Enthusiasm.
What happens when we lose enthusiasm in life,
And what do we do to bring it back?
It's really a talk about self-love,
And in my opinion,
All of yoga is about deep,
Deep self-love.
But how do we bring enthusiasm back to our lives?
The very first foundation has to do with the relationship that you have with yourself.
And as far as the relationship you have with yourself,
How much do you know yourself?
Do you know in which areas you have pride?
Where do you have jealousy?
What are your misconceptions?
How something happens,
And you pick up an impression of what happened,
But that impression is just at par with your consciousness?
It may not be the truth.
Then if you rehearse that impression several times,
You wind up doing major damage to yourself.
But if you realize that it was just an impression,
You can very quickly heal yourself.
So you can't count the number of times that you got some impression out of some incident,
And then later on,
You realize that you were off.
And the minute you change the impression,
You see that the emotion behind that impression quickly changes.
So you go into a room,
There's 20 people,
And you suddenly come up with this notion that so-and-so doesn't like me,
Because when I smiled,
They didn't smile back.
Something like that.
Those things happen every moment of every day.
So then,
As long as you think this person doesn't like you,
You're having a difficult moment in that room.
And then you realize that this person is painfully shy,
Or she didn't have her glasses on,
So she didn't even see you.
And then suddenly your mood changes.
So multiply this one example by 10 million,
And you see that you really must,
You must in order to love yourself,
You must understand the importance of impressions.
Because they really cloudy up your life,
You know?
And they're happening all the time.
What actually happens with meditation,
You wind up having a more silent mind,
Your mind becomes quieter.
As your mind is quieter,
You become more perceptive.
What kind of perception?
You tend not to jump to conclusions.
If you walk into an airport with a quieter mind,
It's almost like you're more aware of what's actually happening,
Instead of just unloading your impressions on what's really happening.
So talking about enthusiasm.
Know yourself.
Know your mind.
Know where you have pride.
Know where you have insecurities.
Know what your life priorities are.
If I say,
One,
Two,
Three,
What are the three main reasons you get up in the morning?
Or if I ask you,
What hope,
What hope wakes you up in the mornings?
What keeps you moving in action?
If I ask you,
Why do you like to live?
I mean,
You know,
In many cities of the world,
You look around and it's full of walking dead.
Not really alive.
So I'll just ask you a few questions,
Just see if you can mentally come up with an answer.
Number one,
What hope wakes you up in the morning?
The main one.
Next one.
What element is it that if we take away that element from your life,
You wither and lose all of your vivaciousness,
Your life?
In other words,
What element can you not live without?
Somebody may say art.
Somebody may say love.
Somebody may say my child.
See,
These are answers that you should have.
The next one.
See if you can come up with your top three life priorities.
One,
Two,
Three.
I'm very clear about these three things.
One,
Two,
Three.
Life priorities.
Priorities.
You know,
Like somebody may say my child,
My money,
And my art.
Different answers from different people.
But if you're thinking really hard about these questions,
Then you should do more work.
Your work basically doesn't stop.
What I'm saying on the topic of enthusiasm.
The more you get to know yourself,
The more enthusiasm you will have.
In other words,
A very sacred saying in all spiritual movements.
If you fall distant from yourself,
You're going to lose joy.
You're going to lose enthusiasm.
You're going to lose everything.
If you lose yourself,
You lose everything.
This is why time after time you see and read in these scriptures.
You know,
It's like do you have an inward gaze?
Can you have part of your attention on the inside?
How is my breathing?
How is my heartbeat?
How am I feeling right now?
Why did that phone call disturb me to such an extent?
And don't run away from the negative things.
If a phone call disturbs you,
And you're a student of yoga,
Stay with it.
Say,
Okay,
I'm studying yoga,
So I need to know why this phone call disturbed me.
I don't care about being disturbed.
I care about knowing myself.
If you become an expert in you,
Which is very different from narcissism or being conceited,
If you know yourself like a mirror,
You will have enthusiasm.
Why?
Because wherever you go,
You're going to be the first one there.
If you have a bad relationship with yourself,
Everywhere you go,
You're going to find yourself as the first person there.
Thank you.
