Namaste,
I am Rohit Bhardwaj wishing you all a very happy Independence Day.
Today,
India is celebrating its 80th Independence Day,
A day when we remember the sacrifices of freedom fighters and seek their blessings to help us in developing a very strong and vibrant India.
The Vedantic literature talks of six internal enemies.
These enemies we must conquer so that our suffering is reduced.
As per Vedantic literature,
The suffering is not caused by external events but they are the internal enemies which are misdirected energies and these energies interfere with our peace and internal joy.
Today what I am going to discuss with you is six modern day enemies.
Which reside in us and are interfering in a very big way with our internal joy and happiness.
Let's start.
The first modern day enemy is doomscrolling.
In a three-hour binge of Instagram,
We almost watched 1,
000 to 1,
500 reels.
That is,
On 1,
500 instances,
Our mind was agitated to a very high level of excitement.
This high intense level of excitement is very short lived.
In a 13 second reel,
The last three seconds are when the joy is completely evaporated.
It is only The joy is intense but it stays only for say 80% of the duration.
Whereas in any other physical form or any other activity the joy is of lifetime.
Achievement in life stays with you throughout.
So the joy that we need to seek is one which has a very long duration.
But where is the problem?
Any activity which entails a joy lesser than this threshold,
Lesser than this threshold.
You don't feel like doing it.
And slowly and slowly we start cancelling out things from our lives.
We cancel going to grocery and get instant marketing.
We cancel driving and deliver through couriers.
We've cancelled meeting friends and adopted video conferencing.
We've cancelled searching for items in the house and ordered instant delivery of the same.
In each of these cancellings,
We are also cancelling the joy associated with these activities.
So the first enemy that we need to kill and gain independence from is doom scrolling.
Not more than six minutes on a platform and not more than 60 minutes of all the platforms in a day.
That is what you should follow.
This one golden rule and become independent of doom scrolling.
Okay.
The second modern day enemy is FOMO,
Fear of missing out.
Want to remain so updated with news so close to the cutting edge of what is happening that even breaking news seems like an ancient dinosaur.
We want to be the point where stories are developing.
And what do we gain by staying abreast with the events of the world?
Nothing except a pride that we know everything and we have not missed out on anything.
When the newspapers were initially published,
They used to get published once in a month.
Then they became a weekly thing.
Then daily.
And the moment social media converted this delivery of news,
It became a minute-by-minute,
Thriller-minute activity.
You won't gain anything out of this obsession of being up-to-date with the news.
Then how does it matter?
Even after one week it will have no significance.
How do we gain independence from this FOMO of news?
Is just listen to two summaries of your choice in one week.
Nothing changes in this world,
Even nothing changes throughout a lifetime,
But otherwise also nothing changes in less than a week.
Experiment with a number of podcasts and whichever podcast you think is of 30-35 minutes and it summarizes the happenings of the week,
The world this week kind of a thing.
Listen to that and you will 80% be abreast with what is happening in the world.
You will not have the effect of FOMO deprivation.
Okay.
So,
That is the second thing from which we need to gain independence.
3rd modern day enemy is not reading books.
Average size of a New York bestseller has reduced by 20% in the last 20 years.
People simply don't read.
We simply do not read a book.
Just check out yourself.
Which book have you read in the last,
Say,
Two years?
Not even two months.
In last two years,
Have you read any book?
A book in physical form.
Digital books and e-books are simply attention grabbers.
They do not give you the opportunity of doing a reflection.
They simply,
These e-books,
They simply grab your attention.
You change the screen.
You get enslaved by the screen.
Nothing gets comprehended.
That is my experience,
And that is everybody's experience.
Okay,
So what do you do?
Read a paper-based book once in a month.
Choose any book.
These days,
There is no dearth of books.
Very cheap.
But read.
When you read,
One is that your concentration increases.
Second is your assimilation increases.
Third,
Your capacity to connect dots increases.
And fourth,
Your imagination increases.
What you read you imagine,
This imagination you are killing by the audio video inputs of the screen.
So read a book to get rid of this and become independent of the Slavery of the Screen.
And the next modern day enemy is not writing with your hand.
With a pen on a paper.
Simply don't write.
We type.
And in typing,
Our vocabulary reduces.
Spellings reduces.
We have forgotten the real spellings of everything and outsourced it to word processors.
When word processor we have outsourced this to word processor we do not have the words how will we give a cloak to our thoughts the thought is there words are not there we will express it with emojis which is a very very cheap and shallow way of expressing yourself Right.
How do we do that?
So,
To gain independence from this not writing,
How do we do that?
Buy a small little notebook,
A4 size,
Ruled.
It is called flow of consciousness writing.
What do we do that?
You take your pen top hand left corner.
Start writing.
You will not stop writing what is coming to your head till you reach the end of the entire page.
Forget logic.
Forget Grammar.
Just focus on writing.
Once you do this for 20-21 days,
Your thoughts will become coherent.
You will pick up a topic and write on it.
The connected thing is you are reading a book.
So you read a book,
Make a summary here.
Read a chapter there,
Make a summary here.
Learn new words there,
Use it here.
And you gain independence from your mediocrity.
99% of the people have a very small,
Meager vocabulary of words.
Simply.
Move out of that by reading more books.
The fifth modern day enemy is not doing maths and physics.
Maths and physics are two repositories of knowledge.
Which are the basics of everything that is happening in this universe around you,
Inside you.
Your biology also has physics in it.
Your MRI scans have physics in it.
That physics when it is calculated has mathematics in it.
The algorithm which gives you knowledge in a second is nothing but probability and mathematics.
If you like 99% of the people simply follow the algorithm.
Then you are 99% of the mediocre world if you want to be that 1% if you want to be the independent guy who knows everything that former kind of a thing Then learn maths,
Learn physics.
And how do we do that?
We do that by simply,
You're all AI tools are also,
Algorithm is also based on maths.
So how do we do it?
Sorry,
How do we do that?
How do we do that?
We pick up class 9th,
10th physics book,
Maths book.
And then we start solving those question answers of math's book.
First by doing the solved ones then these unsolved exercises keep doing that the joy that will burst in you after doing that maths is unparalleled no real would replace this kind of a thing of doing maths just try this just try this small little exercise do this when we do mathematics our brain gets maximum exercise.
All faculties of the brain they move.
Just a simple calculus dy by dx minus some partial equation when you solve them you start from the top of the page keep on doing 18 19 20 steps unless you get LHS equal to RHS and you say QED.
Which means for 19 steps 19 levels of problems you have solved in each step you solved a small problem you moved ahead so what you learned after doing calculus you learned how to solve problems not complain how to solve problems you become a problem solver they say what is where has sine theta helped me in in my life sine theta helped you in becoming a problem solver.
It has pushed you into that 1%.
It is not that 99% who says I have not learned anything from that.
Re-learn maths,
Re-learn physics.
Okay that is the thing and the last enemy from which we need to gain independence is not meeting people.
We simply don't call out.
If someone's birthday is there we just write HBD and we think We have done our job.
Someone has passed away.
We pay condolences by writing what?
R.
I.
P or Om Shanti.
And we think our job is over.
We have stopped meeting people.
We have stopped greeting people.
We have stopped smiling at strangers.
We have stopped helping others.
We stopped expressing gratitude.
We stop doing all this.
And where all of this is leading us to?
It is leading to immense isolation.
And isolation is the start point of depression.
And depression is the start point of inefficiency and sub-mediocre existence of life.
Remember this,
You meet people,
You greet them,
Without reason smile at a person,
Without reason say good morning,
Good afternoon,
Namaste.
Without without any reason make the other person smile just help in small small little things like crossing making an old lady cross the lights or or picking up someone's bag or calling the lift and someone is waiting to these small small acts of gratitude connect with people and do not rely on video conferencing for your connections physical meeting also makes your subtle body energized your meeting of people is also your independence from loneliness.
So,
On this Independence Day,
Let us take a vow not to allow these modern-day internal enemies.
Let us get rid of them.
Happy Independence Day to all of you.
Jai Hind.
