Swami J & Bhakti Yoga - Greg Jacoby: Ep. 2

For this second episode, I have a chat with Greg Jacoby, traveller and meditator, coming from a background of drug dealing and dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts. Greg encountered meditation on his travel to Indonesia, but on his return was not yet able to build up a different life and change his habits. He found himself in debt, was able to resolve it and realized something had to change. He planned a 28-day retreat with Swami J (Traditional Yoga and Meditation) in Northern India and his life turned around. You’ll find that the change and deep found peace of Greg is both inspiring and heartfelt.

Transcript

You're listening to the Meditation and Mindfulness podcast. This podcast aims to motivate and inspire you in your practice. My name is Christian Netesol and a few years back I stumbled on meditation and it has completely changed my life. I'm sitting down with other meditators to talk about their practice, The lessons they have learned and what they want the world to know. Today I'm talking with Greg about his meditation experience and how it changed his life. Welcome Greg to the second podcast. Great to have you here. Thanks Christian. Thanks man. Appreciate it. Tell us a bit about yourself Greg. Who are you and what do you do in life in general? I'm 24 years old. My time in life is devoted to practice and business. I own a branding company where we do marketing and web development, Graphics design, Etc. The rest of my time I spend practicing and sharing my practice with my friends and family and strangers alike. How did you stumble on meditation? Did you grow up with it or was there a certain religious connection to it from your life or your past? That's a great question. I didn't grow up with it at all. I was extraordinarily depressed as a teenager and quite suicidal actually. When I was about 17 years old, I dropped out of high school and I traveled to Indonesia. I met someone there who was Buddhist and really into meditation. Still at the time I was not receptive to what he was sharing, But I planted a seed. I got home from that trip and I started to change a little bit, But I quickly fell back into my old habits. I can briefly go into the specifics of that. I started doing marijuana again and I started doing it very seriously. I ended up getting robbed twice and the second time was for about $25, 000-$30, 000. I owed another dealer $25, 000 on top of the money that I had lost. When that happened, It was just this incredible wake-up call. What was I doing? How could I have forgotten that this is so harmful to me? Through an incredible stroke of luck and kindness, My friend, The other dealer, He forgave my debt. I started looking into meditation because I suddenly felt like something needed to change and I didn't really quite know what to do. I talked to people and I asked people about it and I discovered that India was a place where meditation was quite embedded. I planned a trip out to northern India where I scheduled only one thing and that was a 28-day retreat with a man named Swami Ganeshwara who currently has an ashram in Florida and a website, Swamij. Com. Check it out, It's really cool. I went and took that retreat and I got to tell you, Christian, It was enormously life-changing. I was crying every day because I felt like I had finally found the tools that I had been looking for my entire life. Wow, So you went from a pretty distressed mental state and drug dealing to meditation. Could you tell us more about the past and your change? I was extremely, Extremely depressed. I was suicidal. I didn't know what to do. I hated myself. I hated other people. I found temporary enjoyment in the power of playing that role as a dealer. There's community in it and I sort of pretended like I fit into that community. I'm not going to make it sound like it was 100% bad and terrible. I had friends and I learned a lot during that experience. I wouldn't turn back that dial and change a single thing. However, It was definitely done out of desperation. Most of my actions then were out of this sort of desperation, This lack of perspective that there was more to life than this little bubble that I was living in. So you did a 28-day retreat and that's where you saw the light and you came back and everything changed or is it a little bit different? I had that 28-day retreat and at the time I couldn't sit in meditation for more than five minutes. I was so agitated. I get so agitated. But my teacher, He said, First of all, If you want to be successful, You have to direct all of that passion of yours into the practice, All of that passion. The second thing he said was be with your breath all day long because that was the practice we were doing at the time. We were practicing awareness of breath. He said be with your breath all day long from the moment you wake up, The moment you wake up, You regain consciousness in the morning to the moment you lose consciousness to deep sleep in the evening. And I stayed in India for the next five months after that, For a total of six months, Practicing very, Very, Very intensely. And I practiced all sorts of things. I really got a wide array of experiences with different meditation techniques during that time. And plain and simply, Christian, It worked. It worked. My depression, My suicidal ideation and urges, My anxiety, My anger, My frustration, All of those things reduced to a level that previously I never would have thought was possible. And to this day, Many, Many years later, And continuing with my practice, Those states of mind haven't disturbed me even remotely close to the way that they used to. Right. Yeah, That's amazing. And the moment you came back, I imagine there were a lot of people who knew, Let's say, The version of Greg before he went to the retreat and before he went to India. How did your friends and people that you knew, Relatives and family, How did they react to the change? That's such a good question, Christian. I actually cut off contact with dozens and dozens of people. Because during that time, I realized that these were people who weren't really my friend and people who I didn't want to associate myself with because they were harming me, They were harming others, And they were harming themselves. And I had to set serious boundaries. My family was definitely confused at first. And I only spent about a month at home after I got back from that trip before I moved to a Vipassana meditation center, A Goenka center in Massachusetts, Where I lived for about a year. So I didn't really spend much, If any, Time with my old friends in my old community. I just moved on. Wow. That is a radical step. But I mean, There was a radical change in your life. So it makes sense that you cut off ties with the people that didn't influence you beneficially in your path. And although it was a hard choice, I imagine it paid off in the end. Yeah, It really, Really did, Man. It really, Really did. That's amazing. Yeah. I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful. Yeah, I can imagine. You've mentioned in your journey, You've practiced several methods and techniques in meditation the last year of your life. Has there been a specific tradition or teaching that you follow or you stick to? I would say no. Although I do identify quite strongly with certain Buddhist paths, But my practice involves a lot of different things. But the main focus continues to be vipassana. I practice mantra and metta and anapanasati as supplemental practices. And I think that if I were to tell you there was one path I had to follow and drop the other ones, It would be bhakti, The path of devotion. Something I continue to bring with me very strongly every day. I find that the practice of love and the practice of compassion and the practice of surrender is something that I take to quite strongly. But I really like to practice that alongside vipassana and jhana practice and mantra practice. All right. So how does your daily meditation routine look like? Do you have a certain routine? Generally, If I decide to sit, I'm going to be practicing a mixture of anapanasati and vipassana. All right. And I sort of let the experience of my sit guide, Which I spend more time in. I'll always start with anapanasati, Just to sort of anchor myself and establish a foundational degree of concentration. And then I'll begin the practice of vipassana, Seeing things as they are. I'll look at anicca impermanence, I'll look at anatta, No-self, I'll look at dukkha, Unsatisfactoriness or suffering or stressful nature of the phenomena we experience. Often I'll just say, Oh, I'll just leave vipassana for now and just practice anapana and go deeper and deeper into a state of concentration. But they really do blend in with each other. I can't separate them too much. Those are really the things that I do when I say, Hey, I'm going to sit now. Right. So you mentioned earlier bhakti or compassion, Loving kindness, Metta. In your day, In your daily life, How do you take that with you? How do you practice these things? Do you practice these things while at work or how does that work for you? It's definitely something that I carry with me my whole day. My whole entire day I really have a strong intention to make these practices my absolute priority even when I'm speaking, Acting, Working, Etc. Just a small example, If I'm walking, I'm practicing metta all throughout my body, Spreading it, If I see someone holding a compassionate heart for that person, If I see someone in a joyful state cultivating sympathetic joy with that other person, If I myself have painful thoughts or memories or fantasies come up during my day, Just holding that in a space of compassion and love. And sometimes my focus isn't strongly on compassion or love. It's rather just being with my breath very strongly as I walk and move and act and speak. Or maybe I'm practicing vipassana while I move around. But it definitely does all come under the heading for me personally of just surrendering myself and trusting that things will work themselves out because in my experience they have when I focus on the priority of myself. I like to call it selfless selfishness. Really paying attention to myself and looking inside myself and making effort to develop, Cultivate and share positive qualities and characteristics. The other details of life just sort of work themselves out. Things aren't as important as they used to be or as people would have had me believe when I was younger. Right. So there's this huge transformation that went on from you being depressed and suicidal and dealing drugs to a point where you don't enter into these mental states anymore. Yeah, Definitely. I think that's amazing. Thanks for sharing that. I wonder for anyone practicing right now or getting into the practice, What would you advise? What is your advice to people regarding meditation? I would say don't sweat the small stuff. Don't sweat the small stuff. Be compassionate. Be patient. Be gentle. And apply yourself. If you apply yourself, There will be a change. Guaranteed. All right. Well, Greg, Thank you for joining me. It was my pleasure, Christian. Thanks so much for having me. All right. Have a good day. You too, Brother. That's it for the second episode of this podcast. If you'd like to know more about our community or are looking for a community about meditation and mindfulness, Check out the link in the podcast itself. And make sure to check out themindfulcores. Com where we have a free course on axis concentration. Thank you for listening.

Reviews

Thank you for these inspiring podcasts. Excellent!🙏🙏

Greg Beautiful, thank you for sharing your story of challenges and how you have overcome. Very inspiring. Namaste💜