Meditation, Spirituality & Renouncing The World with Shiv Mathur

Jennifer Norman:
Hello beautiful humans. Welcome to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast, your source for hope, healing, happiness and humanity. My name is Jennifer Norman. I'm the founder of The Human Beauty Movement and your host. This podcast is here to guide you on your journey of self-love, empowerment, soul alignment and joy. With each episode, I invite beautiful humans from all corners of the globe to join me for open conversations about their life lessons and the important work that they are doing to help heal humankind. Take a moment now to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. I'm so glad you're here joining me for today's show.

Jennifer Norman:
Today I'm introducing a wonderful human being named Shiv Mathur. Shiv is a spiritual investigator, explorer and seeker who was born in Varanasi, India. Despite being born in a place steeped in spiritual history, culture in India has become increasingly westernized. So Shiv was not necessarily as in touch with his higher self as he is today. Earlier in life he was an electrical engineer. Then he worked in the Indian Navy as a commander. Then he worked in the corporate sector. But about ten years ago, he started questioning life and he longed to discover more.

Jennifer Norman:
He felt a strong calling to spend time traveling the Himalayas. While he was there, he met rare Himalayan yogis and stayed in many ashrams in Rishikesh and other places. Shiv authored three books on meditation, spirituality and social issues, and he's here to talk today about what we know about spirituality. Welcome to the show, Shiv.

Shiv Mathur:
Thanks Jennifer, for inviting me. I really look forward to this show. I am sure this will be really interesting conversation because we had a nice prelude to this.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, yes, this is going to be fascinating because you've had experiences that a lot of people have not. You spent a lot of time traveling in the Himalayas and meeting with spiritual teachers. And so I would love to just hear a bit about what that was like, why you went and what you learned.

Shiv Mathur:
Yeah, my first trip happened in 2015 when I had a very strong calling. That was in the month of November. It was like a great pull where I couldn't do anything and I was like, calling which you become helpless and you just land up there. I never traveled like this. I mean, none of my travels are like this. There's some pull, unknown pull, so I can't define that. So I went to Rishikesh and my urge was basically curiosity, was to explore the place, meet people. And that was my first solo trip in my life.

Shiv Mathur:
I would say though, as a youngster I might have traveled once one odd places and generally you are around with your friends, and then you get married, then you are moving with a family everywhere. Like in India, it's very much traditional, so we always travel with the family. And this is the first time I went alone, and I was like, suddenly, like, you out of some kind of prison, and you are open and you are, like, getting some meat in a place which is vibrating spirituality. It's all yoga, and people are dressed differently, eating differently, walking differently. So the wives are different, I would say, wow. And the ashram where I stayed, I was the only indian there, and they were all western people in that ashram.

Jennifer Norman:
I'm curious, because, and this is going to sound like a very naive question from somebody who currently lives in Los Angeles, has never been to the Himalayas, knows not very much about it. And so when you decided to go, how did you know where to go? And was there a specific calling to the ashram or the ashrams that you stayed in?

Shiv Mathur:
No, there was no specific calling for ashram, but the calling to the place was specific, and that was also quite amazing. Like, to go to a particular place, it was just to go to Rishikesh, which is, like, known as yoga capital of the world. And from there, the Himalayan spiritual path begins. Like, if you go more inside and more inside. Himalayas is a very. It's like people eat, drink and sleep spirituality. You see yogis more walking past sadhus, sages, those saffron people and white colored clothes, and there are sadhus and yogis everywhere. It's a very normal thing to see that.

Shiv Mathur:
It's a very different feeling. And there's a river which is called Ganges. It's called the holy river of India. So when people go and see that river, they are turned around, transformed. Even by the river, the site of the river, people cry there. A lot of things happen. And it's not just Indians, but people coming from all over the world. So spiritual seekers, when they come and see Ganges first time, it's a very different feeling.

Shiv Mathur:
So Himalayas has some wonderful places. More and more I travel more and more, I explore some amazing places, and there is no comparison. Each has its own beauty, own benefits. But the whole idea is that you need solitude, so you need to find places. You have to find your own solitude. You have to find places which have different vibration. Some places have become very crowded, especially during the pilgrimage time in the summer. You have to avoid those times, those places in those times.

Shiv Mathur:
But then same places become heavenly when they are closed in the winters and it's blocked by the snow. So when I went to Rishikesh. It was a calling. It was a calling for me. And ashram was not a calling. There were ashrams. So I just searched around for different ashrams which are available. And I homed onto one ashram which I found was technically more well located, suitably located and in the right place.

Shiv Mathur:
And it happened to be a good ashram. And I continued going there for next three, four years. Then I switched over to different ashrams because I wanted to try other ashrams. I've stayed in some seven, eight ashrams in Rishikesh now.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow.

Shiv Mathur:
I did join one ashram. I worked for them for three months. But then as I became more close to the ashrams and started seeing ashrams more deeply, then I realized that these ashrams are also running a kind of business now because the gurus who started the ashrams are not there. So every ashram should have a guru, actually a good guru. But those gurus have gone, and the ashrams are now owned by their. Some trustees, and they become business minded. So now it's become like a yoga school. They are like schools and colleges, I would say.

Shiv Mathur:
But they offer that environment. It's good for a beginner to get that. But if you really want to go deep into spirituality, then you have to go beyond that. But at the beginning, it's good. I mentioned in my second book, Spiritual Encounters, meeting with Ahimala a yogi. I've mentioned all ashrams. I've mentioned about my own experiences, different yogis I've met.

Jennifer Norman:
That's a very helpful discernment for people listening. And it's interesting that you say, like when you first went to the Himalayas, it sounds like the vibration and energy of just being in certain areas there felt very uplifting and very heart opening and already caused you to help to facilitate that introspection, but then ensuring that you are linking up with an ashram, which is, I suppose, right for where you are. There's always a right and wrong place for where you are in your spiritual journey and your spiritual practice, and then how to land into one where if you really want to dig a little bit deeper, then there are certain ashrams which are better at that than, than others, it sounds. Yeah. So tell us about some of the more memorable experiences that you had while you were there.

Shiv Mathur:
Yes. So when I went to RishIkesh, I, or was not interested in taking part of the ashram routine. They do yoga in the morning, they do meditation in the morning, and then they have breakfast and then there's the evening yoga and meditation class. I was just not interested in that. And I think I just attended it once or twice just to feel. And I am not a morning riser so I will not be very keen to get up in the morning to go into some exercise. I've done enough in my military time. I was more keen to see the place, feel the place and find some yogis.

Shiv Mathur:
So I was searching online one day. On the second night I was unable to sleep more than 4 hours in the night and I was feeling little. I was wondering why suddenly I'm just sleeping 4 hours and I'm not getting sleep. Next day I changed my timings a little bit, but again I just slept for 4 hours. The energies are very different, the air is very different. There's a lot of difference over there in the water and energy. I was searching online for any saint which was present in this place. Rishike Yeshua was really great, some information on the Internet.

Shiv Mathur:
And I came across one baba, Tat Wale Baba. And he died in 1974. And his disciple, he's 88 year old, he still is there in that cave. So my search began next day. Took me three days to find the cave and I was actually biking, cycling. I like to cycle and I also do mountain biking. So I had hired a bike and I was running around in the mountains trying to figure out where is the cave. And you won't believe I met one sadhu.

Shiv Mathur:
I hope you understand what a sadhu is. Sadhu is like a sage who's renowns the world, but he's different from a yogi. And so there are different definitions. There's a priest, there is a sadhu, there's a yogi, there is some renunciate, there are mystics, there are dishis, muni. So different, different kind of categories. There's some few different categories out there. The sadhus are just who have left the world, who has left the house and they are on their own. So I met one guy, he was from Holland, Netherlands, and he is a sadhu from Netherlands, living in Rishikesh for 30 years.

Shiv Mathur:
And he was sitting with some foreigners and I stopped and I asked him and he told me, he gave me some clue. So imagine in Rishikesh, I'm asking a sadhu from Netherland who's living in India for 30 years. And he gives me a direction after three days. And then I reach, finally I reached that cave. And just below the cave I meet one american guy who was also cycling, he was also biking. And so I meet him, and there was a feast going on. There's a feast, annual feast, in that cave where they invite 1000 sadhus and they feed them.

Jennifer Norman:
That's a big cave.

Shiv Mathur:
No, the cave is small, but outside the cave. Outside the cave, okay. And the cave is lit upside. And then, you know, I went to the cave, met the disciple of Tat Wale Baba. I'm bringing the American guy because it's very interesting, because he met me again next day when I came back from the cave. So I went to meet this yogi, Swami Shankardas, who's a disciple of Tat Wale Baba ji. And because of the feast, he could not meet me that day, and he told me to come the next day. So finally I found the cave with a lot of difficulty.

Shiv Mathur:
In fact, I had took my cycle through a narrow climb, not to a road. Somebody said, you just go up like this. And I pulled my cycle up, carried my cycle up some 400, 500 meters. It was like crazy how I like finally reached the cave. And then I met just before the cave, down below, I meet this american guy. So next day I went again, and that next day it was empty, the cave was empty, feast was over a day before everybody had gone. The people who had come to orange, they were also leaving there. I introduced myself and I bought in front of the memorial of the Baba, that yogi tatvale baba, it's a samadhi.

Shiv Mathur:
In India we call it samadhi, it's, it's memorial. So it's a stone, kind of a memorial, like you see tomes and all those things. So inside the cave, only there's a memorial. So I bored in front of the memorial, and I felt bliss for those few moments, few minutes, and I felt amazing, blissful. I never had that kind of experience in my life. It was an experience of bliss. Bliss cannot be explained, described. And because I was supposed to talk to him, I felt very awkward, I didn't want to come out of that.

Shiv Mathur:
I was continuously bowing and I was not thinking of anything, I was not asking anything. I never generally ask when I bow in a temple, wherever I go, if I pray, I only used to ask for happiness of the world. So I came out of that state and I started my conversation with a yogi. That conversation initially was not very nice because he obviously didn't know me. But as we got to know each other and as our thoughts started echoing, the conversation became very intense, spiritual conversation. And it lasted for 4 hours, and it was evening and it was month of November, it becomes cold and the cave becomes even more cold. So I took his permission. I said, Swamiji, I'd like to leave and I will come again.

Shiv Mathur:
And then I please allow me to leave. And I bore to the memorial again, the samadhi. And the same thing happened again. Same bliss came again. And I was just clueless. What is this? So this is like a paranormal experience. You can call it. I call it out of beyond space and time dimension.

Shiv Mathur:
These kind of experiences are beyond space and time. So I asked him, Swamiji, what exactly is this? So he said, you have no questions left and your mind has become focused. This is what was his answer that time? So I said, okay, it does make some sense. But I really. I'll have to think over it, what exactly he means by this. And I came down. When I came down, I met the same american guy on the bike. And he said, he told me, shiv, you're glowing.

Shiv Mathur:
You are blooming. And I was in some state, I don't know. He said he was little shocked. He said, what happened? And he was apprentice about Tar Wale Baba, he said, I've heard not good things about him. But now seeing your experience, I think I will also go. So imagine coming all the way from America and standing right below the cave and still not going there. Because he has some doubts now, seeing me, he feels he should.

Jennifer Norman:
If that's not a metaphor for life, he gets at the bottom of the hill and you're too scared to climb.

Shiv Mathur:
So then I came back to the ashram to end it. I came back to the ashram next day. Morning, I spoke to the yoga teacher. I said, these guys are in the yoga world. So I spoke to the yoga teacher. He was a young guy, and I asked him, I had this experience in the cave yesterday. Can you explain me what is this? And my mind has become blank. All my thoughts have gone away.

Shiv Mathur:
Actually, this is what had happened. He initially ignored me. Then I ran after him. I told him, can you tell me what is this? He said, what you got? The whole world is seeking. I still did not understand what does he mean? Because I was busy in my corporate job. I had no time traveling. One and a half, 90 minutes morning, 90 minutes in the evening, driving to my office and busy with my work. Who at the time to know what is bliss and what is.

Shiv Mathur:
You are happy in what you're doing. You're in the rat race. You're running on the runway. You have no idea that you are getting, you know, rogered or battered and you accept it. You know, that's the life. And then you're questioning also, but you just don't have time to really think about these kind of things. So finally I came back to bombay. I started introspect.

Shiv Mathur:
I thought, this will probably go away. This moment of thoughtlessness will go away. But it didn't go away. It stayed. So I was little surprised. And then my mind became empty. It will only think what I will think, what I'm doing. That point of time, all other thoughts got removed.

Shiv Mathur:
I could feel that thought is about to get triggered and somebody takes a sword and chops it off. I had that kind of feeling. And at one point of time, I got little frustrated. What the hell? There's no thought. I mean, I'm like, what has happened to me? So I could not kind of really understand clearly. But as the mind becomes empty and it becomes. It gets clarity. And when the mind is free to analyze, you start getting answers, actually.

Shiv Mathur:
And then I really got all the answers, how it happened as a process. So I actually understood the process, and I became very curious. Others also get it. So I started taking people to that cave to see whether that cave has some energy. And I won't believe people had different, different experiences, not the one I had, because it was my preparation. Self inquiry was probably quite deep. When I went there, I was prepared. I got a grace.

Shiv Mathur:
Yeah, I got grace. Not everybody was so prepared, but whenever they, anyone who went there, they had some amazing feeling. I mean, you have to just look at them. So that cave was very high vibrations, even that whole area is very high vibrations, and you can transform there. Life can change. Things have happened to people. So I started taking people, and then that place become like, I had this conviction that it was not a fluke, it was not a once. It was.

Shiv Mathur:
There's some meaning behind it. So when I understood the whole process, scientific process, it started getting to me. And I also became very curious that this thing should be shared with others, and especially the people seekers who are coming from the west, 15 and 16. It was only western seekers who were coming. So I said, why don't I give them? How can I take it to them? So in 2018, I used to travel to Europe every year since 2012. I was traveling pretty frequently to Europe once a year. And in 18, when I was going to Hungary and some other place, and I contacted some yoga studios, and I suggested, if you want, I can take meditation, philosophy workshop. I call it philosophy because this is a kind of a philosophy only.

Shiv Mathur:
It's like a. You can call it a science I will call it a science only because it is. It actually, it's a kind of science. Science is based on logic, and logic is philosophy. So, you know, with philosophy, you go to the logic and then you go to the science. That's a kind of a connection, so I could understand this. And I started teaching in 2018 in Budapest. I taught two workshops, and they were really liked a lot.

Shiv Mathur:
And, like, people just got up and hugged me after the workshop. They were so delighted with the workshop, and so I was getting good feedbacks, and then I continued teaching in other countries. In 19, I happened to go to Poland. So I was in Europe for two years so I could teach further, continue teaching there, but due to Covid, it all stopped. And then I met some Himalayan yogis. My other mission was that people go in search of gurus. Answer to one of your earlier questions. People are searching for gurus, but the world is filled with fake gurus.

Shiv Mathur:
So how to navigate this illusion to find a real guru? What happens is we get into a rat race to find a guru. When the whole world is going to some guru, then we also tend to flock there, and we don't use our discriminatory abilities and judgment. That is, this guru is really a real guru. So there are commercial gurus, they become big names, and they have the spiritual kingdoms and pies. But the real guru will not be fine in these luxurious spiritual empires. They will be definitely in some remote corner in the Himalayas or somewhere else, some unknown place. So the way of finding a guru is not that everybody is going there. The way of finding a real guru is very different.

Shiv Mathur:
So one has to really see that what everybody is doing should not. I should also not be doing that, because, as they say, I asked this question, what percentage of people are fools in the world? And everybody gives the same answers. So the majority goes to the guru. Obviously, that guru will not be the true guru. So you have to go against the tide. So my second mission was to showcase these, find these gurus, real yogis, and tell the world that there are real yogis still existing. Not so real, but quite real. Quite good.

Shiv Mathur:
Very well, go and meet them. Learn from them. Take inspiration. Inspiration from them. And so I started making some videos. I met some yogis, and I met those videos, and one of those two few videos became viral. And that's how my channel came. I had no plan to make a YouTube channel.

Shiv Mathur:
I didn't even know there was a channel, something called channel. I just uploaded on YouTube, and they became viral, and then my channel started, and then I started making my videos on meditation, philosophy and my spirituality and whatever, like. And then now I have 120 videos online.

Jennifer Norman:
Right, right.

Shiv Mathur:
Make content. Yeah, that's all.

Jennifer Norman:
Well, thank you so much for sharing that rich experience that you had in the Himalayas. And there were a couple of pieces of knowledge that I think are important to just reiterate. And one of them was that went up to the mountain, you had an experience, but not everybody is going to have that same experience. And a lot of that may have to do with, and you mentioned preparation, and I suppose I call it intention. If you're going up there expecting a miracle or expecting something to happen, that is like, okay, show me what I'm missing, then that's a recipe for you not finding it, because it really has to come and be planted in the seed in your heart and in yourself. About when I go up there, this is what I'm open to, getting out of it and then learning and letting the experience unfold from there. I think a lot of times there's expectations put on a situation even in, strangely enough, in the spiritual sense, where it's like I'm expecting enlightenment. And that's not what you're going to get if you're trying to force the issue.

Jennifer Norman:
And some skeptics might say, oh, well, after going and climbing up that hill with up bicycle for 400 meters, it's probably just lightheadedness and the elevation that's causing bliss. But I'm sure it was more than that. I'm sure it was more than that. And to the point of coming down and then understanding the importance of being quiet, getting quiet. I wanted to take a moment to talk about meditation and how you learned that meditation also feeds into self awareness, a greater appreciation for the world. Some of the things that you learned as you deepened into your meditation practice.

Shiv Mathur:
Yeah, there are two things. One is people don't really take this so sincerely, finding about themselves, understanding the problems in their life and looking for the problems seriously working on their own self. It's about the sincerity of the people. If you are sincere, you'll find. If you are half hearted, if you are lazy, if you're not hardworking, because a lot of effort had gone in. And that's how I got the grace. I had more experiences, which probably I'll tell subsequently. Now, coming back to your question about the meditation process, and you want to understand the process of meditation, which I teach, is that your question?

Jennifer Norman:
I would love to understand why meditation is so profound, why everybody should be doing it, and what would be the proper way to meditate.

Shiv Mathur:
Yeah. So first thing is we all talk about meditation but nobody knows what is meditation. Some, if you ask somebody to define meditation, everybody feels that you have to sit with your eyes closed in a certain pose which has been actually sold. So I have made a video on that pose is actually pose which people at a very high level do it. They go into months of meditation, they master the pose, they can sit still in that pose or any other pose. They can do a tree pose, standing pose, they master that pose where they can be in that pose for a very long duration. So they have still their body in that pose, they have still the mind and they have clean purified the body with what they eat also and even the place and then they do meditation. So those poses are actually, we are copying somebody who is actually at a very high level and that's actually meditation.

Shiv Mathur:
What we need to do first is to clean up our mind and that cleaning up the mind will not happen. If you sit like that very higher evolved yogi, you are imitating that post. But fortunately people have not understand that the first stage is, what I told is self inquiry. First is you have to clean your mind. You can call it purification of your mind. So body purification, all are individual activity. I would say if you can do them parallel, fine. If you don't do them parallel, you can at least do your.

Shiv Mathur:
You can work on the mind, which is very important because mind controls everything. Mind controls all the diseases, mind controls everything, what happens in a body. So mind is very, very powerful. So if your mind is out of control everything will go bad. So the first step is self inquiry to purify your mind. Now what do you mean by purifying mind? Why? Our mind is filled up with constant barrage of negative thoughts, worries. So if we can't remove that, how can you remove by some technique those techniques are just nothing. These are all business model to make money because everybody wants meditation.

Shiv Mathur:
People are practically looking for something to sort out their mental health issues. People are, you know, some people have panic issues, some people have anxiety, people have anxiety, we have social isolation, loneliness. The societies, where is the society led us to? There's loneliness, there is social isolation. There's so many problems which are actually an outcome having its impact on the mind. So how do I remove those worries? How do I get out of that mind? I cannot because that's constantly bothering me. If I sit like that, focus on breathing or focus look at some candle for probably 1015 minutes. Initially I will be able to feel good. And when you feel good somebody closes the lights, do some colorful lighting and light up some incense stick, played some gongs and this and that.

Shiv Mathur:
They create some kind of environment, like they create a laboratory where you will feel nice a few days. And you say, oh, I went for meditation. I felt very good. But it's not about feeling good. It's about solving the problem once for all. It's about reaching a state of mind. So meditation is a state of mind. We are in a certain state, and due to that state with lot of negative thoughts, we have a very negative feel, a negative aura.

Shiv Mathur:
And we are in a state of. We are in a mind is in a certain state constantly kind of with little variation, ups and downs. Are there somewhere you. Sometimes you might feel little good, sometimes you might feel very bad. And generally you are probably feeling very bad because there is so many traumas this, that things in life. So how do you deal with that? The first thing is to remove that. And that in my understanding, I don't advocate any techniques. I don't advocate.

Shiv Mathur:
And my point is that people, a lot of people don't come to me because I don't give them some magic solution. What I teach is where it needs a lot of hard work, because people have to do a lot of hard work to do introspection and self inquiry. And it's a very long drawn process. So people, most of the people are not sincere. They run away. I don't want to teach somebody, which is, I'm not out to make money out of it, you know, I have learned something which is very, very pure. So I can't make sell impurities in this thing. So now I'll talk about how to remove the negative thoughts.

Shiv Mathur:
So when I ask people question that, what is the reason of negative thoughts? I think most of the people actually don't have an answer. Then I ask somebody, what is mind? So can anybody define mind? I really don't know. Actually. There's nothing called mind. What is mind? There's no mind. It's an emotional term. Mind is just a accumulation of all the thoughts. Nobody has seen mind, but we have a brain.

Shiv Mathur:
So we have a brain which processes the thoughts. And what is the outcome of the brain? We call it mind. Actually. Actually, if you say, if you really think about these are right questioning. There are a lot of paradoxes in life. There are a lot of perceptions, a lot of myths, social. There are general briefs, gossips. And then people come out with some kind of words and we don't understand those words and we just lap them up.

Shiv Mathur:
If I say, what is mind? There's nothing on mind.

Jennifer Norman:
So what you're saying is really very compelling because it is very different from, I think, what a lot of people are hearing. A lot of people are hearing that meditation these days is a great stress reducer. It's a way to stay calm in the midst of a lot of tumultuousness which may be happening in your world. It's a way to calm the mind. And people think that it's very healthy to try to clear the mind at least once a day, maybe for as long as you can. If it's a minute, if it's five minutes, if it's a half an hour, then it's however much you can get to.

Shiv Mathur:
I'll explain that.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. Where you can clear the mind. And so what you're saying is that in a lot of cases, when people sit cross legged in lotus pose and hold the mudra with your finger together, that's essentially imitation, which is not necessarily. It can be a right, quote, unquote, a right way. I don't want to say right or wrong because it's judging that. But in a lot of cases, that's. That's what we're told in yoga.

Jennifer Norman:
Okay, sit in lotus position, put your hands in Mudra, up or down. Whether you want to attract energy or reduce energy. Breathe, breathe, breathe and clear the mind. Feel the stress washing away from you. And for a moment, that may be helpful. And then a lot of people say, if you continue that and you create a practice out of it, then over time, the accumulation of it can be very beneficial for you. And I think that there have been probably clinical studies to prove the impact of meditation on stress and on mental health. But I do appreciate what you're saying as well, in that in many cases, the aspects of mental health and the aspects of a racing mind, or one that is negative, may not necessarily be aided or ameliorated by the kind of quote unquote meditation that we are being taught, because that is something that may be packaged in a class or in sessions and taught to us and in some way which may not necessarily be as helpful.

Shiv Mathur:
Should I explain this?

Jennifer Norman:
And so, yes, that's what I wanted to get to. I just wanted to paraphrase that to make sure that I am correct and how I'm interpreting what you're saying and then also allow you to explain.

Shiv Mathur:
See, I'll explain this. See what happens. You have a car. Do you keep it 24 hours on running? You have a computer, don't you? Switch it off right right?

Jennifer Norman:
Yes.

Shiv Mathur:
And the answer is, should you keep running the car even if you're not using it in the garage, you're burning the fuel. So when you are not switching off yourself, you're dissipating. You're not conserving your energy, you're dissipating.

Jennifer Norman:
Sure. Sure. And that's what sleep is for. Sleep is for us to shut off and regenerate. And so people would say, well, I get sleep. Why would I need to meditate on top of that?

Shiv Mathur:
But that's a lifestyle. Sleep is one part. But when I am awake, I am dissipating a lot. When I am supposed sitting idle for an hour, I'm resting. I'm resting physically, but is my mind at rest? So I'm talking about the wake state. Awake state. Okay. So in that time, is my car still running? Why is my car running? Why can't I switch it off? So when these people do these kind of meditation, so it's like switching off your mind for trying to switch off your mind, whether initially you can switch off with these techniques, but later on you realize these are all quite meaningless and nothing is really happening.

Shiv Mathur:
So if I talk to a lot of people, they say, oh, I've been doing this, but now actually nothing is happening. In fact, this is a grudge. Even my wife has, but she never told me this. She does her own way of meditation. And then this swami and Rishikesh, he only asked her what happened, and she said, nothing, actually. And I know a lot of people, they confess that actually nothing is happening. And a lot of people don't want to confess because they look like fools. So they quietly, they say, quiet.

Shiv Mathur:
And so, you know, you have new students. New students, because people go follow, and some people quietly leave. They realize nothing has happened. The new one come. So this keeps on happening. Like yoga teachers. You go to any yoga class at the standard practice, last ten minutes, he will tell you, I'll make you meditate. And he will only do it for ten minutes or five minutes or 15 minutes, not more than that.

Shiv Mathur:
That's become like a standard practice, and everybody feels we are doing some meditation. But what is really happening? My own sister, after two years of yoga and meditation, she also told me nothing has happened. So she wanted to learn from me. I said, you're not prepared. You have to do some basic kind of practice to reach there. So this is another distraction to remove other distractions. People are like trying to, like a child, when the child is crying, you give some toy which makes some noise. So for a moment, the child become quiet.

Shiv Mathur:
That's meditation for the child. He forgets what he was crying for. So this is like a child, only we are trying to tell him, okay, listen to the music, listen to this gong, or focus on your breathing. Pretty similar. And I can tell you it will not really take you to that level, and it will not yield any real results. Hmm.

Jennifer Norman:
Okay.

Shiv Mathur:
All right.

Jennifer Norman:
And I think from somebody who had such a, what I would call, like, a more significant experience, shall I say, in spirituality, it definitely makes sense that, relatively speaking, that 10-15 minutes of meditation is not going to take you to a transcendental place where you're going to find yourself. But for those that are living in western culture, it can help. It can help for a temporary reset of their day. I don't want to discount, and that's the thing that I want to caution, is that I don't want to discount the benefit of even short term meditation for mind clarity, even for that distraction away from what might be stressing you, because it has been clinically proven to have significant benefits. Because not everybody can go to the top of a mountain in the Himalayas and find ashrams by the Ganges.

Shiv Mathur:
You don't have to go to the top of the Himalayas to do self inquiry, and clinical findings, I can challenge those clinical findings that slide. As I told, when you stop the car for an hour, also, if you stop your mind by doing these practices for half an hour, also, obviously, you stop dissipating. You see your body as a machine. We are actually like a machine. And if you see, we have various functions which are operating. We have brain, which like a cpu. And then we have a source of energy inside.

Shiv Mathur:
If we dissipate more, we feel tired, sometimes without working. If you are overthinking, you feel tired. You didn't do anything physically, but how does that dissipation happen? So if you don't dissipate, and if you don't dissipate for 30 minutes, 15 minutes, if you're doing something, it will definitely help you. It is like a trailer. It's like a trailer, but you're not seeing the movie. You're only seeing the trailer every day.

Jennifer Norman:
I know, but if that. I mean, that's all that they can fit into their lifestyle.

Shiv Mathur:
It can show you how our mind can feel, how you can feel. If you reach that state, it is only giving you a taste of that. Every day you are taking a taste of that. But how to reach there is that they are not teaching that.

Jennifer Norman:
I love that we're having controversy over meditation. I think that this is fascinating. No, and I appreciate this conversation very much because it does put into context the behaviors to us can be a gateway into something more. You've got to start somewhere. And I think when you're steeped in western culture, where there's so much noise, where the energy is quite negative, you mentioned that there are spaces and places on this earth where people are just steeped in negative energy. And if you can create a little space, even if it's a little solitude, where you can quiet the mind and get into that place where you can initiate that self inquiry, then I would say, go for it. Think that there's anything wrong with it. Actually, I think that it can be helpful over time.

Shiv Mathur:
As I told you, when you go to these ashrams, it's good for a beginner. So there has to be a beginning somewhere. You can go to a temple, you can go to a church, you can go to a mosque. You can go to a synagogue. You can go anywhere as a beginning that will start taking your mind away from the worldly stuff and start making you think differently. It's a beginning of thinking differently. When you do meditation for 15 minutes, you should do contemplation. You should do introspection, that you should do self inquiry that time.

Shiv Mathur:
Because you are doing dedicated. That you can do for half an hour self inquiry. Sitting like that, you can watch your thoughts and imagine, understand where is. Why is it thought coming? What is the reason for this thought? You can do that kind of sell inquiry. So it's like a beginning. You can start from somewhere. It's not that you straightaway go to the Himalayas.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. Yeah.

Shiv Mathur:
I also started the self inquiry on the streets of Bombay.

Jennifer Norman:
Exactly.

Shiv Mathur:
In my office.

Jennifer Norman:
Exactly. And that led you down the path to doing more into enriching yourself.

Shiv Mathur:
And it opens up. It opens up.

Jennifer Norman:
It opens up a portal. And speaking of that, because you were talking about the mind and then talking about, like, what is the mind? And I would love for you to tell us for a moment what you have discovered about the mind and its state as well as the state of social issues. Because I know that you have written a book on social issues and you talk a lot about what it is that we can do to help heal the world is not necessarily healing the world. It's actually, let's look first at healing ourselves. Can you say what you've learned there?

Shiv Mathur:
So if you heal, you can only heal yourself first. And if you heal yourself first, you can set an example. You can set an inspiration. You can share your experiences and people can benefit from it. So you can be only inspiration as a guru is also inspiration. Only. We seek inspiration from someone. It all depends upon us, where we seek inspiration, what kind of understanding we have, what kind of discriminatory abilities have evolved so that we can take a right decision.

Shiv Mathur:
That itself is a self inquiry practice to even raise those abilities, to take a right decision. Otherwise we'll follow the crowd. Most of us are actually following the crowd. So the mind is and social things. You want to relay core values. I told you in the beginning that there are core values. The core human values is the basis of our existence. I always relate to any machinery.

Shiv Mathur:
Again, I will come to a car, has certain specifications, it will perform optimally. If there's a problem in the car, some of the parameter or the specification is not at the right value, you take it to the garage and the mechanic will tune it. We don't go to a garage. We don't know where is that garage. Suppose the garage in the himalayas. Not everybody can reach himalayas, but there are garages everywhere. You have to go to those garages. You have to find where is my garage? Where do I make a big thing? I go to a small mechanic.

Shiv Mathur:
And what has gone wrong? I can find out. We have designed the car. We have designed so many gadgets. I know for iPhone, I can go to iPhone shop. But for my own thing, where do I go? So I said, okay, fine, let me go to a yogi. Let me go to some saint, let me go to some philosopher. Let me go to some wise person in the village or in the. Where are wise people now? In the village, there used to be wise people, but in city, everybody seems to be wise now.

Shiv Mathur:
So we have to really figure out where to find and what kind of discussions we engage in, what kind of company we are in. If I am in a professional job, I have a certain kind of people I interact with. But after that, in my personal time, what do I do? Where do I go? What kind of people I meet, that's my choice. And if I can bring some change in that, it also makes a beginning in the right direction. Now coming to mind and social, both are same. Both have the same linkage. If my core human values are mistuned, it'll have impact on my mind. That's the science behind mind and human values, which I explain in my philosophy of meditation and how the mind works.

Shiv Mathur:
From where are the thoughts coming? Same thing. If the mind is corrupted, society will be corrupted. So it's all mine. So now I'll explain about mind and the thoughts. I will give some idea. So how they are linked to the human values. If I'm selfish, what will happen to my mind? You get the answer yourself. This is right questioning.

Jennifer Norman:
If you are selfish, what happens to the mind?

Shiv Mathur:
What will selfishness do to you? To your mind? Will it keep throwing negative? It will throw expectations. It will create desires. And if you have desires more than your needs, you're going beyond your needs. You have unnecessary desires. Suppose you are very materialistic. Suppose you are jealous, what will happen with jealousy? You'll have thoughts. If you're selfish, you'll have thoughts. If you're selfless, you'll have no thoughts.

Shiv Mathur:
If you're not jealous, you'll have no thoughts. If you are compassionate, if you are selfless, if you have ego, you'll have many thoughts. I know this, I know this, I know this. For everything you'll say, I know this, I know this, I am right. I am right. I am right. Always you'll be saying, I am right, I am right. Ego.

Shiv Mathur:
I know. I know everything. I know everything. Don't tell me I know everything. I know. But there are problems coming because of your ignorance. Ego leads to ignorance or ignorance leads to ego. Both are mutual companions and together they kill you.

Shiv Mathur:
These two devils kill you. So they are the reason for all the thoughts. Because of ego, you are not willing to accept what? That your desires are not desires not really needed. The ego doesn't want you to believe that you are going somewhere wrong. So you continue to pursue wrong ambitions, materialism, this and that. If you don't understand your responsibility at that point of time in your life, what are your responsibilities? What you are supposed to do, you are not doing thinking about that. You are just chasing like a wild goose chase, chasing certain things in the materialistic world. And is this materialistic world? Has it really given any happiness to people? Where is the society gone? What has happened to the society? What has happened to relationships? Why is there so much friction and aggression in the society? Why is everybody so aggressive? There's so many, so much disagreement.

Shiv Mathur:
Where is. What about the agreement? So impulsive, so impatient. There's so many, all negative qualities. We are all tuned to negative. If I'm impatient, I want instant gratification. So I have so many desires, I have so many thoughts. So all these negative qualities which I have now ingrained or conditioned with, it's my conditioning. I got conditioned with these, with the society, with the community I live with the kind of companionship I had a friend circle I had, whether in profession or personal space, while being bringing up the way I was brought up, where I was brought up, what kind of values I was taught.

Shiv Mathur:
Am I a byproduct of consumerism? I'm impacted by consumerism, the glamour of this and that. Have I really realized? Is this the source of happiness? So these kind of questions have to come. And these negative qualities create all the thoughts, right? That's as simple as that. And there's nothing else with. Because we have sensory organs, we have five sensory organs. We have a memory. What goes into the memory is something which is very high impact.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, yeah.

Shiv Mathur:
Thought which stays with us. And it can be a trauma if it is long lasting. It is a trauma if it is not long lasting. It may last for five days. Some thoughts may thing will be bothering you for ten days, something will bother you for one month, something is bothering you for years. That's a trauma. Why we call it a trauma? Do we understand what is suffering? What is good and bad in this world? What is illusion? Is this world an illusion? How do we understand this is an illusion? Then what is the reality? So many questions. It's a.

Shiv Mathur:
Every word I'm using is a deep subject.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, absolutely.

Shiv Mathur:
So just coming to the pain point is that the thoughts are coming from the negative human qualities we are conditioned with. These are the patterns which have set. Conditioning is programming of brain. A brain will process everything we see or hear in a certain way based on a conditioning. And those conditioning is the qualities which we have, the negative qualities which we have ingrained. It's based on that all the perceptions we create. So if you are suspicious, we will all be generally suspicious. We assuming most of the time we'll be assuming the wrong things.

Shiv Mathur:
That's the way we are conditioned now. So now, once you realize this, once you do self assessment, then you know. Now I know the problem, root cause of the problem.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah.

Shiv Mathur:
And now I know what to change.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. Self awareness is where it starts. And then from there it's making those real choices and taking responsibility for your life, rather than thinking that everything on the outside is going to solve all your issues.

Shiv Mathur:
What is normal life? We say city life is normal life. I asked, do you consider city life as normal or living in the nature as normal? So everybody except one out of 85 84 votes were for living in the nature was normal. But we consider living in city as normal. People say, oh, you are escaping from a normal life. I said, you don't understand what is normal life? But these are all a very radical thinking. Deep thinking.

Jennifer Norman:
Sure, sure. Yeah. No, that's very fascinating. Last thought. If there was one thing that you would want everybody to know or to, because you said it can only be inspiration. We can't change other people. We can only inspire. But what would be something that you think would be highly inspiring for somebody to start this journey of self reflection?

Shiv Mathur:
Highly inspiring is, I would say, look at the lives of real yogis and saints. We can also look at the religious books we don't understand. Bible. Bible was written so many years back, you know, thousands of years back. The English. I don't understand the English of Bible. Somebody has to explain it. Same as the problem with the scriptures in India.

Shiv Mathur:
They were written thousands of years back. So I really don't understand them. It's not easy to. So somebody has to translate them. But today, like, the book which I have written is actually mapped with all the religious books. So you can look at religious books, you can look at the teaching, which are explained in a simple way. The whole idea is that it should be understood by people. So look for those teachings which are there.

Shiv Mathur:
There are a lot of good yogis. Swami Vivekananda, I have made a video, the yogis who inspired me. Their teachings are available. You can look at their teachings, their life, and it's a study. It's a study. You need to seek inspiration also. You have to seek for person and then seek what he inspires, what he's known for. So you have to find those kind of people.

Shiv Mathur:
I didn't know about these yogis ten years back. Now I know about so many yogis. And I look at Saint Germain. Who? The Alchemist. You can look at the saints in every country. There have been saints in every country. That's the source of inspiration. But the core thing is self inquiry is very important.

Shiv Mathur:
Self inquiry is very important.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes, yes. Thank you so much for being on the human beauty movement podcast today. What a wonderful discussion. I really enjoyed it.

Shiv Mathur:
Thanks, Jennifer. This is a very deep discussion and we can just go on and on, but probably it will give some clues to people to move forward.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you. Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow, rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media, and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.