March 31, 2022 • 39 mins
Welcome to Connections with Eva Longoria! In Eva's first episode, she is joined by former monk, bestselling author, and purpose coach, Jay Shetty, for an episode dedicated to unearthing our connection to spirituality. What is spirituality and how can it help us gain clarity and introspection? What societal value does spirituality bring, and how can we improve this vital connection?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to my new podcast, Connections with Eva Longoria. I'm
Eva Longoria and this is my very first episode. So
when I started this idea for a podcast and my
team was like, you should do a podcast, I'm like,
I don't want to do a podcast. And then finally
I was talking to so many of my friends and
I was really fascinat I've always been fascinated with the
idea of connection and how we connect but not just
(00:24):
to each other two things and concepts and ideas and
ideology and politics, and and then coming out of COVID
and lockdown and isolation and six ft apart and masks
where you can't really see people's faces, I was like, wow,
we have really disconnected from each other from our social circles,
(00:44):
our social work environments, um even socialization with our family,
socialization with strangers, right Like there used to be a
kind of a thing. We we knew how to connect
with strangers on the street. And so I think that
lost connection felt to me like we needed to relearn
how to connect, and not only to two people, but
(01:05):
to ourselves. And once I sat down to think about, uh,
this idea, I really took like an emotional inventory of
like where I felt that I personally needed to reconnect
or in some cases disconnect. I felt like there was
an abundance of episodes that we could do about connection
and reconnection. And I immediately knew that one of the
(01:25):
topics I wanted to explore was connecting to our inner spirit.
And you know, some people call it spirituality or connecting
to the universe, or connecting to our belief systems, and
some cases that's religion, sometimes it's not, but it's really
just connecting to the inner voice or or inner energy.
And so I felt like this was an important episode
(01:45):
because ultimately, my feeling is that connecting with your inner
spirit lead you to the meaning of life, and not
the meaning of life, but like your meaning your purpose
in this life, and and how lucky are we if
we connect to that purpose in a really powerful way
that gives us meaning to this life that we're leading.
(02:07):
So once I knew I wanted to explore this topic,
I immediately knew the person I wanted to have this
conversation with, and that was Jay Shetty. And you know
what's so funny. Though Jay doesn't give answers, what he
does best is asks questions that lead you to finding
your own answers, and so I'm so happy to have
you on. Thank you for coming and being here with
(02:30):
with us today. I'm so grateful even I want to
start off this my saying, first of all, you're amazing
anytime I'm with you. You have the most contagious energy,
and I am so happy that you're doing a podcast.
So congratulations to you and you thank you. I believe
you have this unique ability to connect with people in
the most disarming way, and so I think this suits
(02:54):
you perfectly. Oh, thank you. I'm excited to start a podcast,
and I'm so happy you're excited for me, because you
have the number one health and wellness podcast called On Purpose.
If you guys haven't, if you're living under a rock
and haven't heard of On Purpose, check it out. Um.
And you know, Jay also wrote this amazing book called
(03:15):
Think Like a Monk, and it draws on your time
as a monk. It teaches us how to access the
purpose that lies within us. Right, And I'm so humbled
by everything that you've accomplished because your original goal was
to make wisdom go viral. You've had over seven billion
views on YouTube, but in the book, you had said,
(03:37):
I want to show people that thinking like a monk
isn't about being calm and chill, and it's it's more
about connection. And so that's why I was excited to
have this conversation with you, because your life gave us
so many lessons and in the book really talked about
your life, and that's what I love about the book.
But I think sometimes people think spirituality is like very ry,
(04:00):
intimidating subject. First of all, tell everybody a little bit
about your story. Because you became a monk, you left college,
you didn't take the jobs that were offered to you,
you really took a left turn in life. Just I
want I want some people to catch up and no,
just a little bit about you know, were you always spiritual?
You know what motivated you to become a monk at
twenty one? And then we're going to talk about the
(04:23):
definition of spirituality. But I just want to talk about
just your experience in general, your life experience. Yeah, so
I grew up as an average Londoner. I grew up
in the city of London, born and raised, and I
grew up in an Indian background. And when you grew
up in an Indian family, one of the biggest priorities
in life is academic performance and academic success. So from
(04:44):
a young age, I was trained to work hard at school,
to do my homework on time, to be the person
who raised their hand first in class, basically to be
a bit of a geek or a dog. And I
wasn't spiritual. I had a religious background, and we did
religious practices at home, but they were very ritualistic. They
were not spiritual. They weren't really something that I connected to.
(05:07):
I didn't feel like I had a faith or that
my belief system was built on that. And as I
was growing older, I would say that my dreams and
aspirations were very similar to other people, to go to
a good college, to get a good job, to find
someone to marry, to have kids, and then live life
in that way. There was no spiritual or faith based
(05:31):
connection there that was guiding my life. I was being
guided by what society was guiding me by. So I
would consider myself to be a very non spiritual, normal individual,
and the only thing that I had was I was
always enamored by rags to richest stories. I was always
fascinated by people who had gone from nothing to something,
(05:54):
and it wasn't about the material success. It was about
the human resilience, the ability that humans have to go
through the most difficult challenges, to go to the edges
of the earth, to go through extremes two achieve something.
And in that search I met a monk. I would
go and this is before podcast, before YouTube, where you
(06:16):
actually had to go and listen to people in person.
And I would go and hear celebrities and CEOs and
athletes and you know, all types of people talk about
their journeys. And once I was invited to hear a
monk speak, and my honest answer, as you know, ever,
is that I was like, what am I going to
learn from a monk? Like what the monks have to
teach me? I mean, if you knew, yeah, exactly exactly,
(06:40):
moment exactly. And so I had no I was cynical
about it. I was skeptical and went there with a
bit of a guard up, and I said to my friends,
I'd only go if they promised we went to a
bar afterwards, Like that was my negotiation. That was my negotiation.
And my friends were very persuasive, so they said, sure,
(07:00):
we can go to a bar afterwards. And I went
to this event literally expecting nothing, and I walked out
with a completely new perspective on life. And the truth
is that even I thought about this afterwards, I didn't
know how to articulate it then. But when I look back,
I realized it's because when I was eighteen, when I
met this monk. I've met people who are beautiful and attractive.
(07:22):
I've met people who are rich and powerful and famous,
but I don't think i'd met anyone who was truly happy.
And he was content. He was happy, he was so
comfortable in his road. He wasn't trying to put up
a persona of being a monk, or he wasn't trying
to put up any persona. He just was. And I
thought to myself, he has something that no one I've
(07:46):
ever met has. And so that's where my journey began,
of being introduced to spirituality through him, and I started
to realize that since that day, whether you call it spirituality,
self awareness, whether you call it connecting with yourself, whatever
you call it, that was the beginning of that journey
(08:07):
for me where I became more interested in my inner
world than the outer world. And I think that's where
it all began, and how many years, were you a
month for so three years? I lived as a monk
for three years from it was one of the best
decisions I ever made in my life. And when I
(08:29):
wrote my book Think Like a Monk, it wasn't even
about my experience. It was really about these monks who
have spent their life dedicated decades to these ancient practices
and what we could learn from them. So I thought
I was going to do it for life. I lasted
three years, which I'm proud of myself for, but I
felt so blessed by that experience ever that I had
(08:52):
I had to share with everyone. Oh my gosh, I think,
like I said, spirituality is such an overwhelming concept. And
when I was thinking about episodes for this podcast and
I said, oh, spirituality, I was like, let me look
up the definition. I don't even know what the definition
really is because I kind of like, I think spirituality
is what it is to you. And and then I
saw that it started out as a religious term to
(09:13):
be more like the Holy Spirit, to be for man,
to be more godlike, and so it was kind of
birth and in a religious environment. But then the concept
broadened over time and included some mental aspects. And then
it expanded outside of religion, and now I feel like
it's kind of loosely described as as a meaningful connection
with something bigger than yourself. Right, I think it's hard
(09:35):
for people to reconcile spirituality with ambition and drive. And
you answered, you told me the story one time about
like they one doesn't cancel out the other. Just you know,
you're not telling people go give up your wealth and
go live as a monk. But can you talk a
little bit about that, because I think that's what prevents
people from like exploring that. People who are cynical, right, Like,
(09:57):
they go, well, I'm not gonna go forwage food and
wear a robe, you know, And it's not that doesn't
have to be that. Yes, definitely, And I'm so glad
you shared how that definition is evolved. And I'm going
to share a few definitions. The first one is from
the Vaders, and in the Vaders it says that there's
(10:18):
a beautiful sanscrit phrase and it says a tato brahma
jig nyasa. And what that translates as when the soul
or consciousness asks who am I? What is the meaning
of life? What is my purpose? So that beginning of
questioning is the beginning of spirituality. And so no matter
(10:44):
who we are, whatever our religious background is, whatever our
walk of life is, whatever our net worth is, whatever
culture we were raised in, whatever language we speak, we
all have a moment when we stop, we take a breath,
we pour as and we say, who am I? Why
am I here? What's the meaning of all of this?
(11:07):
So to me, spirituality very simply is self study and inquiry.
And that is a really liberating definition because it's not
about a belief, it's not about a faith. It is
self study. It is the study of the inner as.
In Sanskrit another word that I love, it's called unter
(11:29):
a cash. And so spirituality is the study of the
inner sky, just as astronomy is the study of the
outer sky. And so we have so many words to
describe the study of the outer sky. Right, whether we're
going out into the universe, we're going into space. But
what is that inner space? What is that called? How
(11:50):
do we define that? To me, that spirituality, it's the
study of the inner solar system. And if anyone which
is expansive, they're endless, you know, I mean, you think
about your mind, you think about your heart, you think
about your brain. You all of these incredible devices and tools,
(12:11):
we have very little understanding about what they can and
can't do, what to speak about psychology and consciousness. And
so to me, spirituality, very simply put, is self study.
And when we say self, we have to clarify that
we all have many selves, and the first self we
have is the physical self. So a part of spirituality
(12:35):
is understanding our physical self, our limitations, our strengths, how
the body works, how the body digests food, how much
sleep the body needs. But if I asked you even
two define your worth by simply your body, if the
only worth you had in the world with your body,
(12:57):
I think most of us would say, no, I'm worth
a lot more in my body. I'm worth a lot
more than the shape or physique I have. Like, that's
not me. And then you go deeper and you say, well,
then what is the self? And you look at your
emotions and you think is that me? And then you think, no,
that's not me because my emotions have changed since I
was young. I changed my mind a lot about a
(13:18):
lot of things. You look at a childlike Santi who's
just adorable, and you're like, he's going to change his
mind a lot of times in the next few years
of his life, because that's normal. So we're not just
our mind, We're not just our emotions. So then who
are we? So we're going beyond all of these physical
and material selves into understanding the self that sits beyond
(13:40):
all of those. I hope that makes sense and feel
simple enough to digest. No, I think that's what you
do so great in you know your channels and and
really in your purpose in this world as you really
break down, because sometimes, like I said, spirituality can get
really metaphysical. But again, I think your work, like your
purpose of I think what what you do in the
world with your platform is really making spirituality applicable. And
(14:06):
like I think you you give the like how this
is how you know? You can meditate, you can journal,
you can be grateful, you can be but like why
why why why should we all be spiritual? And I
think that was a big question, And I think why
people sometimes why do I? Why do I need to
do that? Right? It kind of turns people off, but
it's hard for them to find meaning in life. I
cannot think about what my purpose in life is because
(14:28):
I've got to take my children to school and come
home and make dinner. Like people don't have time to
expand and self study, and so why should we care
about this? Why should we self study? That's such a
great way to think about it. And and it is
a privilege to even take an opportunity to make time
for self study. I I agree with you, and you
(14:48):
know we both didn't come from backgrounds where that privilege
is necessarily there. My parents were both immigrants into London
and they both worked since I was young, Like, I
saw both my parents work so hard just to provide
for me and my sisterns. So I completely agree with you,
Like where is that time? And why is society set
up in that way? I would say that the deepest reason,
(15:11):
and we can break this down, is that when you
don't study who you are. The Vadas described it as
to be a fish out of water. If you take
a fish out of water, you can give that fish everything.
You could give it a mansion, you could give it
a car, you could give it a Bentley, you could
(15:32):
give it all the jewels and all the riches in
the world. But all the fish wants is to be
back in the water. If you've ever seen a fish
flopping around on the sand. It's a really uncomfortable visual
because that fish just wants to be back, reconnected with
its home. And so when you think about why, it's
because all of us know that regardless of our external
(15:58):
ups and downs, which everyone faces, whether you're wealthy or
not wealthy, whether you're famous or not famous, or whether
you're successful or not successful, everyone has their struggle. But
we find that we're all looking for that sense of home.
And even the people that are skeptical and and cynical
at first, what I find is that life throws so
(16:19):
many challenges at you to ultimately make you ask that question.
And so the reason of why is why not do
it sooner rather than later? Why not do it proactively
rather than reactively? Why wait for some tragedy or some
painful event to occur before we start the study of
(16:40):
the one thing that we are. And so I feel that,
you know, we've been trained in life to spend. And
there was a famous teacher. He came to a university
in the US from India, and he was taken around
to a lot of the university departments and they said,
this is the department of biology, and this is the
department of physics, and this is the department of history,
(17:02):
and this is the department of all of these things.
And he said, where's the department for the soul? Like,
where's the department for you and who you are? And
there wasn't one. And he was like, well, then what's
he was asking? Obviously in a broadway, But you know,
what is the purpose of all the education in the
world if we don't understand And I think on a
very simple level, Leaver, I think we'd all agree that
(17:23):
wouldn't have been a wonderful at school to understand how
your emotions work. They've been really amazing to understand how
to work on your mind, so that even in the
simplest forms, if we get away from the very deep
existential questions on a very practical level, the why is
because we're all going to deal with stress, We're all
(17:45):
going to deal with pressure, we're all going to deal
with pain and loss, and it might be quite useful
to understand what happens inside when we go through those
things so that we can actually help ourselves. Because your
qualification in doesn't help you when someone passes away, right,
Your knowledge of science doesn't support you when you're going
(18:07):
through a breakup or a divorce. So I feel at
a very basic level, that's the why, so that you
can actually navigate life. Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, the
same thing happened at Wharton Business School. I don't know
if you know. The most fortunate one hundred companies C
E O S came from Wharton Business School and one
(18:28):
day they realized, why are we giving all these people
black belts and finance and not teaching them about philanthropy? Right,
Like they're becoming billionaires, but like nobody told them, oh,
you should probably tithe some of that money and put
it back into society. And now they do have an
actual degree program about social responsibility social entrepreneurship. I was like,
(18:50):
that's fascinating, And that was the reason they said, how
why do we give black belts and finance but not
teach them how to support humanity? And it's why it's
a yin and a yang's like you can't have one
without the other. I think, yeah, you're spot on. I
love that study. I hadn't heard that before, and I
think that that's exactly the mindset. You know, we often
think we have to give money because people need it
(19:11):
or whatever. Actually you're giving money because it detaches you
from it. Like the reason why you're encouraged in spiritual
traditions to give money and give your money is not
just because you're going to save someone life. It's to
detach you from that which was never yours in the
first place. You're a caretaker. You were just taking care
of it while you were on this earth renting you know,
(19:33):
as as Mohammad Ali said, service is the rent you
pay for your room here on earth. And that's exactly
what it is. It's that where caretakers of wealth, where
caretakers of homes, where caretakers of estates, and so yeah
of your body. And so when you share and give that,
you learn detachment from these things that can become actually
(19:56):
our vices and our things that attach us and destroy.
I agree with that. That idea of detachment is a
whole another episode, and it's so beautiful. I live by
the Four Agreements. I love don Miguel Ruise and that
book and that like one of his four agreements is
don't take things personal, and and he talks about detachment
(20:18):
and he gives an extreme example of like if you
are a wife being beat, that is not your fault.
You're not creating that, you're not doing it. It is
something that that other person is going through. He says,
of course you should leave. You shouldn't just stay there
because it's not your fault. But just the way he
says it, of like, don't take things personal, even to
(20:38):
that extreme it was. It's such a beautiful lesson in detachment.
I am not being defined by this moment or this person,
or this relationship or this my wealth or my you know,
my status, or my success or my fame. You know,
it's a really big idea to be detached from things
and at the same time live in this world. Right,
I want nice things. I have a great shoe collection,
(21:00):
and right, of course, and and that's you know, I
always say that to people that you know, there's a beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful thought and it comes from I believe it's a
mom al Shaffie And he said that detachment doesn't mean
that you own nothing. Detachment means that nothing owns you.
(21:20):
And I think that that's the best definition of detachment
I've ever heard or read, because now you own all
these beautiful Let's take your example, and I have my
version of this. You own all these sneakers. Yeah, I
have a sneakers. You know, I'm not a monk anymore.
I have sneakers, I have nice clothes, I'm married, I
have businesses. But when I take your example, to make
(21:40):
it simple, you take a shoe collection. Now you own that.
That's beautiful. Detachment doesn't mean that you own nothing. Now.
When it owns you is when one shoe gets a stain,
or it goes missing or something, someone breaks it or
you lose it, and now you're sad, now broken, Now
(22:01):
your whole life has ended because this one shoe has
gone missing. That's when you're owned by that. You know,
when we become owned by that. So I feel that
that's a healthy way of of thinking about it. That's sure.
If if I lost a pair of shoes, like, of course,
I'll feel a little bit of pain, but I'm not
that's not going to define my life and how I
treat myself and treat people that day. Yeah, that's such
(22:22):
a good definition. And I've never heard that one. Who
do you think the enemy is of a of a
spiritually awakened person? Like? Is it is it a narcissist?
Is it our ego? Like? What is stopping us as
humanity as a whole to be more tuned into the
world around us, because I think if if COVID taught
(22:44):
us anything, it's that we live in a global community.
Look how fast a tiny little virus taught us We're
all connected. You don't live in India, you don't live
in the United States. We live in a global community
that is delicately structured. What is there is distance to
humanity as a whole. Really going woe? I have to
be vaccinated or I have to wear a mask now
(23:06):
for the good of others, not for myself, for the
good of others. I mean, just that simple act. But like,
what do you think is the I guess the enemy
of being spiritually awakened. So in the beginning, the enemy
is lust. And when I say lust, I don't mean
lust for like you know, a person or a woman
(23:27):
or a man or you know, I'm not saying that
kind of lust. Lust, when defined in the spiritual traditions,
is far bigger than that. Lust basically means the desire
to enjoy more for myself, So it encapsulates that desire
for selfishness, for greed. So deep down, all of us,
including myself, and I'm working through this. We have this
(23:50):
lust that I will find a way to make myself
have more enjoyment in the way I want. Most people
listen to that and go, it's easy because you have money.
So now I'm going to make money and I'll show
you how happy I am. And we both agreed that
money is good and people should have it, like we
both are in that boat. But we also believe money
(24:11):
doesn't make you happy. Right, there are two separate things,
and so what ends up happening is that we all
lust makes us believe we're all the exception, that we're
going to find a way to enjoy this world, be
happy in this world in a way that's never been
done before, and that it's all about us. And so
that feeling that it's all about us, what you just
(24:32):
said is you require us to have not us vision,
but collective vision. You're you're asking us to switch from
having US vision two WE vision, and moving from us
to WE requires you to be non lusty, because if
you're only lusty, and we were trained in this very
simply as monks. So for example, some of the monks
(24:53):
would be serving late and they'd come home late, which
meant that you had two choices. You either eight extra
food or you saved some for them because you knew
they were coming home late. That is a simple shift
from us to we do I just enjoy this because
it's in front of me and it's easy for me
to have, or do I think, Actually, I'm going to
(25:14):
take as much as I need to take care of myself,
but I'm also going to create value for other people.
And so our last makes us go no, no, no,
let me have it all. Maybe they won't save it
for me tomorrow night. They're not going to think about
me tomorrow when I'm late. And we all have these thoughts, right,
we have these very uncomfortable, difficult thoughts where we do
(25:35):
believe in scarcity. There's a feeling of scarcity that there
isn't enough for everyone. Therefore, if I get something, I've
got to take all of it, because if I start
thinking about everyone, no one's going to think about me.
And so that's where that last keeps us. And then,
as you said, as we start to grow, it becomes
our ego, and our ego blocks us because it now
(25:57):
starts to make us think we're better than So in
the early stages of spiritual awakening, you now feel that
you're enlightened and everyone else is still stuck in the matrix. Right,
I'm I'm like superior to this world now and everyone
doesn't understand and oh my gosh, I got through. I'm
like neo. But these people don't know what they're going through.
(26:20):
And you know, they're they're not smart, they're not asking
the deep questions of life. How superficial they are. And
we were just there three months ago. But you know,
we went on a we went on a yoga retreat
and read a book and now all of a SUD
podcast especially awakened. Yeah, and said, you know, so it's
it's lost in the beginning and it's ego to you know,
(26:41):
as we grow and so and I'm talking about very
deep fundamental blocks right now I'm not talking about but
how that plays through is in the beginning, it's just like,
well what do I do for myself? Just take care
of yourself. It's survival mode. Our survival instinct is forcing
us to say I need to survive. It will costs
and nothing else matters, No one else's opinion matters. Yeah. Yeah,
(27:06):
but like you said, we're in survival mode, right, So
I think, like I said when when when I look
at what you're doing and your life's work, it's it's
it's about like, this is how you do it? Just
tell me how. I'm the same thing with like, uh,
when I eat, just tell me? Do I be a
vegan and I gluten free? Just tell me what to
eat and I'll eat it, like what is good for me?
I don't want to think about the why. I just
(27:28):
know like this would probably have a positive vict of
my life. So it's like the band aid right now,
like I just want to know how. Just tell me how.
And I think this conversation is like, okay, I kind
of know how. I journal, I meditate, I listen to podcast,
I read, Like wait, why am I doing all of this?
And that's really what leads you down a greater path
is because the why is more important, even the why
(27:49):
of your life. Every time I post a picture of Santi,
I said, this is my why, right, This is why
I work, This is why I do philanthropy, this is
why I, you know, put my family first because you
know the world he's going to have later is important.
That's the beautiful part. Even what you just said there,
and I just want to because it's it's so subtle
what you just said, but it's so powerful, and I
(28:10):
have to pull it out because I don't know how
many people will have caught that you just said something
really special. Now, if you're obsessed with Santi, of course
you're his mother, and he's adorable, So it's easy because
your wife is cute, right, your wife is really cute.
So we take Santi and you could easily just think, Look,
his world is the house he grows up in, the
(28:33):
school he goes to, and my relationship with my partner, right, Like,
you could say that's his world. But you go further
than that. You think about your community, the Latin community,
you think about the environment, you think about politics. You're
thinking about the whole world he grows up in. And
that's where the service, that's where the extension comes in. Now,
(28:57):
of course, you have created a life where you have
the ability to think that big and far and wide,
and not everyone has to and not everyone can. But
what I'm saying is that if everyone thought that, hey,
if I can get more involved in my kids school,
then all these kids will have a better atmosphere, and
therefore my child will have a better atmosphere. That's a
healthy way of thinking. If we think, hey, if I'm
(29:19):
able to make my family have healthy communication, then this
child will benefit. We're able to expand our radius of care.
And I think this is often what's missed is that
that lust makes you go, no, it's only about this kid,
No other kid matters, And we don't realize that actually,
your kid is going to be affected by every other kid.
(29:41):
And so if every kid is not taking care of them,
by the way, your kids going to have a really
poor experience. And so I think that expansion of the
radius of care. So we're switching from a survival mindset
to what I'd like to call a self and service mindset.
The mistake is sometimes we've become martyrs. We just serve.
We just we don't take care of ourselves. So we're
(30:02):
switching not from survival to anything else. We're switching from
survival to self and service. Let me take care of myself,
but now let me go beyond according to my capacity. Yeah,
and it is. I mean, you're right. We we come
from a place of privilege. You know, when people said
how is COVID for you, I go, well, I have
a roof over my head and I don't have to
(30:23):
go to work without ppe and and I don't have
to like put myself. I'm not a frontline worker. I'm
not a health care worker. Like yeah, like that's a
place of privilege, and so taking care of yourself but
also servicing others is definitely I think a balance that
we should all try to strive for. My last question
for you is, you know, as we're coming out of
(30:44):
COVID and a global pandit, hopefully we're coming out of
a global pandemic, um everybody keeps talking about like I
can't wait to get back to normal. I just want
to get back to normal. Can we just go back
to normal? And you know, in self reflection, I'm like,
do we really want to go back to the way
we were? Like, there's some really great things that I've
learned during this introspective time, spending a time with my
(31:08):
nuclear family, nesting, you know, reading, meditating, and so is
normal a good thing or what do you think? What? What?
What lessons do you think we've we've learned and should
carry with us coming out of this. I think the
desire for normal is what creates so much stress and pressure,
because abnormality is actually our normality, discomfort, is more common
(31:34):
than comfort. So if you keep seeking comfort, you actually
become more disturbed when you're faced with discomfort. So if
I wake up and I know that chances are things
may not go to plan today because that is reality,
that's life, then I'm actually more adaptable and flexible and
(31:57):
able to deal with it than when I think it's
going to go perfect. I'll tell you a story that
that always comes to my mind when I think about this.
We were on a seventy two hour train journey as
monks from North to South India, around forty eight to
seventy two hours, and that is a long time to
spend on a train, and it's a long time to
(32:17):
spend on a train in India when you're traveling like
it's not even coach class, like you're like, you know,
as monks, you travel on the most most basic form
of travel. And I decided that I was going to
fast for the entire duration of the trip because on
the first day I went to the restroom and realized
I never wanted to go back in there ever again
(32:39):
on the train, so I looked very detached and renounced
and monk like, but it was only because I really
didn't want to use the toilet. And so I said
to my teacher, on this journey, we only had like
we would stop off at stations, but the station stop
would be maximum, like ten to fifteen minutes of the
biggest stations. And I said to him, he didn't see
me meditating on the train. So he said, you know,
(33:00):
when are you going to do your meditation? And I said, oh,
I'm going to wait for the really nice still stops.
I'll go out. I'll find a little tree and i'll
sit under and I'll meditate when it's peaceful. I said,
the train is too noisy, it's too crazy, it's too busy,
it's chaotic. And he said something to me, and it's
always stuck with me. He said to me, said, do
you think life is going to be like the calm
(33:24):
still stops or do you think that life is going
to be chaotic and hectic like the train? And obviously
it was a rhetorical question because the answer was obvious.
And he said, you're going to meditate on the train.
And I realized that the ability to accept as soon
as you accept that life will always have uncomfortable, challenging scenarios.
(33:47):
You don't get down about it, you actually get prepared
and flexible and adaptable about it. But as soon as
we have that thought in our head of I want
to avoid all discomfort. I want everything to go back
to normal. I just wanted to stay that way. How
when you see that news, you're like, oh no, the
world's falling apart. Now when you see that challenge, oh no,
now it's all over, we get really disheartened by it,
(34:10):
as opposed to if we expect we say, look, there's
a lot of people in this world, and there's a
lot of people with mixed opinions, mixed expectations, mixed pain.
There's a lot of people with a lot of trauma
and a lot of pain, and they're going to do
things that I don't like. But if I get involved
in my local community, my local charity, if I try
and become a better parent, if I try my best
(34:33):
and take care of the people that I'm in charge of,
then maybe I can improve their experience of life. And
I think that the desire for normal will constantly keep
disturbing us with discomfort. So don't look for normal. Look
for tools to navigate the abnormalities of life. Because navigation
is more critical than normality. It's like saying I wish
(34:56):
this road had no traffic. That means when it gets traffic,
you feel really upset, rather than saying, oh no, I've
got my Google Maps here, I know how to navigate
the traffic. Which one is a smarter option? Right? Right? Right?
Be prepared. Yeah, I mean a good way of talking
about this is movies. Right, even you direct you, right,
you obviously act like when you're creating a movie. When
(35:19):
has it ever gone to plan? Ever? I can't. I
can't think of I can't actually think of anything in
my life that has ever gone to plan. And the
problem is you hold so we hold so strongly onto
this projection in our mind of what it should look
like that we don't allow ourselves to actually make a
difference in reality. And so the more we are attached
(35:43):
to our vision of our plan, the less we actually
get to walk through life and make the right choices
and decisions. So I'm not saying you shouldn't plan. I'm
saying that you should be able to adapt and be
a bit more open with being able to adapt is
a really big lesson. Yeah. When I'm directing, it's like
a problem every hour. Remember I was shooting something and
(36:04):
I needed this nineties limo and so they came and
they go, uh, the limo is not working. And I go,
what do you mean, it's not what it's got to
drive up in the scene, and they go, yeah, it's
not it's not working. I was like, okay, And so
we picked a spot on a hill that we could
just roll it down into the shot and it worked.
All right, How did you stop it? How did you
stop it? Well, the brakes works. Yeah, yeah, the brakes
(36:27):
were you just wouldn't turn on. And when you see
the shot in the movie, you'll you'll go, oh, yeah,
that's the car that wasn't working. You make it work, okay.
J Last question, a book everyone must read, I mean
other than think like a month. I know you're very sweet, okay.
I would say it's the biography or autobiography of anyone
(36:47):
you love and admire, because I think you learned so much.
I would say the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
And again the reason I say it is because you know,
just study someone's life is to remove envy of them,
and so a lot of our time we waste our
life envying people we wish we had their lives. We
(37:09):
wish we had what they have, And when you study
someone's life, you just start to have a completely unique perspective.
I would say Steve Jobs is biography by Walter Isaacson
was life changing for me because you get to hear
about how he combined art and science. You get to
hear about how he was actually extremely spiritual but had
so much trauma of his own, Like you get to
(37:30):
see a complete person rather than the image you see
on a TV screen or whatever. And so for me,
his biography has really helped me. I've spent a lot
of my time studying Martin Luther, King, Malcolm X, Steve Jobs, Einstein,
like these are some of the biography. So I would
say Steve Jobs is biography. And if it was a
mindset book that we both loved, and I would say
(37:51):
it's Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahanman. I believe
no book gave me a better understanding of the mind
than Thinking far stin Slow by Daniel Kahman. It's a
phenomenal read. Oh wow, Well, thank you so much, Jay
for being my first guest on on this podcast. I
(38:11):
hope I did it justice. I hope we got to
what you wanted and thank you for just giving me
a moment like I honestly mean this, I got to
share things that I would never have shared anywhere else.
Thank you so much for listening. I'm happy to be
connected with you. Connections with Evil Lagoria is a production
of unbelievable entertainment in partnership with My Hearts Michael Pura
(38:35):
podcast Network. For more podcasts from My Heart, visit the
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to my new podcast, Connections with Eva Longoria. I'm
Eva Longoria and this is my very first episode. So
when I started this idea for a podcast and my
team was like, you should do a podcast, I'm like,
I don't want to do a podcast. And then finally
I was talking to so many of my friends and
I was really fascinat I've always been fascinated with the
idea of connection and how we connect but not just
(00:24):
to each other two things and concepts and ideas and
ideology and politics, and and then coming out of COVID
and lockdown and isolation and six ft apart and masks
where you can't really see people's faces, I was like, wow,
we have really disconnected from each other from our social circles,
(00:44):
our social work environments, um even socialization with our family,
socialization with strangers, right Like there used to be a
kind of a thing. We we knew how to connect
with strangers on the street. And so I think that
lost connection felt to me like we needed to relearn
how to connect, and not only to two people, but
(01:05):
to ourselves. And once I sat down to think about, uh,
this idea, I really took like an emotional inventory of
like where I felt that I personally needed to reconnect
or in some cases disconnect. I felt like there was
an abundance of episodes that we could do about connection
and reconnection. And I immediately knew that one of the
(01:25):
topics I wanted to explore was connecting to our inner spirit.
And you know, some people call it spirituality or connecting
to the universe, or connecting to our belief systems, and
some cases that's religion, sometimes it's not, but it's really
just connecting to the inner voice or or inner energy.
And so I felt like this was an important episode
(01:45):
because ultimately, my feeling is that connecting with your inner
spirit lead you to the meaning of life, and not
the meaning of life, but like your meaning your purpose
in this life, and and how lucky are we if
we connect to that purpose in a really powerful way
that gives us meaning to this life that we're leading.
(02:07):
So once I knew I wanted to explore this topic,
I immediately knew the person I wanted to have this
conversation with, and that was Jay Shetty. And you know
what's so funny. Though Jay doesn't give answers, what he
does best is asks questions that lead you to finding
your own answers, and so I'm so happy to have
you on. Thank you for coming and being here with
(02:30):
with us today. I'm so grateful even I want to
start off this my saying, first of all, you're amazing
anytime I'm with you. You have the most contagious energy,
and I am so happy that you're doing a podcast.
So congratulations to you and you thank you. I believe
you have this unique ability to connect with people in
the most disarming way, and so I think this suits
(02:54):
you perfectly. Oh, thank you. I'm excited to start a podcast,
and I'm so happy you're excited for me, because you
have the number one health and wellness podcast called On Purpose.
If you guys haven't, if you're living under a rock
and haven't heard of On Purpose, check it out. Um.
And you know, Jay also wrote this amazing book called
(03:15):
Think Like a Monk, and it draws on your time
as a monk. It teaches us how to access the
purpose that lies within us. Right, And I'm so humbled
by everything that you've accomplished because your original goal was
to make wisdom go viral. You've had over seven billion
views on YouTube, but in the book, you had said,
(03:37):
I want to show people that thinking like a monk
isn't about being calm and chill, and it's it's more
about connection. And so that's why I was excited to
have this conversation with you, because your life gave us
so many lessons and in the book really talked about
your life, and that's what I love about the book.
But I think sometimes people think spirituality is like very ry,
(04:00):
intimidating subject. First of all, tell everybody a little bit
about your story. Because you became a monk, you left college,
you didn't take the jobs that were offered to you,
you really took a left turn in life. Just I
want I want some people to catch up and no,
just a little bit about you know, were you always spiritual?
You know what motivated you to become a monk at
twenty one? And then we're going to talk about the
(04:23):
definition of spirituality. But I just want to talk about
just your experience in general, your life experience. Yeah, so
I grew up as an average Londoner. I grew up
in the city of London, born and raised, and I
grew up in an Indian background. And when you grew
up in an Indian family, one of the biggest priorities
in life is academic performance and academic success. So from
(04:44):
a young age, I was trained to work hard at school,
to do my homework on time, to be the person
who raised their hand first in class, basically to be
a bit of a geek or a dog. And I
wasn't spiritual. I had a religious background, and we did
religious practices at home, but they were very ritualistic. They
were not spiritual. They weren't really something that I connected to.
(05:07):
I didn't feel like I had a faith or that
my belief system was built on that. And as I
was growing older, I would say that my dreams and
aspirations were very similar to other people, to go to
a good college, to get a good job, to find
someone to marry, to have kids, and then live life
in that way. There was no spiritual or faith based
(05:31):
connection there that was guiding my life. I was being
guided by what society was guiding me by. So I
would consider myself to be a very non spiritual, normal individual,
and the only thing that I had was I was
always enamored by rags to richest stories. I was always
fascinated by people who had gone from nothing to something,
(05:54):
and it wasn't about the material success. It was about
the human resilience, the ability that humans have to go
through the most difficult challenges, to go to the edges
of the earth, to go through extremes two achieve something.
And in that search I met a monk. I would
go and this is before podcast, before YouTube, where you
(06:16):
actually had to go and listen to people in person.
And I would go and hear celebrities and CEOs and
athletes and you know, all types of people talk about
their journeys. And once I was invited to hear a
monk speak, and my honest answer, as you know, ever,
is that I was like, what am I going to
learn from a monk? Like what the monks have to
teach me? I mean, if you knew, yeah, exactly exactly,
(06:40):
moment exactly. And so I had no I was cynical
about it. I was skeptical and went there with a
bit of a guard up, and I said to my friends,
I'd only go if they promised we went to a
bar afterwards, Like that was my negotiation. That was my negotiation.
And my friends were very persuasive, so they said, sure,
(07:00):
we can go to a bar afterwards. And I went
to this event literally expecting nothing, and I walked out
with a completely new perspective on life. And the truth
is that even I thought about this afterwards, I didn't
know how to articulate it then. But when I look back,
I realized it's because when I was eighteen, when I
met this monk. I've met people who are beautiful and attractive.
(07:22):
I've met people who are rich and powerful and famous,
but I don't think i'd met anyone who was truly happy.
And he was content. He was happy, he was so
comfortable in his road. He wasn't trying to put up
a persona of being a monk, or he wasn't trying
to put up any persona. He just was. And I
thought to myself, he has something that no one I've
(07:46):
ever met has. And so that's where my journey began,
of being introduced to spirituality through him, and I started
to realize that since that day, whether you call it spirituality,
self awareness, whether you call it connecting with yourself, whatever
you call it, that was the beginning of that journey
(08:07):
for me where I became more interested in my inner
world than the outer world. And I think that's where
it all began, and how many years, were you a
month for so three years? I lived as a monk
for three years from it was one of the best
decisions I ever made in my life. And when I
(08:29):
wrote my book Think Like a Monk, it wasn't even
about my experience. It was really about these monks who
have spent their life dedicated decades to these ancient practices
and what we could learn from them. So I thought
I was going to do it for life. I lasted
three years, which I'm proud of myself for, but I
felt so blessed by that experience ever that I had
(08:52):
I had to share with everyone. Oh my gosh, I think,
like I said, spirituality is such an overwhelming concept. And
when I was thinking about episodes for this podcast and
I said, oh, spirituality, I was like, let me look
up the definition. I don't even know what the definition
really is because I kind of like, I think spirituality
is what it is to you. And and then I
saw that it started out as a religious term to
(09:13):
be more like the Holy Spirit, to be for man,
to be more godlike, and so it was kind of
birth and in a religious environment. But then the concept
broadened over time and included some mental aspects. And then
it expanded outside of religion, and now I feel like
it's kind of loosely described as as a meaningful connection
with something bigger than yourself. Right, I think it's hard
(09:35):
for people to reconcile spirituality with ambition and drive. And
you answered, you told me the story one time about
like they one doesn't cancel out the other. Just you know,
you're not telling people go give up your wealth and
go live as a monk. But can you talk a
little bit about that, because I think that's what prevents
people from like exploring that. People who are cynical, right, Like,
(09:57):
they go, well, I'm not gonna go forwage food and
wear a robe, you know, And it's not that doesn't
have to be that. Yes, definitely, And I'm so glad
you shared how that definition is evolved. And I'm going
to share a few definitions. The first one is from
the Vaders, and in the Vaders it says that there's
(10:18):
a beautiful sanscrit phrase and it says a tato brahma
jig nyasa. And what that translates as when the soul
or consciousness asks who am I? What is the meaning
of life? What is my purpose? So that beginning of
questioning is the beginning of spirituality. And so no matter
(10:44):
who we are, whatever our religious background is, whatever our
walk of life is, whatever our net worth is, whatever
culture we were raised in, whatever language we speak, we
all have a moment when we stop, we take a breath,
we pour as and we say, who am I? Why
am I here? What's the meaning of all of this?
(11:07):
So to me, spirituality very simply is self study and inquiry.
And that is a really liberating definition because it's not
about a belief, it's not about a faith. It is
self study. It is the study of the inner as.
In Sanskrit another word that I love, it's called unter
(11:29):
a cash. And so spirituality is the study of the
inner sky, just as astronomy is the study of the
outer sky. And so we have so many words to
describe the study of the outer sky. Right, whether we're
going out into the universe, we're going into space. But
what is that inner space? What is that called? How
(11:50):
do we define that? To me, that spirituality, it's the
study of the inner solar system. And if anyone which
is expansive, they're endless, you know, I mean, you think
about your mind, you think about your heart, you think
about your brain. You all of these incredible devices and tools,
(12:11):
we have very little understanding about what they can and
can't do, what to speak about psychology and consciousness. And
so to me, spirituality, very simply put, is self study.
And when we say self, we have to clarify that
we all have many selves, and the first self we
have is the physical self. So a part of spirituality
(12:35):
is understanding our physical self, our limitations, our strengths, how
the body works, how the body digests food, how much
sleep the body needs. But if I asked you even
two define your worth by simply your body, if the
only worth you had in the world with your body,
(12:57):
I think most of us would say, no, I'm worth
a lot more in my body. I'm worth a lot
more than the shape or physique I have. Like, that's
not me. And then you go deeper and you say, well,
then what is the self? And you look at your
emotions and you think is that me? And then you think, no,
that's not me because my emotions have changed since I
was young. I changed my mind a lot about a
(13:18):
lot of things. You look at a childlike Santi who's
just adorable, and you're like, he's going to change his
mind a lot of times in the next few years
of his life, because that's normal. So we're not just
our mind, We're not just our emotions. So then who
are we? So we're going beyond all of these physical
and material selves into understanding the self that sits beyond
(13:40):
all of those. I hope that makes sense and feel
simple enough to digest. No, I think that's what you
do so great in you know your channels and and
really in your purpose in this world as you really
break down, because sometimes, like I said, spirituality can get
really metaphysical. But again, I think your work, like your
purpose of I think what what you do in the
world with your platform is really making spirituality applicable. And
(14:06):
like I think you you give the like how this
is how you know? You can meditate, you can journal,
you can be grateful, you can be but like why
why why why should we all be spiritual? And I
think that was a big question, And I think why
people sometimes why do I? Why do I need to
do that? Right? It kind of turns people off, but
it's hard for them to find meaning in life. I
cannot think about what my purpose in life is because
(14:28):
I've got to take my children to school and come
home and make dinner. Like people don't have time to
expand and self study, and so why should we care
about this? Why should we self study? That's such a
great way to think about it. And and it is
a privilege to even take an opportunity to make time
for self study. I I agree with you, and you
(14:48):
know we both didn't come from backgrounds where that privilege
is necessarily there. My parents were both immigrants into London
and they both worked since I was young, Like, I
saw both my parents work so hard just to provide
for me and my sisterns. So I completely agree with you,
Like where is that time? And why is society set
up in that way? I would say that the deepest reason,
(15:11):
and we can break this down, is that when you
don't study who you are. The Vadas described it as
to be a fish out of water. If you take
a fish out of water, you can give that fish everything.
You could give it a mansion, you could give it
a car, you could give it a Bentley, you could
(15:32):
give it all the jewels and all the riches in
the world. But all the fish wants is to be
back in the water. If you've ever seen a fish
flopping around on the sand. It's a really uncomfortable visual
because that fish just wants to be back, reconnected with
its home. And so when you think about why, it's
because all of us know that regardless of our external
(15:58):
ups and downs, which everyone faces, whether you're wealthy or
not wealthy, whether you're famous or not famous, or whether
you're successful or not successful, everyone has their struggle. But
we find that we're all looking for that sense of home.
And even the people that are skeptical and and cynical
at first, what I find is that life throws so
(16:19):
many challenges at you to ultimately make you ask that question.
And so the reason of why is why not do
it sooner rather than later? Why not do it proactively
rather than reactively? Why wait for some tragedy or some
painful event to occur before we start the study of
(16:40):
the one thing that we are. And so I feel that,
you know, we've been trained in life to spend. And
there was a famous teacher. He came to a university
in the US from India, and he was taken around
to a lot of the university departments and they said,
this is the department of biology, and this is the
department of physics, and this is the department of history,
(17:02):
and this is the department of all of these things.
And he said, where's the department for the soul? Like,
where's the department for you and who you are? And
there wasn't one. And he was like, well, then what's
he was asking? Obviously in a broadway, But you know,
what is the purpose of all the education in the
world if we don't understand And I think on a
very simple level, Leaver, I think we'd all agree that
(17:23):
wouldn't have been a wonderful at school to understand how
your emotions work. They've been really amazing to understand how
to work on your mind, so that even in the
simplest forms, if we get away from the very deep
existential questions on a very practical level, the why is
because we're all going to deal with stress, We're all
(17:45):
going to deal with pressure, we're all going to deal
with pain and loss, and it might be quite useful
to understand what happens inside when we go through those
things so that we can actually help ourselves. Because your
qualification in doesn't help you when someone passes away, right,
Your knowledge of science doesn't support you when you're going
(18:07):
through a breakup or a divorce. So I feel at
a very basic level, that's the why, so that you
can actually navigate life. Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, the
same thing happened at Wharton Business School. I don't know
if you know. The most fortunate one hundred companies C
E O S came from Wharton Business School and one
(18:28):
day they realized, why are we giving all these people
black belts and finance and not teaching them about philanthropy? Right,
Like they're becoming billionaires, but like nobody told them, oh,
you should probably tithe some of that money and put
it back into society. And now they do have an
actual degree program about social responsibility social entrepreneurship. I was like,
(18:50):
that's fascinating, And that was the reason they said, how
why do we give black belts and finance but not
teach them how to support humanity? And it's why it's
a yin and a yang's like you can't have one
without the other. I think, yeah, you're spot on. I
love that study. I hadn't heard that before, and I
think that that's exactly the mindset. You know, we often
think we have to give money because people need it
(19:11):
or whatever. Actually you're giving money because it detaches you
from it. Like the reason why you're encouraged in spiritual
traditions to give money and give your money is not
just because you're going to save someone life. It's to
detach you from that which was never yours in the
first place. You're a caretaker. You were just taking care
of it while you were on this earth renting you know,
(19:33):
as as Mohammad Ali said, service is the rent you
pay for your room here on earth. And that's exactly
what it is. It's that where caretakers of wealth, where
caretakers of homes, where caretakers of estates, and so yeah
of your body. And so when you share and give that,
you learn detachment from these things that can become actually
(19:56):
our vices and our things that attach us and destroy.
I agree with that. That idea of detachment is a
whole another episode, and it's so beautiful. I live by
the Four Agreements. I love don Miguel Ruise and that
book and that like one of his four agreements is
don't take things personal, and and he talks about detachment
(20:18):
and he gives an extreme example of like if you
are a wife being beat, that is not your fault.
You're not creating that, you're not doing it. It is
something that that other person is going through. He says,
of course you should leave. You shouldn't just stay there
because it's not your fault. But just the way he
says it, of like, don't take things personal, even to
(20:38):
that extreme it was. It's such a beautiful lesson in detachment.
I am not being defined by this moment or this person,
or this relationship or this my wealth or my you know,
my status, or my success or my fame. You know,
it's a really big idea to be detached from things
and at the same time live in this world. Right,
I want nice things. I have a great shoe collection,
(21:00):
and right, of course, and and that's you know, I
always say that to people that you know, there's a beautiful, beautiful,
beautiful thought and it comes from I believe it's a
mom al Shaffie And he said that detachment doesn't mean
that you own nothing. Detachment means that nothing owns you.
(21:20):
And I think that that's the best definition of detachment
I've ever heard or read, because now you own all
these beautiful Let's take your example, and I have my
version of this. You own all these sneakers. Yeah, I
have a sneakers. You know, I'm not a monk anymore.
I have sneakers, I have nice clothes, I'm married, I
have businesses. But when I take your example, to make
(21:40):
it simple, you take a shoe collection. Now you own that.
That's beautiful. Detachment doesn't mean that you own nothing. Now.
When it owns you is when one shoe gets a stain,
or it goes missing or something, someone breaks it or
you lose it, and now you're sad, now broken, Now
(22:01):
your whole life has ended because this one shoe has
gone missing. That's when you're owned by that. You know,
when we become owned by that. So I feel that
that's a healthy way of of thinking about it. That's sure.
If if I lost a pair of shoes, like, of course,
I'll feel a little bit of pain, but I'm not
that's not going to define my life and how I
treat myself and treat people that day. Yeah, that's such
(22:22):
a good definition. And I've never heard that one. Who
do you think the enemy is of a of a
spiritually awakened person? Like? Is it is it a narcissist?
Is it our ego? Like? What is stopping us as
humanity as a whole to be more tuned into the
world around us, because I think if if COVID taught
(22:44):
us anything, it's that we live in a global community.
Look how fast a tiny little virus taught us We're
all connected. You don't live in India, you don't live
in the United States. We live in a global community
that is delicately structured. What is there is distance to
humanity as a whole. Really going woe? I have to
be vaccinated or I have to wear a mask now
(23:06):
for the good of others, not for myself, for the
good of others. I mean, just that simple act. But like,
what do you think is the I guess the enemy
of being spiritually awakened. So in the beginning, the enemy
is lust. And when I say lust, I don't mean
lust for like you know, a person or a woman
(23:27):
or a man or you know, I'm not saying that
kind of lust. Lust, when defined in the spiritual traditions,
is far bigger than that. Lust basically means the desire
to enjoy more for myself, So it encapsulates that desire
for selfishness, for greed. So deep down, all of us,
including myself, and I'm working through this. We have this
(23:50):
lust that I will find a way to make myself
have more enjoyment in the way I want. Most people
listen to that and go, it's easy because you have money.
So now I'm going to make money and I'll show
you how happy I am. And we both agreed that
money is good and people should have it, like we
both are in that boat. But we also believe money
(24:11):
doesn't make you happy. Right, there are two separate things,
and so what ends up happening is that we all
lust makes us believe we're all the exception, that we're
going to find a way to enjoy this world, be
happy in this world in a way that's never been
done before, and that it's all about us. And so
that feeling that it's all about us, what you just
(24:32):
said is you require us to have not us vision,
but collective vision. You're you're asking us to switch from
having US vision two WE vision, and moving from us
to WE requires you to be non lusty, because if
you're only lusty, and we were trained in this very
simply as monks. So for example, some of the monks
(24:53):
would be serving late and they'd come home late, which
meant that you had two choices. You either eight extra
food or you saved some for them because you knew
they were coming home late. That is a simple shift
from us to we do I just enjoy this because
it's in front of me and it's easy for me
to have, or do I think, Actually, I'm going to
(25:14):
take as much as I need to take care of myself,
but I'm also going to create value for other people.
And so our last makes us go no, no, no,
let me have it all. Maybe they won't save it
for me tomorrow night. They're not going to think about
me tomorrow when I'm late. And we all have these thoughts, right,
we have these very uncomfortable, difficult thoughts where we do
(25:35):
believe in scarcity. There's a feeling of scarcity that there
isn't enough for everyone. Therefore, if I get something, I've
got to take all of it, because if I start
thinking about everyone, no one's going to think about me.
And so that's where that last keeps us. And then,
as you said, as we start to grow, it becomes
our ego, and our ego blocks us because it now
(25:57):
starts to make us think we're better than So in
the early stages of spiritual awakening, you now feel that
you're enlightened and everyone else is still stuck in the matrix. Right,
I'm I'm like superior to this world now and everyone
doesn't understand and oh my gosh, I got through. I'm
like neo. But these people don't know what they're going through.
(26:20):
And you know, they're they're not smart, they're not asking
the deep questions of life. How superficial they are. And
we were just there three months ago. But you know,
we went on a we went on a yoga retreat
and read a book and now all of a SUD
podcast especially awakened. Yeah, and said, you know, so it's
it's lost in the beginning and it's ego to you know,
(26:41):
as we grow and so and I'm talking about very
deep fundamental blocks right now I'm not talking about but
how that plays through is in the beginning, it's just like,
well what do I do for myself? Just take care
of yourself. It's survival mode. Our survival instinct is forcing
us to say I need to survive. It will costs
and nothing else matters, No one else's opinion matters. Yeah. Yeah,
(27:06):
but like you said, we're in survival mode, right, So
I think, like I said when when when I look
at what you're doing and your life's work, it's it's
it's about like, this is how you do it? Just
tell me how. I'm the same thing with like, uh,
when I eat, just tell me? Do I be a
vegan and I gluten free? Just tell me what to
eat and I'll eat it, like what is good for me?
I don't want to think about the why. I just
(27:28):
know like this would probably have a positive vict of
my life. So it's like the band aid right now,
like I just want to know how. Just tell me how.
And I think this conversation is like, okay, I kind
of know how. I journal, I meditate, I listen to podcast,
I read, Like wait, why am I doing all of this?
And that's really what leads you down a greater path
is because the why is more important, even the why
(27:49):
of your life. Every time I post a picture of Santi,
I said, this is my why, right, This is why
I work, This is why I do philanthropy, this is
why I, you know, put my family first because you
know the world he's going to have later is important.
That's the beautiful part. Even what you just said there,
and I just want to because it's it's so subtle
what you just said, but it's so powerful, and I
(28:10):
have to pull it out because I don't know how
many people will have caught that you just said something
really special. Now, if you're obsessed with Santi, of course
you're his mother, and he's adorable, So it's easy because
your wife is cute, right, your wife is really cute.
So we take Santi and you could easily just think, Look,
his world is the house he grows up in, the
(28:33):
school he goes to, and my relationship with my partner, right, Like,
you could say that's his world. But you go further
than that. You think about your community, the Latin community,
you think about the environment, you think about politics. You're
thinking about the whole world he grows up in. And
that's where the service, that's where the extension comes in. Now,
(28:57):
of course, you have created a life where you have
the ability to think that big and far and wide,
and not everyone has to and not everyone can. But
what I'm saying is that if everyone thought that, hey,
if I can get more involved in my kids school,
then all these kids will have a better atmosphere, and
therefore my child will have a better atmosphere. That's a
healthy way of thinking. If we think, hey, if I'm
(29:19):
able to make my family have healthy communication, then this
child will benefit. We're able to expand our radius of care.
And I think this is often what's missed is that
that lust makes you go, no, it's only about this kid,
No other kid matters, And we don't realize that actually,
your kid is going to be affected by every other kid.
(29:41):
And so if every kid is not taking care of them,
by the way, your kids going to have a really
poor experience. And so I think that expansion of the
radius of care. So we're switching from a survival mindset
to what I'd like to call a self and service mindset.
The mistake is sometimes we've become martyrs. We just serve.
We just we don't take care of ourselves. So we're
(30:02):
switching not from survival to anything else. We're switching from
survival to self and service. Let me take care of myself,
but now let me go beyond according to my capacity. Yeah,
and it is. I mean, you're right. We we come
from a place of privilege. You know, when people said
how is COVID for you, I go, well, I have
a roof over my head and I don't have to
(30:23):
go to work without ppe and and I don't have
to like put myself. I'm not a frontline worker. I'm
not a health care worker. Like yeah, like that's a
place of privilege, and so taking care of yourself but
also servicing others is definitely I think a balance that
we should all try to strive for. My last question
for you is, you know, as we're coming out of
(30:44):
COVID and a global pandit, hopefully we're coming out of
a global pandemic, um everybody keeps talking about like I
can't wait to get back to normal. I just want
to get back to normal. Can we just go back
to normal? And you know, in self reflection, I'm like,
do we really want to go back to the way
we were? Like, there's some really great things that I've
learned during this introspective time, spending a time with my
(31:08):
nuclear family, nesting, you know, reading, meditating, and so is
normal a good thing or what do you think? What? What?
What lessons do you think we've we've learned and should
carry with us coming out of this. I think the
desire for normal is what creates so much stress and pressure,
because abnormality is actually our normality, discomfort, is more common
(31:34):
than comfort. So if you keep seeking comfort, you actually
become more disturbed when you're faced with discomfort. So if
I wake up and I know that chances are things
may not go to plan today because that is reality,
that's life, then I'm actually more adaptable and flexible and
(31:57):
able to deal with it than when I think it's
going to go perfect. I'll tell you a story that
that always comes to my mind when I think about this.
We were on a seventy two hour train journey as
monks from North to South India, around forty eight to
seventy two hours, and that is a long time to
spend on a train, and it's a long time to
(32:17):
spend on a train in India when you're traveling like
it's not even coach class, like you're like, you know,
as monks, you travel on the most most basic form
of travel. And I decided that I was going to
fast for the entire duration of the trip because on
the first day I went to the restroom and realized
I never wanted to go back in there ever again
(32:39):
on the train, so I looked very detached and renounced
and monk like, but it was only because I really
didn't want to use the toilet. And so I said
to my teacher, on this journey, we only had like
we would stop off at stations, but the station stop
would be maximum, like ten to fifteen minutes of the
biggest stations. And I said to him, he didn't see
me meditating on the train. So he said, you know,
(33:00):
when are you going to do your meditation? And I said, oh,
I'm going to wait for the really nice still stops.
I'll go out. I'll find a little tree and i'll
sit under and I'll meditate when it's peaceful. I said,
the train is too noisy, it's too crazy, it's too busy,
it's chaotic. And he said something to me, and it's
always stuck with me. He said to me, said, do
you think life is going to be like the calm
(33:24):
still stops or do you think that life is going
to be chaotic and hectic like the train? And obviously
it was a rhetorical question because the answer was obvious.
And he said, you're going to meditate on the train.
And I realized that the ability to accept as soon
as you accept that life will always have uncomfortable, challenging scenarios.
(33:47):
You don't get down about it, you actually get prepared
and flexible and adaptable about it. But as soon as
we have that thought in our head of I want
to avoid all discomfort. I want everything to go back
to normal. I just wanted to stay that way. How
when you see that news, you're like, oh no, the
world's falling apart. Now when you see that challenge, oh no,
now it's all over, we get really disheartened by it,
(34:10):
as opposed to if we expect we say, look, there's
a lot of people in this world, and there's a
lot of people with mixed opinions, mixed expectations, mixed pain.
There's a lot of people with a lot of trauma
and a lot of pain, and they're going to do
things that I don't like. But if I get involved
in my local community, my local charity, if I try
and become a better parent, if I try my best
(34:33):
and take care of the people that I'm in charge of,
then maybe I can improve their experience of life. And
I think that the desire for normal will constantly keep
disturbing us with discomfort. So don't look for normal. Look
for tools to navigate the abnormalities of life. Because navigation
is more critical than normality. It's like saying I wish
(34:56):
this road had no traffic. That means when it gets traffic,
you feel really upset, rather than saying, oh no, I've
got my Google Maps here, I know how to navigate
the traffic. Which one is a smarter option? Right? Right? Right?
Be prepared. Yeah, I mean a good way of talking
about this is movies. Right, even you direct you, right,
you obviously act like when you're creating a movie. When
(35:19):
has it ever gone to plan? Ever? I can't. I
can't think of I can't actually think of anything in
my life that has ever gone to plan. And the
problem is you hold so we hold so strongly onto
this projection in our mind of what it should look
like that we don't allow ourselves to actually make a
difference in reality. And so the more we are attached
(35:43):
to our vision of our plan, the less we actually
get to walk through life and make the right choices
and decisions. So I'm not saying you shouldn't plan. I'm
saying that you should be able to adapt and be
a bit more open with being able to adapt is
a really big lesson. Yeah. When I'm directing, it's like
a problem every hour. Remember I was shooting something and
(36:04):
I needed this nineties limo and so they came and
they go, uh, the limo is not working. And I go,
what do you mean, it's not what it's got to
drive up in the scene, and they go, yeah, it's
not it's not working. I was like, okay, And so
we picked a spot on a hill that we could
just roll it down into the shot and it worked.
All right, How did you stop it? How did you
stop it? Well, the brakes works. Yeah, yeah, the brakes
(36:27):
were you just wouldn't turn on. And when you see
the shot in the movie, you'll you'll go, oh, yeah,
that's the car that wasn't working. You make it work, okay.
J Last question, a book everyone must read, I mean
other than think like a month. I know you're very sweet, okay.
I would say it's the biography or autobiography of anyone
(36:47):
you love and admire, because I think you learned so much.
I would say the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
And again the reason I say it is because you know,
just study someone's life is to remove envy of them,
and so a lot of our time we waste our
life envying people we wish we had their lives. We
(37:09):
wish we had what they have, And when you study
someone's life, you just start to have a completely unique perspective.
I would say Steve Jobs is biography by Walter Isaacson
was life changing for me because you get to hear
about how he combined art and science. You get to
hear about how he was actually extremely spiritual but had
so much trauma of his own, Like you get to
(37:30):
see a complete person rather than the image you see
on a TV screen or whatever. And so for me,
his biography has really helped me. I've spent a lot
of my time studying Martin Luther, King, Malcolm X, Steve Jobs, Einstein,
like these are some of the biography. So I would
say Steve Jobs is biography. And if it was a
mindset book that we both loved, and I would say
(37:51):
it's Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahanman. I believe
no book gave me a better understanding of the mind
than Thinking far stin Slow by Daniel Kahman. It's a
phenomenal read. Oh wow, Well, thank you so much, Jay
for being my first guest on on this podcast. I
(38:11):
hope I did it justice. I hope we got to
what you wanted and thank you for just giving me
a moment like I honestly mean this, I got to
share things that I would never have shared anywhere else.
Thank you so much for listening. I'm happy to be
connected with you. Connections with Evil Lagoria is a production
of unbelievable entertainment in partnership with My Hearts Michael Pura
(38:35):
podcast Network. For more podcasts from My Heart, visit the
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