How to make the most of life

DAAJI explores the topic of destiny, including our own role in determining our future, as well as the roles other people, circumstances, and the environment play. He shares with us some practices and attitudes that help to make the most out of life.

What determines our destiny?

This is a fundamental question of existence. We all want to change our behavior so that our loved ones can resonate with us. And we also expect our loved ones to change their behavior so that we love them even more. Now, in order to understand human behavior, we first must understand how the conditioning of our behavior patterns came about. And also, can we break away from these patterns? Researchers study these things in a very limited way. For example, they study alcohol addiction, drug addiction, sex addiction, and other habits that become ingrained as the nervous system becomes hardwired.

I would like to focus on the way we develop vrittis, the activities and tendencies of the mind, and how we develop our prakriti, our individual nature, based on these mental activities. It eventually becomes our hardcore genetic nature, which determines our future. We can say that we create our destiny according to the tendencies we develop.

How do we create tendencies?

The first thing that contributes to our conditioning is environment. For example, say you had a love affair, and you loved that person very much but you broke up. After some time, you meet them again. How do you behave? Do you start fighting with them, or do you say, “I’m sorry it ended like that”? Are you nice, or does your mind become volatile when it is triggered by seeing the other person?

The second thing is memory, which plays a big role. There is cognitive memory, existential memory, and episodic memory, but deep down our experiences remain as emotional memory. And it is emotional memory that creates our behavior patterns. We learn to protect ourselves from allowing such episodes to affect us again in the future. For example, if a person was bitten by a dog in childhood, they will stay away from dogs when they are adults, even from little puppies.

How do we change patterned behavior?

In the Heartfulness Cleaning practice, we use our will to make a sankalpa that “All the impurities and complexities I have gathered during the day are leaving my system,” and it has a magical impact. By doing this for fifteen minutes in the evening, after the day’s work and before being with family members, we clear the slate. We are fresh, without the baggage left over from the day.

Let me give you an analogy. When you come back from a two-hour workout at the gym, do you greet your partner and say, “Come my darling, let me hug you”? Your darling will say, “Please stay away from me until you have a shower.” Cleaning is required. Similarly, your inner hygiene is spoiled by your conscious and unconscious activities, and you also need to clean that.

The next level is to prevent the creation of impurities in the first place. Cleaning is an after effect – you get dirty so you clean yourself. The next level is to prevent your psyche from being soiled by external things. You immunize your mental activity and your emotions. And how can you do that? By meditating. You become so balanced from inside that nothing can shake you.

Behavioral change is much easier for a person who has a goal in mind. For a basketball player in the U.S., the goal is to become an NBA player. For a cricketer in India, the goal is to join the national team. Their behavior changes because they establish what we want in life. We all adjust our lifestyle to match the goals we aspire for, and the same is true for inner goals: a God-oriented person wishes to realize the Ultimate, while a scientific person wishes their consciousness to expand so they can experience its full potential.

People who become alcoholics or drug addicts are hardwired to certain habits, which means flexibility is lost. Even when they wish to change these habits, the heart and brain will not easily support that change. It requires interest and enthusiasm toward a better goal, and the aspiration to achieve that goal. If they are feeling sad, some level of enthusiasm has to be there if they are not going to self-medicate by drinking and smoking. Instead of criticizing, family members can try to give positive feedback, “Yes, you can do it. You’re brave, you’re strong.” I think it takes so many people – friends and family members – to help any of us change our habits.

So, as far as good habits are concerned, parents can help by sowing the seeds in their children from the moment of conception. As the first embryonic cells divide rapidly, becoming billions of cells, they are constantly exposed to the way parents behave, the way the magnetic field changes when parents are angry, having arguments, etc. These affect the inner structure. And if the child’s structure becomes used to anger, it adapts accordingly.

We can never change what is hard-coded in our genetic structure, but we can bring about epigenetic changes and slowly help the genes to mutate. For example, children who practice Brighter Minds do a beautiful exercise that enhances coordination between the right brain and the left brain. Otherwise, we gradually lose this ability around the age of fifteen, when our creative abilities are compromised because of the procreative hormones that are released into our system.

If a person lives in a rough neighborhood, where they are always afraid to walk through the streets, how well would they sleep at night? They would adjust, even though they are afraid, but their brain cells would adapt to that external violent atmosphere. Per contra, a person living in a peaceful environment will have brain cells adapted to a peaceful atmosphere, where there is less effort required, and therefore less entropy. For anything to remain stable, we need energy input. To maintain balance and stable behavior, effort is required.

And why do we make efforts? Because we are interested in growth. Goals, aspirations, and lifestyle changes are all connected with growth and evolution.

How to go about this? Again, the answer is the Heartfulness Cleaning method that changes our behavior from the root, from the subconscious level. What it requires is practice.

Other factors

Designing our own destiny is one thing, but other factors also have an impact onus reaching our destination. For example, Lord Jesus Christ did not choose to be crucified. That was not his goal. Other people did that to him. And Lord Rama and Mother Sita did not aspire to go into the forest. Was it written in their destinies that they both suffered so much? No, because no less a person than the Sapta Rishi, Vashishta Muni, gave the benediction for their marriage. He said, “This is the best couple, the best horoscope combination,” and yet they suffered greatly. It was one of King Dasharatha’s queens, Kaikeyi, who caused their miseries. Was it the destiny of millions of Jewish people to be killed so mercilessly at the behest of Hitler? No. Destinies can be changed and manipulated by many factors – other human beings, circumstances, and the environment. So, while we do have an important part to play in our destiny, it’s quite complex.

It requires interest and enthusiasm 
toward a better goal, and 
the aspiration to achieve that goal.

Also, what happens when we leave our destiny to God or our karmas? While our karmas do determine our destiny, this one-sided attitude is the reason why some people, including many Hindus, are weak and impotent in this world. They leave everything to God and don’t do anything for themselves. Instead, let’s do our part toward weaving our destiny in a masterful way.

Discipline

There is no magic wand for discipline. Otherwise one Jesus would have been enough, one Krishna would have been enough. Even during their lifetimes, they could not change people. Discipline is an individual phenomenon because we have the freedom to choose our own way of life. And often we choose the easy path, we prefer to go downhill, whereas to climb Everest takes time, and a level of organization, discipline, and effort. Even keeping our homes organized requires discipline and effort. For example, your children’s rooms become untidy if you don’t regularly arrange their books, toys, and clothes. Someone has to keep them tidy and clean.

Discipline is also necessary in the cosmos. Planets don’t deviate from their orbits, so what provides the energy input to keep them organized? If we say that it is gravitation, then the question arises, “What creates gravitation?” This leads to deeper and deeper questions.

Personal discipline also requires energy input; and energy input means using willpower. Now, will power does not need to be forceful; it does not have to mean, “I must do this.” Will power is far more effective if our hearts cry out with joy and a desperate interest to achieve our goal. Then, energy input will happen.

But so many things happen in life. Our lives are governed by people and things other than ourselves alone. So what is in our control? To be disciplined, have a goal, and try to achieve it.

And please cultivate enthusiasm, because God doesn’t descend into sad hearts or hearts fuming with anger. God descends into hearts that are welcoming and joyful.

To watch the full talk, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXFxehPfrfc.

Illustrations by JASMEE MUDGAL