetan letters using English
 letters. And they became touch-typists! We didn’t need very expensive computers, and there was also no problem of
 conversion because the English letters were readable universally.
Q: So it was the transliteration of the Tibetan.

RC: Yes. And of course we could convert it anytime
 we wanted to Tibetan script. Also, the people who developed the skills could type anything. They could touch-type at
 high speed. So it was a win-win: we had a very inexpensive labor force by western standards, and they could produce
 a great line of books of over 300,000 pages.
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tibetanjourney4_min_148e93f77d.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T11:55:29.423Z">

Q: Tell us about these books.
RC: These are teachings that were attributed to the
 Buddha and also the commentarial tradition of the Indian masters, who followed after the Buddha. They cover all of
 the main four Indian Buddhist philosophical schools. This is another interesting topic, because it’s not like
 there’s only one view to the Buddha’s teachings.
He didn’t teach that there’s one view that everyone has in common; it depends more on
 where you are and what is good for you. There are different ways to look at it, from the point of view of what you
 might call hermeneutics.
There’s a real lesson there about what is true for a person at a certain time. And
 that’s been one of my favorite topics, which I studied and have had a chance to teach as well.
So on one hand I have done this job, and on the other hand I’ve been continuing to study
 because I just really love the meditation and the philosophy and the practice and having the chance to be with the
 lamas and teachers.
Q: So are they translated into English as well?
RC: Yes, there are translations in English of some
 of the books. I don’t even know what percentage it would be, but certainly less than 50% of even just the core canon
 has been translated. I’d probably put the number closer to 20%.
Q: They must be some of the most original Buddhist
 teachings that exist.
RC: Yes. The Pali Canon, which is the southern
 school, has been fully translated into English, and there’s some overlap. But what they call the Kangyur or
 Kanjur in Tibetan, the translated words of the Buddha, is about 85,000 pages.

Then there’s the Tangyur or Tanjur, which is three to four times that
 amount. So by the time we added it all up, it was around a quarter of a million pages.
Q: So are these like the Gospels in the Bible that
 disciples of the Buddha have written?
RC: Well, it was an oral tradition. The Buddha,
 unlike Christ who taught only for 3 years, lived till the age of 80 and he was enlightened when he was 30. So he
 taught for almost 50 years. It was an oral tradition that was passed down for several hundred years before it was
 written.
Q: So what did you learn from this?
RC: One of the most important lessons for me is
 that it’s not a doctrine where we learn to believe what we are told, but rather it’s a method where we’re given the
 tools to see for ourselves how things are and check to see if it’s true.
One of the very famous sayings of the Buddha is, “Just as a goldsmith tests his gold by
 burning, cutting and rubbing it, so you must examine my words and accept them, but not merely out of reverence.” And
 that’s sort of the real thing. If it’s not practical, if it’s not something that you can apply right away in your
 life, then just leave it. You don’t have to say it’s bad, you just leave it aside and say, “Well, may be some other
 time, another place that will be relevant. But what I need to focus on is right here, because this is practical to
 my life right now.”
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tibetanjourney5_min_a1b1dadd5e.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T11:54:32.123Z">
I also had another kind of insight. Someone asked me a beautiful question about free
 will and predestination, as they’d heard that I had studied Buddhism for the past few years. I said, “Well, we have
 some very, very limited free will, some very limited ability to make decisions that are really coming from inside
 knowledge. But as we practice, and as we gain more and more awareness, the freedom of movement that’s possible
 expands, and it becomes greater and greater.”
There’s a lot of talk in Buddhism about liberation and Nirvana. What does it
 mean? It can simply be translated as freedom. The question is: How do you get to freedom?
It’s that development that each moment you can make a choice that can either in the
 future make you have less possibility to choose or more possibility to choose. And if you make good choices, you
 expand the number of choices you can make in the future, the range of choices you can make. How do you respond? Do
 you react according to your habits? Or do you have the chance to have that little gap of time where you consider
 “How am I going to respond to this? How am I going to think about this?”
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tibetanjourney6_min_a55dbfb9e5.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T11:56:41.272Z">

The Buddhist messages all come from how we think – that’s the first step. If we think
 wrongly, we’re necessarily going to make a wrong decision. It might be good-wrong or bad-wrong, it’s kind of
 interesting. You can do something that you feel is good, for example, you could give money to someone who needs
 something, but if you’re doing it thinking someone’s going to see you doing that, the motivation there is sort of
 mixed. Then there’s really the bad stuff, like, “That’s not mine, but it’s going to be mine now.” That’s just plain
 old bad. And then there is what they call uncontaminated good, which is when you have the right motivation for doing
 a good action and you carry it out, and then you rejoice afterwards, not because someone saw you, but because it’s
 in the nature of goodness, the way the universe is structured.
Daaji was saying that God is the principle and the rules. When you’re in conformance
 with the principle and the rules, then it’s good. And when you are not in conformance, then you have the collisions,
 the problems, the mental afflictions and all that.
Q: How does it work as a Westerner in this tradition? Is
 it a natural fit or are there issues having grown up in a Western culture?
RC: Most of the people I spend time with are not
 Western Buddhists. I spend time with Tibetans. My wife’s family is Mongolian and they’ve been Buddhists for 300
 years, and I spend time in their temples and with their lamas. For myself, I was trained as a scientist and was a
 very skeptical person. My father, who found an Eastern path in the Sikh tradition, would talk about karma and
 rebirth, and I was like, “Maybe. I don’t know. I’m a scientist, and until you can show me it’s true or not true, I’m
 just going to leave it on the table and say maybe yes, maybe no.” So I’d heard about rebirth and reincarnation, I’d
 heard about karma, but I didn’t have any conclusion. I had studied psychology: nature and nurture.
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tibetanjourney7_min_b96191c40a.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T11:57:29.282Z">

And then I went to Kathmandu and met Lama Lhundrup, who was the abbot of Kopan
 monastery. His English in the 1980s was of very limited vocabulary, but what he was able to express in an hour and a
 half answered so many of my questions. He completely convinced me that of course there is rebirth and reincarnation,
 and of course I had had multiple lives before. He convinced me that meditation is absolutely necessary. He said,
 “You feed your body every day with food, you have to feed your mind every day with meditation.”
He just hit all the high points in an hour and a half. It gives me chills now even just
 thinking about it, because I’d had all these questions for 5, 6 or 7 years. I’d read Alan Watts, I’d read Thomas
 Merton, and I was like, “Maybe, maybe not, I don’t know.” And then I met this lama and I’m like, “Okay, this is the
 real deal! Now I know where the wisdom lies – at least one of the places where wisdom lies.” Even though it was
 broken English, it was understandable.
To be continued.
<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Interviewed by ELIZABETH DENLEY</h4>
<hr>

A tibetan journey

<h4>ROBERT WELTON is a metaphysician living in Santa Barbara, California. In this article from his book, Be Your Own Light, he shares his insights on relationships, soul mates, and love.</h4>The purpose of our lives is revealed in our relationships with family, friends, lovers, enemies, and everyone we chance to meet. Everyone plays a part in everyone else’s life experience. In great or small roles, people appear on the stage of our lives in different costumes, in different lifetimes. Their true character or importance may not be recognized except in hindsight.Mystics report that kindred spirits, like birds of a feather, group together for each migration through the material world. These soul support groups encompass all types of people from all walks of life because, help or hindrance, friend or foe, all polarities are necessary for allweather navigation and course corrections.The circles of family, friends, work mates, acquaintances and strangers, occupy different orbits of intimacy. In friendships we often find our true “family” of soul mates, those with whom we can be most intimate and vulnerable. They can bring out the best and the worst in us. Both reflections of personality are needed to witness our strengths, and the weaknesses that need exercise.The success of a relationship depends upon the degree we allow ourselves to become vulnerable. We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable selves to be known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering, with trust, respect, and affection. When you are in love, you must be authentic without any pretense. You must be a flame without any smoke.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/flame_smoke2_fe8cdac5fd.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T06:33:50.422Z">Love is a feeling that defies description in every language. Each <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/an-ode-to-love" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">experience of love</a> is unique and different, combining wings that have never flown together before. Each love passing through our lives leads to a greater understanding of ourselves and the beloved. Love is a bridge that connects us to the wisdom of our hearts.Love, like happiness, is not perfected until it is shared. You cannot kiss your own lips. Paulo Coelho, the famous Brazilian novelist of The Alchemist, wrote, “Love is not found in someone else, but in ourselves; we simply awaken it. But in order to do that, we need the other person. The universe only makes sense when we have someone else to share our feelings with.”Love is the Alchemy, the magic Elixir of Life that transforms two into One. In love, the different colors of your being become unified as one pure white light. Hindus call this state of being, Ananda, meaning, happiness, joy and bliss. In every life Signs appear, pointing the same way as all Masters have pointed. The Path to Happiness and Joy follows Love wherever it goes.Raymond Moody, an American medical researcher of near death experiences and author of the bestseller, Life After Life, wrote, “People who return from near death experiences tell us that in the seeming closing moments of their earthly lives, they learned that the most important thing we can do while we are here is to learn to love.” Once you have learned to love, you will have learned to live.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Article by ROBERT WELTON Art by JASMEE RATHOD</h4><hr>

A flame without smoke

<h4>ROBERT CHILTON has spent most of his adult life working with traditions of
 Buddhism in the Tibetan language. In Part 1, he shared the significance of this work in preserving the most accurate
 record we have of the Buddha’s teachings. In part 2, he tells ELIZABETH DENLEY
 about the Gompa Tibetan Monastery Services, where technology is used to connect the monasteries with followers, and
 create a platform for sharing the ancient wisdom.</h4>
Q: So what is happening now with the Tibetan monasteries? I don’t mean politically, but
 is the tradition alive still?
RC:&nbsp;These great masters were able to come out
 in the early 1960s. They eventually were able to reform the monasteries and continue their training. They were in
 refugee camps, first in Indian prisons, and then they were in these camps where they were living in tents with
 keep-guards to keep the elephants from rampaging through the camps. They went through a lot of hardships, but they
 were able to keep transmitting the knowledge.
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tibetanjourney_part2_3_ae8a35a94e.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T10:39:03.603Z">

The system of the monasteries is all about how to keep the knowledge alive from one
 generation to the next. And that was happening in Tibet since the time it was transmitted from India, in places like
 the great monastery in Nalanda and other great monasteries in India. They kept it going, and up till now they’ve
 been able to keep it going.
It used to be that every extended family would send at least one boy to the monastery to
 become a monk. It was just normal. And there were all these people in Tibet who were also coming into India through
 Nepal and Bhutan, and they would come into the monasteries and take up their spaces, cohorts in their classes, but
 recently the police forces have stopped that flow.
The monasteries and nunneries are doing great things in their local communities in terms
 of social welfare programs. They’re the ones who establish the clinics. They have hospitals, library resources, and
 there are people for any spiritual needs to be met in various ways, such as with prayers and advice, giving names to
 the children and blessings, and so on. All this plays a very vital role within the refugee communities in India and
 Nepal. Also, people in these communities have found ways to go abroad, to Malaysia, Singapore, USA, Canada and
 Australia.
There’s a need for them to have access to spiritual services, and that’s the project I’m
 working on now. That’s called Gompa Services, or Gompa Tibetan Monastery Services. Gompa Services is an online
 service platform that connects more than 50 monasteries and nunneries in India and Nepal to the world of their
 followers.
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tibetanjourney_part2_1_d24376e2fb.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T10:41:08.048Z">

If people want to watch a webcast of a teaching, or some special ceremonies or a public puja, or if they want to
 arrange their own personal puja with a dedication for a specific purpose, they can do all that through the website.
 If they want to make donations toward other social projects, like the ones that help expand a library or build
 needed dormitories, they can make offerings through our service. We don’t charge any fees on those transactions.
We have members who help support the functions. It’s been going on since we started in
 2014, and we really got launched in the last couple of years. We started a publicity launch a few months ago, in
 terms of making ourselves widely known, after we had made sure everything was working well.
Q: So is this mainly for India and Nepal, or is it global?
RC:&nbsp;The monasteries and nunneries that we’ve
 been connecting through the platform have been in India and Nepal. Our main coordinating office is in Dehra Dun,
 which is in North India. And we also do webcasting up in the North: whenever we have any events we send our crews
 out for the webcasting. We also have one in the South in Karnataka state that covers the southern region. There are
 a number of monasteries in that area, where people arrange pujas on demand. And then we also have our Kathmandu
 office for most of Nepal. There are other places, but it is mainly Kathmandu where most of the monasteries and
 nunneries are located.
We have recently been looking at bringing individual Dharma Centers – where they have
 events or teachings that are relevant to the community or followers worldwide – into our platform. Basically we have
 a system of providing for the distribution of the webcasts, which is all integrated. People can sign in with a user
 ID, they can make donations or not, it’s up to them.
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tibetanjourney_part2_4_e89f3592d2.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T10:42:28.398Z">

But most of what’s really happening, in terms of the big events, is happening in the
 monasteries and the nunneries, especially for the arranged pujas. You have 200 monks who do the prayer for half a
 day, and there’s an energy. It’s really extraordinary when there are that many people all doing the same practice,
 and they’re trained to do it.
Q: There’s a history of Buddhism in the Indo-Nepali part
 of the country, which goes back to the original traditions.
RC:&nbsp;Yes, that’s definitely true, but it’s much
 more. I think in our educational system we value empirical evidence. What people are only starting to realize
 broadly is that the foundations of what we call empirical evidence are completely subjective in a sense. For
 example, first there was Einstein and his theory of general relativity. Then you had Neils Bohr and Heisenberg and
 the whole quantum worldview, which has taken a long time for the average person in the West to even understand.
One of my personal hobbies is to study quantum physics, and luckily I have enough
 mathematical and scientific training that I can sort of follow it. What I find fascinating is that when I read one
 of the early Indian philosophers, Nagarjuna, and his presentation of the Middle Way, he says that nothing exists the
 way it appears to, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. When I put that up against the quantum worldview, as I
 understand it, there’s a way I can interpret the data coming from quantum theory that lines up pretty closely with
 what was said 2000 years ago in India. So we’re going back to what the Indians have always been teaching, and what
 the West is finally coming to.
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tibetanjourney_part2_5_2bef4f5a69.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T10:43:59.075Z">

Another great example is that the English and other scholars, who encountered Indian
 philosophy in the 1800s, dismissed it as very speculative: There was this idea that there’s not just a world, but
 countless world systems; these huge universal world systems. What were they thinking? They were just trying to do
 this kind of mental gymnastics and see who could outdo whom, and turn to describing the physical world.
And then you know, a century and a half later, guess what? The West is saying that there
 are all these multiple millions and uncountable world systems. It’s all expanding, and whether it’s going to
 contract or not contract, we do not know. Everything of the Indian philosophies that was laughed at as ridiculous,
 now is acknowledged as the way it is, according to the West.
My mother-in-law is a nurse, and she had been studying both her nursing and Indian
 explanations of karma when she came across a passage in one of the early Indian books. If you look at who has the
 biggest karmic impact, in terms of doing a good action or a bad action, one of the biggest is the parent, the mother
 in particular. And then there was a recorded case with one mother who had the ovum and another mother who carried
 the baby to term. At the time she was reading it, it was a long time ago when surrogacy wasn’t done yet, and my
 mother-inlaw was saying, “Why would they even speculate on this? Why is this in a book from 500 BC or 300 BC?”
A few years later they did exactly that. Answer the question now: Which one has the
 karma of being the mother? There are just so many cases! I could write a book about all the times the West has come
 around to the ideas that they previously dismissed as ridiculous Indian ideas, and now they go, “Oh, actually that’s
 true!”
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload w-100"
 src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tibetanjourney_part2_6_5b872bf05f.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-06T10:45:30.785Z">

Q: Well, the concept of nothingness is from the Indian
 philosophy. So many of the fundamental principles of mathematics came from India.
RC:&nbsp;William James, the psychologist, said
 around 1900, “The nature of the human mind is that it cannot stay on a single thought or a single object for more
 than a second or two.” Meanwhile these meditators in India could just stay there; forget hours or days, they could
 just stay there. That was completely out of the mindset of the Western scientists of the Victorian era.
Q: One thing that amazes me that Babuji said is, “The way
 forward for humanity is Eastern heart and Western mind, together.” It’s not that you need one; you need both.
 Somebody like you has the possibility to live that, right?
RC:&nbsp;That’s my goal. I feel so blessed that I
 was given a rigorous scientific education at a time when quantum theory was known, general relativity, transistors,
 everything that we know about the natural world, and at the same time, the great thinkers of India like Nagarjuna
 and others had been translated.
Before 1980 you could not find a good translation of Nagarjuna, and before 1980 you
 really couldn’t find any presentation on general relativity or quantum theory for lay people. And now you find both
 if you know where to look. Someone has to still show you some of these things, because they are pretty impenetrable
 at a certain superficial level, but if someone leads you through it, you can get it. I teach a one-week symposium on
 this.
Q: You are welcome to do it sometime here.
RC:&nbsp;I’d love to. It would be a blast! Thank
 you very much.
<hr>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Interviewed by ELIZABETH DENLEY</h4>
<hr>

A Tibetan journey - part 2

Robert Frost

All the difference

Robert Steven Goldstein is an author who lives in San Francisco. His latest novel, Golda’s Hutch, was released in March 2025. Here he explores the relationship between the Eastern and Western practices of knowledge, yoga, and meditation, and discovers that they are not really different in concept.

robert-steven-goldstein.webp

Robert Steven Goldstein

<h4 style="text-align:justify;">ROBERT STEVEN GOLDSTEIN is an author who lives in San Francisco. His latest novel, Golda’s Hutch, was released in March 2025. Here he explores the relationship between the Eastern and Western practices of knowledge, yoga, and meditation, and discovers that they are not really different in concept.</h4>“But of the tree of knowledge… thou shalt not eat of it.” —The Book of GenesisThe spiritual discipline I cobbled together for myself in my late teens, and which has sustained me now for well over fifty years, has four major components: yoga, <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/how-does-meditation-help-hindi" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">meditation</a>, vegetarianism, and a code of behavior that comprises compassion and harmlessness, a concept known to Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains as Ahimsa.It wasn’t until long after I had pieced these things together that I came to understand that long ago, in places like India, the single term “yoga” actually encompassed these, and many other precepts. Today, though, especially in the West, yoga has come to connote primarily a set of postures and breathing exercises, devoid of other considerations.Of the four components that have become the foundation of my personal spiritual practice, the one that proved most difficult for me initially was meditation. I remember first encountering the term “meditation” in old yoga books, when I was still a a boy. These brief references to meditation alluded only to its benefits, they mentioned nothing about how it was actually practiced.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Humans desperately require knowledge,&nbsp; but also need to know how to turn it off at times.</h4><hr>So meditation seemed to me, then, something utterly mysterious and alluring. Here was a way of manipulating the mind so that I could see God. But how, I wondered, was this accomplished? In my musings, I imagined that meditation must consist of extraordinarily complex mental convolutions and gyrations—labyrinthine cerebral reckoning akin to that of advanced physics or calculus—to achieve such an unfathomable feat as spiritual awakening.But when I investigated further, and learned that meditation was, in fact, exactly the opposite of what I had envisioned—that it sought to still the mind of thoughts—to make it an empty vessel, so to speak, to be then filled with mystical energy—I was dumbfounded.Just stop thinking?That simple trick was all there was to this powerful and obscure practice called <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/meditation-health-part-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">meditation</a>?It seemed absurd. I honestly couldn’t believe it. It appeared far too easy.Until I tried. And found it nearly impossible.I was a gifted student—I’d been thrown into advanced classes and had even skipped a grade—but now, no matter how hard I worked at it, I couldn’t pause those pesky thoughts (thoughts for which I’d been so richly rewarded and praised in school) for even a few seconds. Why was it so difficult?Eventually, not with the sheer force of will with which I tried at first, but with patience and calm and a great deal of practice, I learned to meditate. And as I became able to sink into the mystical mindset on a regular basis, the experiential aspect of the spiritual discipline manifested, and the practice became even more real and intrinsic for me.But the tug of the Judeo-Christian religions in which I and all my friends had been raised, lingered inside me—not so much viscerally, but intellectually. Why were these beliefs so meaningful to so many people? Why did they not resonate with me at all? Was there some connection I could find, between them, and the path that I had chosen? If there was, the gestalt would make more sense to me.In college, I majored in English Literature and Creative Writing, and threw together an informal, undeclared minor in Religious Studies. I sought out classes anywhere I could find them. I discovered comparative religion classes offered in the Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology departments. The German department taught the novels of Hermann Hesse in translation. Perhaps my favorite of these classes was in the English department: The Bible as Literature.My first breakthrough meditation experience occurred during the summer when I was nineteen years old, and I took the Bible as Literature class almost immediately after it, when I returned to school for the first semester of my junior year.<figure class="image"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tree_of_knowledge2_b67201e7de.webp" alt="tree-of-knowledge2.webp"></figure>It was in the first week of class, as we examined the creation myths and the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis, that a profound link between the Eastern and Western approaches to spirituality became evident.And it seemed appropriate that this essential shared truth should be presented in the very first story of the Old Testament, the foundation upon which the entire Bible would then be built.Once Eve and Adam ate of the tree of knowledge, they were expelled from the Garden of Eden.That, it seemed to me, seized upon the philosophical dilemma that all humans face in seeking spirituality. But none of the standard interpretations we were offered in class were in line with what the story meant to me personally.Our professor had suggested that the fact that the Bible referred to it as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil should not be taken too literally, because in that time, “good and evil” was a colloquial way of referring to “everything” or “all things.” The tree symbolized knowledge in general.As we pored through scholarly tracts on why God would seek to prevent humans from seeking knowledge, none of them postulated what now appeared obvious to me as someone who meditated: Our cerebral activity—our constant thoughts—block us from experiencing the spiritual aspect of the cosmos. Knowledge, thinking, is the impediment, not the vehicle, to attaining the mystical sensibility.But knowledge and thinking still remain vital and something to be sought after and cherished. So, humans desperately require knowledge, but also need to know how to turn it off at times.As always seems to be the case, it is a duality—it demands that we carefully balance and calibrate to find our equilibrium.But more than that, we are, in fact, capable of achieving a mindset where this duality is erased—where the material and mystical realms meld into a unified and powerful gestalt.This is the goal of a lifelong spiritual discipline.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Home› Contributors