Episode 25: All About the Mahabharata and Reconnecting with One’s Roots
Did you know the Mahabharata is the longest epic poem ever written? At 100,000 verses, it is about 10 times the length of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey combined. The Bhagavad Gita, a section of the epic, is considered one of the most important Hindu scriptures. Our guest, Parag Shan is an author on the Mahabharata, […]
The post Episode 25: All About the Mahabharata and Reconnecting with One’s Roots appeared first on Fabric of Folklore.
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Welcome, folks.
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Folks, welcome to Paprika Folklore.
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I’m your hostess. Vanessa y.
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Vanessa y Rogers and this is a podcast where we unravel
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the mysteries of folklore.
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In this podcast, we explore the world through the lens of culture, whether that
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or Internet means we want to know and understand it all.
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Our podcast at its core, is about finding
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In today’s fun tastic episode, we’re going deep
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into one of the oldest written texts in existence, the Mahabharata.
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Neil I had to practice saying that word so many times before
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I did this introduction at 100,000 verses.
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It is the longest epic poem ever written as a whole.
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It is about ten times the length of Homer’s Iliad
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and Odyssey put together the bhava by the
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Geeta.
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The How is God?
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Geeta Is that right?
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Geeta Okay.
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Which is only one section of the whole epic
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is considered one of the most important Hindu scriptures.
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The story is still popular in India today, and children are named
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after the characters from this thrilling epic.
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Our guest today is Parag Sean.
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He’s an author, traveler and lifelong learner.
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He worked in the industry but felt disconnected.
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As many of us do from nature.
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So he left the i.t world to travel, reconnect with nature, his roots
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and himself.
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During his travels, he wrote a travelog
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called the caravan that my life beckons.
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Did I say that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Absolutely right.
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About his adventures he had on a 1000 K solo road trip
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in India to build his work around studying his ancestors
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and writing about the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata.
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He hopes to continue writing books as he travels to ancient places in India.
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So welcome. So what’s the fabric of folklore?
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Thank you so much, Vanessa.
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Thank you for having me.
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It’s so exciting to have you because you’re our first guest from India.
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So this is a notable episode for us.
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Thank you.
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I’m really excited to be on your podcast.
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I have watched previous episodes and I enjoyed watching all of them.
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Oh, I’m so glad to hear that.
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And so can you tell us a little bit about your journey from the I.T.
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world into the current work that you’re doing now?
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Yes, Vanessa
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and I got into I.T.
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around the year 2000 after doing a master’s in computer science.
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And it was very exciting at that time.
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There was so much changing and I.T.
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and, you know,
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if you remember, that was the time when the Internet was really taking off.
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Yeah, there was e-commerce and collaboration online communities.
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And it felt like I was part of something very large,
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you know, bringing people together from all over the world.
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And it felt wonderful at that time.
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Although as time passed and I love my work
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and I did for the first, let’s say ten or 12 years.
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Mm hmm.
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But at some point, I realized that
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even though it was changing lives,
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there was never a little component to it that were very negative.
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So it was addictive.
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And and that’s
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not just a coincidence and not because I’ve actually been part of meetings
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where software was designed to be addictive.
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And just fortunately, I was not one of the developers.
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I was just like a bystander in those meetings.
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Mm hmm.
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But you’re not actually listening to a room full of people talk
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about how they wanted to get people addicted to their software.
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Yeah.
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It just disgusted me. And
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and I also
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realized that it was disconnecting me from myself.
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It was disconnecting me from nature.
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It was just that little laptop and me
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and lots and lots of others having to keep up
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with all the new changes happening in technology.
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And I wasn’t happy and I was feeling like a frog in Novell
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and really disconnected from my cell phone.
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So yeah, so
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but it took some time for me to know.
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I mean, so that that disconnect or that disillusionment
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started setting in after, let’s say, 12 years or so.
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But it took several more years for me to
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really feel that visceral disgust for the work I was doing.
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And when I felt that
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and I think it was because I wasn’t listening to my instincts
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for so many years
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that I realized one thing in my life that when things become visceral,
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it’s only when you’ve not been listening, or when I have not been listening to
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my instincts for a long time.
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So that
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so I reached a point when I was totally disgusted with my work.
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I reached a point where I couldn’t wake up in the morning
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to do my work to write software.
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And so that’s when I, I mean, you know, I felt like I needed
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to do something in the morning just so that I have motivation to get up.
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So I started journaling and I mean, I’d start journaling with my breakfast,
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and journaling was something I had been doing for a long time.
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I mean, several, several years,
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at least 20 years before I left it.
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Nice to write a little bit in my Diary of Day.
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And so I started journaling and I’d spend the first 3 hours of my day journaling.
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I’d feel fully satisfied and satiated in my heart, and then I’d start work.
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And I love journaling so much.
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Yeah, I love journaling so much that on weekends
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I would write all day long and I’d write about anything.
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I’d write about my past, about what I wanted to do, about what
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I was feeling, what I was observing
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or anything.
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And you were just writing for yourself, right?
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You weren’t writing for anyone else.
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It was just for your own satisfaction.
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Just for my own satisfaction.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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I mean, whatever was going on in my mind, that’s what I should focus on.
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What I wanted to do in life,
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what I liked, what I did not like, what I had experience.
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Anything and everything that came to my mind.
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Something that read an article, you know, and then a journal about that.
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Mm hmm.
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So that way.
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And a few months passed
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and then realized that, you know,
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I could actually write all day long without feeling tired.
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And there was this huge difference between my work and writing.
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And when I was writing,
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I left me disconnected.
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Journaling connected me with myself
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and still left me
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feeling grumpy while journaling left me feeling really satisfied in my heart.
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You know, happy and satisfied. Mm hmm.
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And it left me exhausted, honestly.
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And journaling would reinvigorate me.
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And I realized that.
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Okay, so, you know, I love writing and I need to get out of it,
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and I need to get into writing.
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But I had no clue what I’d write.
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I mean, there were many things in my mind,
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but I really wasn’t an expert at anything
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besides a bit of an
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expert in writing and ideas, something I didn’t want to write about.
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And besides, I knew nothing else.
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Mm hmm.
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So, yeah, that was.
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That was kind of interesting.
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And that’s when I went back to my trip.
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And I say, I left it in 2020, and I had done this trip
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of a normal life in 2019, about a year
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before I left.
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And I had made copious notes.
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And because I love to journal, I had made copious notes on that trip.
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And so that was the first book I wrote that was a travelog
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and I promoted it on social media free of cost.
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And a lot of my friends liked it.
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And I mean, they found it humorous, They found it fun.
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So why don’t you do more of this?
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And so I wrote a little more about traveling,
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but I realized that, you know, it wasn’t really selling much,
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even though people loved reading it, it wasn’t selling much.
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So I wrote a few short stories from the Mahabharat, which was
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a very early love of mine.
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I’ll say.
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I used to read that epic, a comic book of that epic,
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you know, like a graphic novel, to read that
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as a child, many, many times.
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And so I started writing short stories from them and enjoyed that.
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That sold a little bit more, but not much.
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And then I started reading The Unabridged Mob.
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Didn’t know the full thing, which is about 100,000 couplets.
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And on pages, the English translation is about
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6000 pages.
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That’s so long.
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So how big is that for you?
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It’s a collection of ten books, you know, and it’s like massive.
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But the one I had is on making news.
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So it doesn’t appear too big, right?
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It’s just that I keep on reading.
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I keep on reading, and I’m still on 1%. 2%.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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But the paper thing is, like, massive.
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And I really like.
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It’s a collection of ten books. Yeah.
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And the graphic novel is, do you know how many
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how many books are in that series?
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Two books.
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Only two books only.
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Do you know if it’s.
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If it’s available in English?
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Because I think I read that
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before.
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Or maybe you told me that you would read the graphic novel.
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And so I tried to look up if there was a version of it
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that, you know, English readers could be you could find.
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But I wasn’t able to find anything.
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Whereas in English, yes, yes.
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I share the link with you.
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In fact, that’s the one which I did back in the seventies, is available
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on Internet Archive.
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So it’s available in the public domain.
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Oh, cool. That’s great.
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Yeah.
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Okay, cool.
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So al-Qaeda-linked with you?
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Yes, for sure.
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Yeah.
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So I started reading that.
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Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.
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What were you saying?
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No, I said go ahead.
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Okay.
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So I started reading the Unabridged Mahabharat, and I realized
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that the real gems of the Mahabharat
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and other parts of the Dharma
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were they’re in the conversations,
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in the decisions that people made, the reasons behind those decisions.
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Can it can I say something?
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I don’t know what that is.
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Yeah.
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So to put that very simply, Vanessa.
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Dharma, is that which sustains.
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That’s like a one line definition.
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Then you imbibe the Dharma.
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Dharma is that which when you imbibe, it sustains.
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It sustains you, it sustains your relations,
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it sustains the world around you
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and the entire web of human relations, not just with other humans, but
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with humans and animals, humans
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and plants, humans and birds,
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humans and in subtler roads.
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Would writing for you be Dharma?
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Partially.
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So let me say this. You know,
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I just come back to the definition and tell you what she said about Dharma.
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And he says it’s the law
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that sustains all possible relations in the universe.
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It’s a law that literally sustains the universe, and he sees the universe
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as an interrelated part.
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So none of us are really know Life is isolated.
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All forms of life are interrelated in the higher ends.
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And the cosmic law which
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sustains and nourishes us.
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Everything in the universe is dharma.
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Okay, so compassion becomes dharma.
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Hurting somebody becomes other.
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The opposite of Dharma.
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Okay.
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And then there are.
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So this is like the larger meaning of Dharma.
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And then there are different types of drama.
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So let’s say there would be a dharma of a child
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towards her father or towards her parents.
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There would be dharma of parents toward the child.
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There would be Dharma for words.
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Her teacher, their mother, the teacher towards the child
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and their movement towards relatives.
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Dharma, once of a person towards her ancestors.
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Let’s say
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another arm of ancestors to a person.
00:14:39:27 – 00:14:42:14
Dharma, If a person towards
00:14:42:14 – 00:14:45:14
the devil’s and other beings in the higher end.
00:14:45:25 – 00:14:48:29
Dharma movement towards animals, towards everything, you know?
00:14:49:19 – 00:14:50:09
Mm hmm.
00:14:50:09 – 00:14:53:13
So these are the dramas of relationship, then?
00:14:53:13 – 00:14:55:24
There are dramas of occupation.
00:14:55:24 – 00:15:01:02
So let’s say somebody serving in the Army would have the drama for Warrior.
00:15:01:17 – 00:15:04:17
A scholar would have the drama of a scholar.
00:15:05:01 – 00:15:08:06
So what is that code of conduct?
00:15:08:11 – 00:15:12:02
You know, so there is this nourishment that is also duty.
00:15:12:02 – 00:15:15:02
What is the duty of a scholar?
00:15:15:15 – 00:15:18:15
What is the duty of an architect?
00:15:18:16 – 00:15:22:17
So it’s bringing that integrity of sustenance into your work.
00:15:22:17 – 00:15:25:10
You know, that is also Dharma.
00:15:25:10 – 00:15:27:07
Mm hmm.
00:15:27:07 – 00:15:29:11
That’s beautiful.
00:15:29:11 – 00:15:30:21
Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:30:21 – 00:15:33:05
And so that’s Dharma.
00:15:33:05 – 00:15:36:10
And then there are other forms of Dharma.
00:15:36:10 – 00:15:38:00
For example, when a soul,
00:15:39:03 – 00:15:39:18
there
00:15:39:18 – 00:15:42:18
is a whole notion of evolution of the soul.
00:15:43:06 – 00:15:47:18
So soul evolves from a being
00:15:48:01 – 00:15:52:29
who is more interested in physical pleasures and as a sort.
00:15:52:29 – 00:15:56:08
So not that is like if you consider Maslow’s hierarchy
00:15:56:23 – 00:16:00:06
initially a soul is more interested in physical pleasures,
00:16:01:02 – 00:16:03:13
and the soul at that point is also very
00:16:03:13 – 00:16:06:13
egocentric, slightly violent.
00:16:07:06 – 00:16:09:02
As the soul progresses
00:16:09:02 – 00:16:12:02
in mature in spiritual maturity
00:16:12:14 – 00:16:17:21
that desires transcend into creative desires
00:16:18:17 – 00:16:21:17
and the physicality, even though it is there,
00:16:21:20 – 00:16:24:20
it becomes finer and finer
00:16:25:13 – 00:16:29:03
and and so the soul keeps on transcending.
00:16:29:25 – 00:16:32:16
And all this happens
00:16:32:16 – 00:16:37:15
by following the four goals of life, which also the moment it explains beautifully.
00:16:37:24 – 00:16:40:18
Then all the four chakras
00:16:40:18 – 00:16:43:18
and they are dharma, I repeat, Dharma moksha.
00:16:44:01 – 00:16:50:07
So Dharma is I explained to you the sustenance, sustenance and duty.
00:16:50:19 – 00:16:53:01
These two things are Dharma. Mm hmm.
00:16:54:09 – 00:16:55:13
Okay.
00:16:55:13 – 00:16:58:13
Is finances and resources.
00:16:59:21 – 00:17:03:20
Because in order to sustain, you need resources and finances.
00:17:04:03 – 00:17:05:18
Mm hmm.
00:17:05:18 – 00:17:09:20
However, the pursuit of altar is always balance with Dharma.
00:17:09:20 – 00:17:12:20
So you don’t make money by harming something else?
00:17:13:03 – 00:17:14:06
Mm hmm.
00:17:14:06 – 00:17:17:06
It’s like ethical making of money.
00:17:17:06 – 00:17:18:01
Mm hmm.
00:17:18:01 – 00:17:21:05
Then there is, like, not a big thing for Internet.
00:17:22:07 – 00:17:23:26
Not addicting people to the Internet.
00:17:23:26 – 00:17:26:12
Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:17:26:12 – 00:17:27:27
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:27:27 – 00:17:30:10
And, you know, to not harming the environment,
00:17:30:10 – 00:17:33:10
for example.
00:17:33:12 – 00:17:36:12
So everything, you know, the entire web of life,
00:17:37:02 – 00:17:40:02
then that is karma, which is pleasure.
00:17:40:06 – 00:17:44:13
And and in the entire spectrum of right from physical
00:17:44:13 – 00:17:48:18
pleasure to mental pleasure to creative pleasure to everything.
00:17:49:04 – 00:17:49:21
Mm hmm.
00:17:49:21 – 00:17:52:21
And then there is moksha, which is
00:17:53:27 – 00:17:56:03
most of the time it’s defined as
00:17:56:03 – 00:18:00:10
a final liberation of the soul from the cycle of birth and death.
00:18:02:17 – 00:18:05:22
But I from my readings,
00:18:06:14 – 00:18:10:04
I believe that there is an alternate explanation also,
00:18:11:06 – 00:18:14:06
which is the liberation of the soul
00:18:14:14 – 00:18:17:14
from forced rebirth.
00:18:17:21 – 00:18:20:10
So, you know, there is one kind of rebirth
00:18:20:10 – 00:18:24:00
which is forced because of the way of karma
00:18:24:06 – 00:18:27:20
and not because of the things that the soul has done in the past.
00:18:27:20 – 00:18:32:04
It has to come back to repay the wrong things it has done.
00:18:32:23 – 00:18:37:03
And sometimes it has to come back because the desires are so strong
00:18:37:20 – 00:18:40:11
that it wants to get back into a body.
00:18:40:11 – 00:18:42:20
And so the soul comes for that.
00:18:42:20 – 00:18:46:17
But there is some this kind of the subtle kind of rebirth,
00:18:47:21 – 00:18:50:21
which is that the soul comes back
00:18:51:16 – 00:18:54:16
to perform its duty towards existence itself.
00:18:56:03 – 00:18:58:15
So it’s a rebirth,
00:18:58:15 – 00:19:01:15
not by force or not by the weight of karma,
00:19:02:04 – 00:19:05:08
but it’s a willing rebirth where the soul is literally
00:19:05:08 – 00:19:09:18
walking on the razor’s edge, that one foot in the eternal,
00:19:09:20 – 00:19:13:15
one foot in the material and walking with immense skill
00:19:14:03 – 00:19:18:12
so that it can transcend through that life while enjoying it
00:19:18:12 – 00:19:22:20
and while doing its duty, but without being overly attached to anything.
00:19:23:05 – 00:19:24:10
Mm hmm.
00:19:24:10 – 00:19:27:11
And I have reason to believe that
00:19:27:24 – 00:19:30:22
this also might be a sort of moksha.
00:19:33:10 – 00:19:36:10
And what was moksha again?
00:19:36:20 – 00:19:37:24
It’s the liberation
00:19:37:24 – 00:19:40:29
of the soul from the cycle of birth and death.
00:19:41:09 – 00:19:44:07
And so I’m making a distinction between.
00:19:44:07 – 00:19:47:12
Many people see Moksha as never being born again,
00:19:47:27 – 00:19:51:13
just sitting in complete bliss in the higher
00:19:51:13 – 00:19:55:07
regions of existence, you know that we exist as some sort of energy.
00:19:55:07 – 00:19:58:23
Or maybe something so subtle that it’s not even energy,
00:20:00:16 – 00:20:03:16
like the absolute sense of us.
00:20:04:10 – 00:20:05:18
And so what I gave after
00:20:05:18 – 00:20:09:17
that was an alternate explanation, which I believe might also be true.
00:20:09:17 – 00:20:12:00
But I’m really using the word might, you know?
00:20:12:00 – 00:20:13:21
Mm hmm.
00:20:13:21 – 00:20:16:19
Because I can not be sure of that.
00:20:16:19 – 00:20:19:13
So I feel like in our culture,
00:20:19:13 – 00:20:22:13
in American culture, we use the word very loosely.
00:20:22:13 – 00:20:25:05
I don’t think that we use it very accurately.
00:20:25:05 – 00:20:28:15
And usually we use it in terms of like,
00:20:28:27 – 00:20:32:04
if you do something bad, something bad will come back to bite you in the butt.
00:20:32:04 – 00:20:37:15
But it’s usually in, you know, within a a set timeframe,
00:20:37:19 – 00:20:42:04
like maybe within like a couple of years, your karma is going to come back for you.
00:20:42:14 – 00:20:44:07
So is that what is.
00:20:44:07 – 00:20:49:06
Is that an accurate description or is it more on a a long term
00:20:50:05 – 00:20:52:19
scale that is actually accurate?
00:20:52:19 – 00:20:55:19
Yeah, it’s on a much larger scale.
00:20:55:19 – 00:20:59:05
And so, in fact, the Hindu Dharma also makes
00:20:59:05 – 00:21:02:17
a distinction between several different types of garments.
00:21:02:25 – 00:21:04:15
Mm hmm.
00:21:04:15 – 00:21:06:27
Some karmas are light.
00:21:06:27 – 00:21:09:06
Some karmas are very heavy.
00:21:09:06 – 00:21:10:01
Some karmas.
00:21:10:01 – 00:21:13:17
When you know the time at which a karma fruit device
00:21:14:11 – 00:21:17:04
also depends on the evolution of the soul
00:21:17:04 – 00:21:20:04
for very evolved sold the karma.
00:21:20:06 – 00:21:21:27
If I immediately.
00:21:21:27 – 00:21:24:27
Mm. If they do something human slightly wrong,
00:21:25:04 – 00:21:28:10
they will get the result like possibly within hours, you know?
00:21:29:25 – 00:21:33:00
Hmm. But for an immature soul,
00:21:33:00 – 00:21:36:00
for a soul who’s not, that people,
00:21:36:03 – 00:21:38:23
they may not get the results for lifetimes.
00:21:38:23 – 00:21:41:23
The bad results will come only after lifetimes.
00:21:44:24 – 00:21:47:11
And one more thing is, you know, and this is
00:21:48:13 – 00:21:48:25
the way
00:21:48:25 – 00:21:52:18
karma really works, is very difficult to decipher
00:21:52:24 – 00:21:57:17
in what form that response will come is also not so easy to decipher.
00:21:57:27 – 00:22:00:27
When it will come is also not easy to decipher
00:22:01:19 – 00:22:05:19
and and, of course, you know, there are gradations of mind
00:22:05:20 – 00:22:09:00
if you think of the lot, if you think of regular law, you know,
00:22:09:00 – 00:22:14:21
when somebody breaks the law, if you jump a traffic light, it’s a small violation.
00:22:15:07 – 00:22:18:07
But there are much larger violations that are possible.
00:22:18:18 – 00:22:19:20
Right.
00:22:19:20 – 00:22:24:00
The punishment given for breaking the traffic light is much smaller.
00:22:24:25 – 00:22:28:07
And perhaps if you plead to the judge that I’m really sorry,
00:22:28:07 – 00:22:30:09
I did it by mistake, this is the first time
00:22:30:09 – 00:22:33:25
the judge might even pardon you know, without doing a fine.
00:22:36:27 – 00:22:39:27
And, you know, if it feels so genuine, you know.
00:22:40:13 – 00:22:42:15
Yeah. However, if that is.
00:22:42:15 – 00:22:45:21
Yeah, but if somebody’s done something really bad
00:22:46:01 – 00:22:48:14
and if the believe that look, I did this by mistake,
00:22:48:14 – 00:22:52:23
the judge is not going to pardon them and that’s how it works for karma.
00:22:52:29 – 00:22:57:09
So you know, the dictates of karmas which could be pardoned
00:22:57:23 – 00:23:00:23
by doing certain spiritual processes
00:23:00:25 – 00:23:03:25
like defending, by asking for forgiveness,
00:23:04:15 – 00:23:07:12
by really repenting from within.
00:23:07:12 – 00:23:10:21
And these are simple things and all the change of consciousness.
00:23:11:08 – 00:23:14:08
At the end of the day, you know, when I support myself to do purposes,
00:23:14:22 – 00:23:18:03
one is to help the soul evolve because the soul is going to keep on doing
00:23:18:03 – 00:23:19:16
wrong things.
00:23:19:16 – 00:23:22:10
It’s going to keep on acting against Obama.
00:23:22:10 – 00:23:23:29
It is going to accumulate.
00:23:23:29 – 00:23:27:11
It’s going to become a bad soul, and it’s also going to create
00:23:27:28 – 00:23:30:16
trouble in the entire universe and in this web of life.
00:23:32:25 – 00:23:33:23
That’s why
00:23:33:23 – 00:23:37:02
the soul needs to be brought back into a wholesome direction.
00:23:37:15 – 00:23:39:27
So that’s one reason for karma.
00:23:39:27 – 00:23:43:22
And the second reason is that when somebody does back to something,
00:23:43:28 – 00:23:48:12
somebody else, that person genuinely wants atonement, you know?
00:23:49:09 – 00:23:54:23
And so karma balances that also sacher-masoch these two purposes enough.
00:23:54:23 – 00:23:57:23
It’s like a balancing of records
00:23:58:00 – 00:24:00:01
for what the person has suffered.
00:24:00:01 – 00:24:04:26
But it’s also to bring the soul back into a wholesome track and know
00:24:04:26 – 00:24:09:05
how this entire equation is going to work out is very difficult to say.
00:24:10:26 – 00:24:14:29
But if a person willingly tries to work on their consciousness,
00:24:15:15 – 00:24:18:17
a lot of the milder karmas just fall away.
00:24:20:24 – 00:24:22:23
Okay?
00:24:22:23 – 00:24:24:23
And so it works.
00:24:24:23 – 00:24:27:12
So it happens over a like lifetimes.
00:24:27:12 – 00:24:30:22
And a karma might even if like 10,000 years from now.
00:24:31:08 – 00:24:32:14
Right.
00:24:32:14 – 00:24:33:02
Okay.
00:24:33:02 – 00:24:37:05
Because we’re talking very long term because your
00:24:37:13 – 00:24:41:05
your your soul is rebirthing in different forms.
00:24:42:13 – 00:24:44:23
Absolutely.
00:24:44:23 – 00:24:46:28
And so now that you are,
00:24:46:28 – 00:24:49:28
you’re no longer in it at all.
00:24:50:04 – 00:24:51:10
Absolutely not.
00:24:51:10 – 00:24:55:04
You know, besides the cell phone and the camera and speaker,
00:24:55:20 – 00:24:58:20
I have nothing to do with it.
00:24:58:27 – 00:25:01:24
How? And I’m so happy for that.
00:25:01:24 – 00:25:04:24
How would you describe your experience
00:25:06:13 – 00:25:09:29
doing what you’re doing now as opposed to what you were doing before?
00:25:10:09 – 00:25:11:14
How are you?
00:25:11:14 – 00:25:14:14
Do you do you feel a physical difference?
00:25:15:00 – 00:25:16:05
Oh, yeah.
00:25:16:05 – 00:25:20:04
You know, my whole body, my whole being feels light and happy.
00:25:20:18 – 00:25:24:10
You know, earlier I used to feel this heaviness, and.
00:25:24:12 – 00:25:27:12
And I tell everyone that the day I left it
00:25:28:02 – 00:25:31:00
in the setting, not Atlas Shrugged.
00:25:31:00 – 00:25:35:13
Atlas had this weight of the whole world on him, and he meant the way He shrugged.
00:25:35:28 – 00:25:37:06
And I felt like that.
00:25:37:06 – 00:25:40:16
And I felt like this huge weight was pushed off my shoulders.
00:25:42:07 – 00:25:45:06
Yes, but I felt I feel happy now.
00:25:45:06 – 00:25:48:16
I feel like waking up in the morning and at night
00:25:49:03 – 00:25:51:09
when the day is about to come to an end.
00:25:51:09 – 00:25:54:09
I actually feel sad that I have to stop writing.
00:25:56:12 – 00:25:59:08
That’s a beautiful feeling.
00:25:59:08 – 00:26:00:23
That is so nice, you know?
00:26:00:23 – 00:26:03:23
I work on weekends because it doesn’t feel like work.
00:26:04:25 – 00:26:06:09
Mm hmm.
00:26:06:09 – 00:26:10:25
And so do you not actually do you don’t feel that writing is isolated?
00:26:10:25 – 00:26:13:24
And can you describe the world as isolating?
00:26:13:24 – 00:26:19:08
But I would imagine that you would have to spend a lot of time alone as a writer.
00:26:19:08 – 00:26:23:29
Or do you get connection of aware and somehow else.
00:26:25:12 – 00:26:28:01
So you’re sitting an organizer.
00:26:28:01 – 00:26:31:01
Writing also needs me to read a lot.
00:26:31:08 – 00:26:35:03
And because of my reading, I am a part of some groups
00:26:35:18 – 00:26:38:25
and I’ve made such wonderful friends in those groups.
00:26:39:24 – 00:26:42:02
So that’s one form of connection.
00:26:42:02 – 00:26:47:06
I feel that every book connects me to the author and the characters and the book.
00:26:47:17 – 00:26:50:17
So that’s where I find another form of connection.
00:26:50:27 – 00:26:54:00
And then I attend these literary fests.
00:26:54:00 – 00:26:57:00
You know, that are fest going.
00:27:00:16 – 00:27:03:26
And I was going to ask, you know,
00:27:04:29 – 00:27:07:05
for those who connect with what you were saying
00:27:07:05 – 00:27:10:05
before about not listening to their gut
00:27:10:10 – 00:27:13:15
and not listening to your gut for a really long time and not listening
00:27:13:16 – 00:27:14:23
to your instincts,
00:27:14:23 – 00:27:19:01
would you have any advice for anyone who might be in that same situation,
00:27:19:10 – 00:27:22:25
who might want to connect with themselves a little bit better?
00:27:23:01 – 00:27:27:02
How would you advise them to go forward in
00:27:27:21 – 00:27:30:03
starting to, you know,
00:27:30:03 – 00:27:33:11
have that conversation between their head and their gut?
00:27:34:15 – 00:27:35:09
Yeah,
00:27:35:09 – 00:27:37:24
that’s such a fantastic question, Vanessa.
00:27:37:24 – 00:27:42:07
And, you know, I have personally experienced two phases of this question.
00:27:42:23 – 00:27:46:12
One phase was when I was completely disconnected from myself,
00:27:46:24 – 00:27:50:27
and so I couldn’t even figure out that I’m getting messages from my gut.
00:27:52:14 – 00:27:55:13
And then there was a phase when I could figure out that I’m
00:27:55:13 – 00:27:59:01
getting some sort of message, but I couldn’t really figure out
00:27:59:12 – 00:28:02:12
what the message was and what I’m supposed to do.
00:28:03:29 – 00:28:07:21
The first part of this equation, you know, there we are so disconnected.
00:28:07:21 – 00:28:10:24
A person is so disconnected that they can’t even see the road,
00:28:12:25 – 00:28:15:25
the individual messages that they’re receiving.
00:28:16:10 – 00:28:18:18
I think there’s there are a few reasons for this.
00:28:18:18 – 00:28:22:04
And so one reason is speed.
00:28:22:24 – 00:28:27:01
And there was a Buddhist monk called Jim Jumper in Bauchi
00:28:27:24 – 00:28:31:03
who had a lot to say about speed and the speed with
00:28:31:03 – 00:28:33:04
which we are living our lives right now,
00:28:34:21 – 00:28:37:21
rushing from one task to another task,
00:28:38:06 – 00:28:40:23
filling ourselves with information,
00:28:40:23 – 00:28:43:23
social media Doomscrolling.
00:28:44:07 – 00:28:46:20
This speed
00:28:46:20 – 00:28:48:26
doesn’t give us a chance
00:28:48:26 – 00:28:51:26
to pause and connect with ourselves.
00:28:53:09 – 00:28:54:12
It’s like it literally
00:28:54:12 – 00:28:57:12
pulls us away from our heart and our consciousness.
00:28:58:22 – 00:29:02:08
And so the first thing would be to slow down.
00:29:02:28 – 00:29:06:00
That would be the absolute first thing, because it’s impossible
00:29:06:00 – 00:29:09:00
to listen to any kind of instinct.
00:29:09:04 – 00:29:12:04
If we are going at the speed of light nowadays.
00:29:12:22 – 00:29:15:09
So the first thing is to slow down.
00:29:15:09 – 00:29:18:06
Second thing is to reduce consumption.
00:29:18:06 – 00:29:23:13
Even once we slow down, we have become so addicted to consumption
00:29:23:13 – 00:29:26:13
and so addicted to,
00:29:28:10 – 00:29:29:27
you know, those who are more in
00:29:29:27 – 00:29:33:20
the physical world are addicted to physical consumption.
00:29:34:08 – 00:29:37:23
Those who are in the mental world are addicted to mental consumption.
00:29:37:25 – 00:29:40:26
They want to read 52 books or 100 books in a year.
00:29:42:06 – 00:29:43:26
And this kind of
00:29:43:26 – 00:29:46:26
consumption is also equally harmful
00:29:46:26 – 00:29:50:16
because, you know, the brain can only really take so much at a time.
00:29:51:00 – 00:29:54:00
And when we fill the brain
00:29:54:17 – 00:29:57:09
constantly, constantly
00:29:57:09 – 00:30:00:09
taking things, you know, whether it’s television or
00:30:01:17 – 00:30:04:01
movies or video games or information
00:30:04:01 – 00:30:07:04
from books or podcasts or
00:30:08:07 – 00:30:10:07
whatever it is, and not an excuse me
00:30:10:07 – 00:30:13:07
for seeing podcasts, you know?
00:30:13:20 – 00:30:15:29
Yeah, yeah, whatever it is.
00:30:15:29 – 00:30:16:13
You know what?
00:30:16:13 – 00:30:19:13
If if you’re taking too much, you know,
00:30:19:25 – 00:30:22:20
then our mind is like and I think
00:30:22:20 – 00:30:25:20
which is always stuff with all sorts of junk,
00:30:26:27 – 00:30:29:27
and it’s impossible to do anything in that tactic, you know.
00:30:30:24 – 00:30:32:08
And that is also something
00:30:32:08 – 00:30:35:17
that’s going to disconnect because our mind gets so confused.
00:30:36:06 – 00:30:39:06
It’s so full of information
00:30:39:07 – 00:30:41:15
that we get completely disconnected from lessons.
00:30:42:24 – 00:30:43:20
Mm hmm.
00:30:43:20 – 00:30:46:17
Terrorism is suppressing our emotions.
00:30:46:17 – 00:30:49:26
And, you know, there are actually two
00:30:50:07 – 00:30:52:27
I there are two bad days out here.
00:30:52:27 – 00:30:54:20
One is.
00:30:54:20 – 00:30:54:29
Yeah.
00:30:54:29 – 00:31:00:11
You know, one is the you know, when I was working back in the early nineties,
00:31:00:26 – 00:31:03:26
there was this phrase that when you come to work,
00:31:04:10 – 00:31:07:10
leave your emotions at the door.
00:31:08:03 – 00:31:09:12
And, you know,
00:31:09:12 – 00:31:12:14
so people were literally expected to be robots at work.
00:31:13:17 – 00:31:16:17
And you know, Vanessa, the sad part is
00:31:16:22 – 00:31:20:09
I thought that this was integrity at work.
00:31:20:24 – 00:31:23:12
The way these things get twisted, you know, the way
00:31:23:12 – 00:31:26:20
these messages get twisted, something that was so harmful to me,
00:31:27:20 – 00:31:29:21
I thought was showing integrity at work.
00:31:29:21 – 00:31:32:21
So I actually did that, you know,
00:31:32:24 – 00:31:35:09
whatever was going on in my life
00:31:35:09 – 00:31:39:08
when I entered the door to start my work, I put everything outside
00:31:40:21 – 00:31:42:00
and I did that.
00:31:42:00 – 00:31:45:02
But what was happening is, of course, I was working from morning to night,
00:31:45:13 – 00:31:48:13
and so I never had a chance to really connect with my emotions.
00:31:50:15 – 00:31:51:24
So the corporate culture
00:31:51:24 – 00:31:54:24
that we have is extremely toxic.
00:31:55:00 – 00:31:57:06
And if you add to that
00:31:57:06 – 00:32:01:04
the rat race, the treadmill and the typical corporate ladder,
00:32:01:17 – 00:32:05:12
all these things get together to shut ourselves from our own emotions
00:32:05:12 – 00:32:09:09
and we are chasing some kind of a dream which is just a mirage.
00:32:09:09 – 00:32:12:09
It doesn’t give us anything in the long run,
00:32:12:09 – 00:32:15:17
but that also can access to disconnects us from ourselves
00:32:17:07 – 00:32:20:12
or thing that is going to exacerbate that is childhood trauma.
00:32:20:27 – 00:32:25:14
And what really happens is that that a childhood trauma has come from home,
00:32:25:29 – 00:32:30:04
whether it has come from school or anywhere.
00:32:30:24 – 00:32:34:04
You know, when we see sustained and small
00:32:34:04 – 00:32:37:04
trauma, small but sustained trauma,
00:32:37:13 – 00:32:41:03
what happens is we don’t realize something bad is happening.
00:32:41:03 – 00:32:43:19
And so we never really fight back.
00:32:43:19 – 00:32:46:23
But that creeps into our consciousness and
00:32:47:24 – 00:32:48:08
the whole
00:32:48:08 – 00:32:51:09
thing reverses where we start thinking that we are wrong.
00:32:52:02 – 00:32:54:24
And over time
00:32:54:24 – 00:32:57:24
that disconnects us with our own selves
00:32:58:14 – 00:33:00:11
and not because and
00:33:00:11 – 00:33:03:11
it creates this kind of a void in the heart.
00:33:03:27 – 00:33:07:02
So for people who want to really connect
00:33:07:02 – 00:33:10:02
with themselves,
00:33:10:10 – 00:33:13:06
I say that first and foremost,
00:33:13:06 – 00:33:16:06
please slow down, spend time in nature.
00:33:16:06 – 00:33:20:03
You know, nature is such a wonderful healer and if you go out and
00:33:21:16 – 00:33:24:14
spend some time with animals,
00:33:24:14 – 00:33:26:10
this rarely connects to that.
00:33:26:10 – 00:33:29:26
You know, for a moment that person is going to forget
00:33:29:26 – 00:33:33:08
the corporate world and even question what they’re doing in life.
00:33:33:08 – 00:33:36:18
And all you need to do is hug a tree five times and you start questioning
00:33:36:18 – 00:33:39:18
what you are doing in life.
00:33:41:22 – 00:33:44:08
So absolutely, yeah.
00:33:44:08 – 00:33:47:08
Slow down. Connect with nature.
00:33:47:21 – 00:33:48:23
Jonah Lehrer No.
00:33:48:23 – 00:33:51:07
Journalist like simple things like, you know,
00:33:56:05 – 00:33:58:05
okay, let’s see this.
00:33:58:05 – 00:34:00:00
Hopefully, hopefully this will work.
00:34:00:00 – 00:34:01:02
Okay.
00:34:01:02 – 00:34:03:15
So yeah, I’ll just start with what I was
00:34:03:15 – 00:34:06:15
saying before. Um,
00:34:06:18 – 00:34:08:20
so when I first started looking into this topic,
00:34:08:20 – 00:34:12:09
I really had no frame of reference for what it was.
00:34:12:09 – 00:34:15:09
And I and I feel like I’m not alone in this
00:34:15:10 – 00:34:18:05
coming from Texas, coming from the United States,
00:34:18:05 – 00:34:21:24
There is not a large Indian population where I am.
00:34:22:15 – 00:34:27:05
And so and I felt really out of my element.
00:34:27:05 – 00:34:29:05
It was almost
00:34:29:05 – 00:34:33:03
kind of an intimidating topic to research
00:34:33:03 – 00:34:38:10
because I really had no grasp for even what the Mahabharata was.
00:34:38:18 – 00:34:41:29
I just knew that it was a book of poems or verses,
00:34:41:29 – 00:34:44:29
and I didn’t know its significance or
00:34:45:00 – 00:34:47:02
I really knew nothing.
00:34:47:02 – 00:34:51:22
I mean, I was it was really a start from scratch in the classroom.
00:34:51:22 – 00:34:54:06
Schoolgirl I know nothing.
00:34:54:06 – 00:34:56:03
So it felt very,
00:34:57:09 – 00:35:00:08
I don’t know, scary, but also exciting to learn about something
00:35:00:08 – 00:35:03:23
that I had absolutely no knowledge of prior.
00:35:04:00 – 00:35:10:01
So with that in mind, because I feel like there are probably people
00:35:10:01 – 00:35:13:20
who are like me in the audience who have this kind of
00:35:14:25 – 00:35:16:25
they don’t have a frame of reference.
00:35:16:25 – 00:35:20:13
And I want to take a step back first and have you talk
00:35:20:13 – 00:35:23:13
a little bit about your
00:35:24:07 – 00:35:25:11
about India.
00:35:25:11 – 00:35:30:29
And I would like you to talk a little bit about how like it might be
00:35:30:29 – 00:35:36:09
something that we can relate to in the West that makes sense.
00:35:37:19 – 00:35:43:02
I like, especially here
00:35:44:04 – 00:35:46:09
in India as it is right now,
00:35:46:09 – 00:35:49:09
Vanessa is diverse.
00:35:49:13 – 00:35:54:09
That is we have you know, there are every state,
00:35:55:12 – 00:35:58:25
almost every state has a different language.
00:36:00:08 – 00:36:02:19
Sometimes in different parts of the state.
00:36:02:19 – 00:36:05:19
The dialects will differ.
00:36:06:11 – 00:36:09:08
Every state has different cuisines.
00:36:09:08 – 00:36:12:08
Some people
00:36:12:18 – 00:36:15:18
in subtle ways, people may dress differently,
00:36:16:04 – 00:36:20:02
but the traditions and customs are different sometimes.
00:36:21:14 – 00:36:24:27
But of course, you know, there’s also a thread binding everything together.
00:36:25:11 – 00:36:29:26
But even with that threat, that is a lot of diversity in general.
00:36:31:01 – 00:36:33:04
Now, if you add to that
00:36:33:04 – 00:36:36:04
rural India and urban
00:36:36:22 – 00:36:39:22
are also diverse in their own ways.
00:36:40:08 – 00:36:44:06
For example, urban India has adopted
00:36:44:13 – 00:36:47:13
more value from the way it
00:36:47:18 – 00:36:50:24
did the kind of lifestyle in the sense
00:36:50:24 – 00:36:53:24
that there are many skyscrapers,
00:36:54:24 – 00:36:57:18
many cars, lots of traffic.
00:36:57:18 – 00:37:00:18
The way people live, destinations that they had
00:37:01:06 – 00:37:05:12
are fairly similar to the Western world.
00:37:05:23 – 00:37:08:19
Mm hmm.
00:37:08:19 – 00:37:11:18
However, recently I know many people have started
00:37:12:26 – 00:37:16:08
reexamining their roots, you know, because once people realize
00:37:16:08 – 00:37:21:02
that we are living on a canal, the way we the way of
00:37:22:07 – 00:37:25:07
our lifestyle is not really sustaining us.
00:37:25:23 – 00:37:28:23
People have tried to go back to their roots,
00:37:29:03 – 00:37:32:14
but they know this spectrum also exists in India.
00:37:33:24 – 00:37:36:18
So with so much diversity,
00:37:36:18 – 00:37:39:13
it’s very difficult to make one
00:37:39:13 – 00:37:42:13
or even a few statements about India.
00:37:42:21 – 00:37:45:25
But what I’ll tell you is
00:37:46:06 – 00:37:49:24
she urban and the mother so shareable,
00:37:50:09 – 00:37:53:09
more of a sage who lived in Pondicherry
00:37:54:27 – 00:37:57:29
and he passed away,
00:37:57:29 – 00:38:01:17
I think, in 1950 or the early 1950s.
00:38:03:15 – 00:38:07:27
So and his spirit really concerned the mother.
00:38:08:01 – 00:38:09:18
Her name was Mira Foster.
00:38:09:18 – 00:38:12:18
She was a French lady.
00:38:13:28 – 00:38:15:09
So the mother said that
00:38:15:09 – 00:38:18:09
every country has a soul.
00:38:18:27 – 00:38:21:12
So she mentioned and she said this for every country,
00:38:21:12 – 00:38:25:15
although I don’t remember the description she’s given for all the countries.
00:38:25:15 – 00:38:30:06
But she specifically said the soul of Japan is very sensitive,
00:38:33:02 – 00:38:35:13
you know, kind of the binary nicely.
00:38:35:13 – 00:38:39:12
And you can also see that in the culture in there,
00:38:39:12 – 00:38:44:11
people will stand in a line even when there’s a disaster looming.
00:38:44:11 – 00:38:45:29
You know,
00:38:45:29 – 00:38:48:26
And she said that the soul of India
00:38:48:26 – 00:38:51:26
is spiritual.
00:38:52:14 – 00:38:54:17
So and I’ll draw from
00:38:54:17 – 00:38:59:05
that statement, despite of all the diversity, despite of the modernity
00:38:59:17 – 00:39:03:01
at the core of India is a spiritual essence
00:39:03:15 – 00:39:07:27
that believes that we are not the body, we are the soul.
00:39:08:21 – 00:39:13:11
And the soul has a journey that goes from one lifetime to another thing.
00:39:14:11 – 00:39:18:28
It’s a journey of evolution of the soul, you know?
00:39:19:01 – 00:39:22:01
It’s a journey of spiritual evolution
00:39:22:06 – 00:39:25:06
that increases in love and spiritual wisdom.
00:39:27:15 – 00:39:30:15
And we believe in the law of karma.
00:39:33:19 – 00:39:35:09
And in ancient India,
00:39:37:00 – 00:39:38:09
people lived according to
00:39:38:09 – 00:39:41:09
those full power shots, which I spoke about, Karma.
00:39:42:27 – 00:39:45:17
But that doesn’t really happen now.
00:39:45:17 – 00:39:48:17
But the course of Dharma karma
00:39:48:29 – 00:39:51:18
and the soul is still there,
00:39:51:18 – 00:39:54:23
although in some people it’s at a deeper level.
00:39:54:23 – 00:39:57:23
In some people it’s a more surface level.
00:39:59:07 – 00:40:02:22
So you describe India as very diverse.
00:40:02:26 – 00:40:05:26
Are there how many different religions are there?
00:40:08:20 – 00:40:12:17
There is Hinduism, there is Buddhism,
00:40:13:15 – 00:40:16:15
there is Christianity, there is Islam,
00:40:17:03 – 00:40:20:03
there is Judaism,
00:40:21:08 – 00:40:24:08
there is the rationalism.
00:40:24:15 – 00:40:27:04
So six religions that I know of.
00:40:27:04 – 00:40:30:04
I have visited Abhi High Temple in Delhi,
00:40:30:08 – 00:40:33:08
so I’m sure best of the high population also.
00:40:35:02 – 00:40:36:20
So at least seven religions
00:40:36:20 – 00:40:39:20
that I know of and possibly more.
00:40:39:26 – 00:40:42:26
And of course, you know, then there are people who have
00:40:43:08 – 00:40:45:23
ancient shamanic faiths also,
00:40:46:24 – 00:40:48:17
and also Hinduism is to
00:40:48:17 – 00:40:51:17
a large extent shamanic,
00:40:52:10 – 00:40:54:21
but there would be people who are more connected
00:40:54:21 – 00:40:57:03
with nature, you know, people who live in the forest,
00:40:57:03 – 00:41:00:19
they’d be far more connected with nature and their shamanic roots
00:41:01:26 – 00:41:04:14
than people who live in towns and cities.
00:41:04:14 – 00:41:09:18
So the Mahabharata doesn’t belong primarily to the Hindu religion,
00:41:09:18 – 00:41:14:06
or do you feel like it is something that is relatable
00:41:14:06 – 00:41:17:25
to all religions within India?
00:41:18:29 – 00:41:20:03
Okay.
00:41:20:03 – 00:41:24:12
No, it’s it’s primarily the Vedic religion, the way they can do religion.
00:41:24:22 – 00:41:25:27
Okay.
00:41:25:27 – 00:41:28:05
So the Hindu religion,
00:41:28:05 – 00:41:32:05
you know, regardless of religion is that deep golden mystic.
00:41:33:09 – 00:41:36:17
There are different deities and each deity
00:41:37:09 – 00:41:40:09
offers a path to liberation.
00:41:40:09 – 00:41:43:22
Besides that, there are also several worldviews,
00:41:43:27 – 00:41:46:27
several philosophies, and they are collaborations.
00:41:46:29 – 00:41:52:10
And so there are six well-known worldviews, and then there are a few more also.
00:41:53:18 – 00:41:55:28
So that way it’s very, very pluralistic.
00:41:55:28 – 00:41:58:28
But all of them trace
00:41:59:02 – 00:42:02:02
the teachings to the Vedas,
00:42:02:04 – 00:42:05:16
and these are you can think of the Veda as a feed
00:42:05:16 – 00:42:08:16
and these other different flavors that grow in that field.
00:42:09:21 – 00:42:13:05
So you can think about it that as Vedic,
00:42:13:14 – 00:42:16:12
as Vedic pluralistic Hinduism.
00:42:16:12 – 00:42:18:15
Okay, okay.
00:42:18:15 – 00:42:22:06
And so you were introduced through a comic book
00:42:22:06 – 00:42:25:06
or a graphic novel as a child, is that right?
00:42:26:21 – 00:42:28:24
Yes. And what did you think about it
00:42:28:24 – 00:42:31:24
when you first started reading it?
00:42:33:00 – 00:42:33:27
You know, I don’t think
00:42:33:27 – 00:42:36:27
I understood the finer philosophical aspects,
00:42:37:12 – 00:42:40:12
but something connected in my heart
00:42:40:29 – 00:42:43:29
to the characters and the way they lived.
00:42:45:06 – 00:42:46:24
There was this
00:42:46:24 – 00:42:49:11
simplicity and lack of artifice.
00:42:49:11 – 00:42:52:11
And then I got
00:42:53:18 – 00:42:56:10
most of them lived a lot in nature.
00:42:56:10 – 00:42:59:09
KEEP I’d see a lot of groves
00:42:59:09 – 00:43:04:03
and trees and streams in the picture, even in the images.
00:43:05:08 – 00:43:07:06
And something attracted me to that.
00:43:07:06 – 00:43:12:06
You know, I grew up in Mumbai, which was a metropolitan and metropolis city.
00:43:12:06 – 00:43:13:19
It still is.
00:43:13:19 – 00:43:16:13
And so I had never seen so much
00:43:16:13 – 00:43:19:29
greenery or groves and rivers and lakes.
00:43:20:23 – 00:43:22:23
And so I felt very attracted to that.
00:43:22:23 – 00:43:26:11
I felt attracted to a way of life that revolves around that.
00:43:26:26 – 00:43:29:26
And then these characters would,
00:43:30:00 – 00:43:32:02
you know, go to these sacred rivers
00:43:32:02 – 00:43:35:02
and sacred mountains and worship out there.
00:43:35:02 – 00:43:38:02
And I thought there was something very beautiful about that.
00:43:38:20 – 00:43:41:13
And they were always acting with integrity,
00:43:41:13 – 00:43:44:13
know they had this moral compass,
00:43:46:10 – 00:43:47:22
which they never compromised
00:43:47:22 – 00:43:50:22
on, regardless of what situation they were in.
00:43:52:14 – 00:43:56:00
And so there was this rock solid integrity
00:43:56:00 – 00:43:59:03
in the characters, or at least in the noble characters.
00:43:59:22 – 00:44:02:22
And so that drew me a lot to the story.
00:44:03:12 – 00:44:06:25
And then there were these gods, you know, were wonderful,
00:44:06:29 – 00:44:10:15
and I didn’t understand the deeper philosophical message of the gods,
00:44:10:29 – 00:44:13:06
but I just loved looking at their images.
00:44:15:21 – 00:44:16:02
So, yeah,
00:44:16:02 – 00:44:19:11
these were the things that really attracted me to the story.
00:44:19:24 – 00:44:23:09
And what do you feel like attracts to attract you to it today,
00:44:25:10 – 00:44:27:25
this subtle drama, you know, the drama
00:44:27:25 – 00:44:31:15
and the drama that speaks about sustenance,
00:44:32:14 – 00:44:35:27
which has a certain formula which can be used,
00:44:35:27 – 00:44:38:27
let’s say, 80 to 90% of the time.
00:44:39:12 – 00:44:42:15
But there are times,
00:44:42:18 – 00:44:45:21
which is known as dramas or conflict,
00:44:47:07 – 00:44:49:22
and then the mahabharat
00:44:49:22 – 00:44:53:26
happens at this point of conflict when one of the characters are drawn.
00:44:53:26 – 00:44:57:24
So this is Battle, you know, And on one side
00:44:57:24 – 00:45:00:28
of the bond of us, on either side are the four of us.
00:45:01:19 – 00:45:04:03
And Arjuna is one of the points.
00:45:04:03 – 00:45:07:03
And Krishna is on the side of the bond of us.
00:45:07:06 – 00:45:09:27
He’s in fact Arjuna Arjun’s charioteer.
00:45:11:15 – 00:45:14:06
So you’re seeing the
00:45:14:06 – 00:45:17:06
army opposite him, the so-called enemy army.
00:45:17:29 – 00:45:22:25
And he seen this Cousins is seeing his uncles,
00:45:23:07 – 00:45:27:06
he’s seeing his features and his recollection of uncle or not.
00:45:27:06 – 00:45:31:15
So his name is Reshma and he recollects that as a small child
00:45:32:04 – 00:45:36:00
you’d be out playing, you know, on his clothes were all soiled in mud
00:45:36:15 – 00:45:40:12
and he’d run into the lap of his uncle and his uncle would laugh
00:45:40:12 – 00:45:43:18
and his uncle would be angry that you’re soiling my clothes.
00:45:43:19 – 00:45:46:13
Uncle would laugh and hug him, you know.
00:45:46:13 – 00:45:48:15
And now his uncle is on the opposite
00:45:48:15 – 00:45:51:24
side of the law and he actually has to attack him.
00:45:52:08 – 00:45:54:26
And he completely breaks down.
00:45:54:26 – 00:45:55:29
He says, I cannot do this.
00:45:55:29 – 00:45:58:18
It’s impossible for me to do so. That’s a dilemma.
00:45:58:18 – 00:46:05:04
Know, on the one hand, he has to fight this war because the whole war happened
00:46:07:15 – 00:46:09:00
when Mother Earth
00:46:09:00 – 00:46:12:22
went to a celestial being called come Monday to ask for him.
00:46:14:03 – 00:46:18:26
You know, a lot of negative forces had taken both on Earth
00:46:19:10 – 00:46:21:13
and the opposite side of the army,
00:46:21:13 – 00:46:24:17
where also a lot of negative forces who were his cousins
00:46:25:11 – 00:46:28:16
and there were noble people also were fighting
00:46:28:16 – 00:46:32:20
for the negative forces simply out of a sense of loyalty,
00:46:33:09 – 00:46:36:09
because they were associated for so many years
00:46:37:01 – 00:46:40:01
in the same palace.
00:46:40:29 – 00:46:43:08
So the war was a war of,
00:46:43:08 – 00:46:46:08
you know, their mother Earth was suffering a lot.
00:46:47:10 – 00:46:49:19
And then the war had to be fought
00:46:49:19 – 00:46:52:19
in order for her suffering to cease,
00:46:52:19 – 00:46:56:03
you know, for a government to end and for dharma right.
00:46:56:04 – 00:46:58:08
Sustenance to come back.
00:46:58:08 – 00:47:00:07
So the war had to be fought.
00:47:00:07 – 00:47:03:17
But now on the other side are some cousins
00:47:03:18 – 00:47:07:04
who had done unthinkable, even to the point of us,
00:47:09:29 – 00:47:12:29
but they were also their own teachers.
00:47:13:01 – 00:47:17:09
There were that uncle, further uncles who loved them, you know,
00:47:17:10 – 00:47:20:10
who could have given their lives them,
00:47:20:13 – 00:47:22:17
and there were certain other relatives
00:47:22:17 – 00:47:25:10
whom they had a deep love for.
00:47:25:10 – 00:47:28:10
And so Arjun breaks down and he sees, I cannot do this.
00:47:28:18 – 00:47:29:22
And so that’s a conflict.
00:47:29:22 – 00:47:33:19
That’s a drama where you have your one drama
00:47:33:19 – 00:47:38:21
towards your uncle, yet another drama towards earth, towards her.
00:47:38:21 – 00:47:41:21
My it felt
00:47:41:21 – 00:47:44:12
because my priorities is that those
00:47:44:12 – 00:47:47:04
I mean, it is your duty to protect the Dharma.
00:47:47:04 – 00:47:50:04
It is a duty of noble people to protect Dharma
00:47:51:21 – 00:47:54:02
and all years of conflict, you know, and Arjun
00:47:54:02 – 00:47:55:27
doesn’t know how to resolve the conflict.
00:47:55:27 – 00:47:57:28
So he completely breaks down.
00:47:57:28 – 00:48:01:06
And that’s when Srikrishna gives a message of Peter.
00:48:01:08 – 00:48:06:04
Then he explains that every person on the opposite side is a soul,
00:48:07:08 – 00:48:09:28
and the soul is eternal.
00:48:09:28 – 00:48:13:09
It was never born and hence it will never die.
00:48:13:20 – 00:48:16:20
Once going to die is only the body.
00:48:17:11 – 00:48:20:11
But this whole concept of Dharma,
00:48:21:00 – 00:48:24:13
of conflict, of of your duty towards one
00:48:24:13 – 00:48:27:24
and your duty towards something else coming into conflict
00:48:30:05 – 00:48:32:09
result in the situation of paralysis.
00:48:32:09 – 00:48:34:07
You don’t know what to do now.
00:48:34:07 – 00:48:37:07
So it takes a very subtle spiritual intelligence
00:48:38:06 – 00:48:41:06
to understand the right thing to do,
00:48:41:22 – 00:48:43:10
which cannot be formulate
00:48:43:10 – 00:48:47:24
because it depends on so many factors that the only way to figure out
00:48:47:24 – 00:48:51:01
the right thing is to develop that higher spiritual intelligence
00:48:51:17 – 00:48:55:13
through reflection and meditation and other spiritual practices,
00:48:56:21 – 00:49:00:13
and then connecting the dire beings like that.
00:49:01:09 – 00:49:03:23
So that subtle dharma, you know,
00:49:03:23 – 00:49:06:04
is what attracts me to the ethics right now.
00:49:08:07 – 00:49:09:02
And so
00:49:09:02 – 00:49:12:02
are you working on another book right now?
00:49:13:08 – 00:49:14:00
I want to write
00:49:14:00 – 00:49:18:24
many books based on the mahabharat that that they make the mahabharat
00:49:19:03 – 00:49:22:05
with contemporary themes and contemporary conflicts.
00:49:23:26 – 00:49:27:09
I also want to write books about how various characters
00:49:27:09 – 00:49:30:17
resolve the conflicts in their life and what was the basis
00:49:31:04 – 00:49:34:04
of their thought process.
00:49:35:00 – 00:49:36:25
But I’m also doing a major region
00:49:36:25 – 00:49:41:07
of my website book that’s that will take me some time.
00:49:41:13 – 00:49:44:13
So one center and with that
00:49:44:16 – 00:49:46:10
I will start taking these books.
00:49:46:10 – 00:49:51:04
And how do you feel like the Indian culture today relates to the Mahabharata?
00:49:51:04 – 00:49:55:24
Do you feel like people still feel like they’re connected to it
00:49:56:07 – 00:49:59:06
or it’s just a piece of literature
00:49:59:06 – 00:50:02:21
that is interesting, or is it something to live by?
00:50:02:28 – 00:50:07:00
How do you feel like a people currently
00:50:07:00 – 00:50:11:18
in today’s world, in India especially, relate to it?
00:50:13:21 – 00:50:14:21
You know, most people,
00:50:14:21 – 00:50:17:29
I’ll say, who are in there, at least in the forties,
00:50:18:20 – 00:50:22:17
have grown up listening to stories of the 40 and upwards.
00:50:23:19 – 00:50:26:28
Maybe even some people in the mid thirties and upwards
00:50:27:18 – 00:50:30:18
have grown up listening to stories from them.
00:50:30:25 – 00:50:33:14
And so that connection, the Zen of because you heard it
00:50:33:14 – 00:50:37:03
so often in your childhood, it creates this connection in the heart.
00:50:37:18 – 00:50:41:08
And they may have, they may be completely immersed
00:50:41:08 – 00:50:44:13
in the treadmill in the corporate world right now.
00:50:45:02 – 00:50:50:07
But still that connection with the deities of the mob are into the teachings.
00:50:50:17 – 00:50:51:18
They are still there.
00:50:51:18 – 00:50:54:18
And the resurface from time to time.
00:50:56:11 – 00:50:58:19
So that thread of connection is there,
00:50:58:19 – 00:51:03:00
but many are not living the principles that are taught in the
00:51:05:28 – 00:51:07:24
sun have
00:51:07:24 – 00:51:11:02
started going back to understand the principles.
00:51:11:02 – 00:51:14:18
So there is this movement and back then.
00:51:14:18 – 00:51:18:23
People are trying to reestablish their connection with the ancestors.
00:51:18:23 – 00:51:23:08
But that tradition and that trying to understand the principles
00:51:23:22 – 00:51:27:11
and some are actually trying to embody it.
00:51:27:25 – 00:51:30:18
The thing you know, that is about a worldview
00:51:30:18 – 00:51:33:05
is that even if you understand it logically,
00:51:33:05 – 00:51:36:05
if you don’t embody it,
00:51:36:09 – 00:51:39:09
you cannot really live that worldview.
00:51:40:14 – 00:51:41:10
You see what I’m saying?
00:51:41:10 – 00:51:45:09
It’s a lot like fear, you know, and just giving an analogy, you know,
00:51:45:21 – 00:51:49:17
because fear, the simplest thing that we know as an embodied thing,
00:51:49:17 – 00:51:52:24
you feel it in every sense of your body, you know, then you feel fear.
00:51:55:11 – 00:52:00:00
But let’s take joy.
00:52:02:12 – 00:52:06:24
Joy’s not so embodied, you know, So something that we think of as joy.
00:52:06:24 – 00:52:10:24
Let’s have somebody if one is enjoying over a few glasses of beer,
00:52:11:16 – 00:52:14:16
you know, so much of that joy is very surface level.
00:52:14:16 – 00:52:18:15
It doesn’t really go all the way to the heart and every sense of the body.
00:52:19:08 – 00:52:23:13
So to really live a philosophy, it has to be embodied at that level,
00:52:23:13 – 00:52:26:21
you know, at the cellular level, at the level of the heart.
00:52:27:25 – 00:52:29:10
And so many people are making
00:52:29:10 – 00:52:32:12
an intellectual return to the roots.
00:52:33:02 – 00:52:37:19
It will take some time for that return to become embodied
00:52:38:05 – 00:52:41:17
so that it becomes so that people are actually living it
00:52:41:22 – 00:52:44:20
without necessarily even thinking about it, you know,
00:52:44:20 – 00:52:47:12
like living it as second nature.
00:52:47:12 – 00:52:50:12
That’s going to take some time.
00:52:50:12 – 00:52:51:25
And then there are many people
00:52:51:25 – 00:52:55:19
who are so disconnected from their own culture
00:52:56:12 – 00:52:59:07
that they are not interested
00:52:59:07 – 00:53:02:07
and they are towards
00:53:02:10 – 00:53:05:05
forgive me for using this word, but they’re moving towards
00:53:05:05 – 00:53:08:05
what I call the liberal atheist
00:53:09:09 – 00:53:10:06
ideology.
00:53:10:06 – 00:53:13:01
You know, I’m all for being liberal.
00:53:13:01 – 00:53:15:05
You know, being liberal is nice.
00:53:15:05 – 00:53:19:04
It’s being liberal in the mining large, being large minded.
00:53:19:29 – 00:53:22:06
But the liberal atheist
00:53:22:06 – 00:53:25:16
is a combination which I feel is very twisted.
00:53:27:03 – 00:53:28:09
And so I won’t
00:53:28:09 – 00:53:31:09
talk more about politics right now,
00:53:31:14 – 00:53:34:07
but it disconnects us from our roots.
00:53:34:07 – 00:53:38:26
It disconnects us from our own heart, our soul, our energy.
00:53:39:15 – 00:53:43:15
And it connects us with an ideology that lives only in the mind.
00:53:44:04 – 00:53:47:21
It’s a very ungrounded sort of ideological existence.
00:53:49:16 – 00:53:51:19
So there are people who are very disconnected,
00:53:51:19 – 00:53:56:14
who are either in this ungrounded ideological life
00:53:57:03 – 00:54:02:01
or they are completely in the corporate life of consumption and making money
00:54:02:12 – 00:54:05:04
consumerism and making it not consumption
00:54:05:04 – 00:54:07:28
but imperialism and making money.
00:54:07:28 – 00:54:10:22
So there is a large population like that too.
00:54:10:22 – 00:54:14:04
So there is again, once again, a huge amount of diversity, right,
00:54:14:17 – 00:54:17:17
to the extent to make that tradition.
00:54:17:24 – 00:54:21:22
But you feel like the younger generations are not as connected to it
00:54:21:22 – 00:54:23:05
as the older generations.
00:54:23:05 – 00:54:27:15
Because you said 30, mid-thirties and above have a connection to it,
00:54:27:24 – 00:54:32:28
but the younger ones are haven’t had the experience of,
00:54:34:15 – 00:54:36:21
I don’t know, having.
00:54:36:21 – 00:54:38:26
Yeah,
00:54:38:26 – 00:54:41:03
I think what’s happening with people in their late
00:54:41:03 – 00:54:44:03
twenties is they’ve grown up with parents,
00:54:45:12 – 00:54:48:12
you know, their parents were relatively
00:54:48:12 – 00:54:52:17
far more affluent than the parents of people who are
00:54:52:17 – 00:54:56:14
in their late forties, fifties, sixties like now.
00:54:57:17 – 00:55:02:13
And not only are they more affluent, but they were in corporate culture,
00:55:02:13 – 00:55:06:17
like totally in corporate culture, late night teleconferences
00:55:07:27 – 00:55:09:23
and that sort of thing.
00:55:09:23 – 00:55:14:12
So they’ve had very little exposure to Indian culture as such.
00:55:14:12 – 00:55:18:23
But traditional Indian culture, I’ve seen it, my grandfather lived
00:55:19:09 – 00:55:23:03
and he was, you know, he was the generation
00:55:23:17 – 00:55:26:11
which fought for the freedom struggle of India.
00:55:26:11 – 00:55:31:03
And so his generation fought the British during the freedom struggle.
00:55:31:19 – 00:55:36:02
And in his early days, he used to wear a suit and a hat.
00:55:36:18 – 00:55:40:06
And when the freedom struggle really took on a momentum,
00:55:40:17 – 00:55:43:25
he burned down all the suits and hats and went down
00:55:43:25 – 00:55:47:22
to went back to wearing traditional Indian clothes.
00:55:49:10 – 00:55:50:15
And so
00:55:50:15 – 00:55:53:28
but his entire generation, you know, regardless of what they wore,
00:55:54:04 – 00:55:58:02
these I’ve seen in my family were deeply content
00:55:58:02 – 00:56:01:03
when I said the kind of contentment that I’ve seen
00:56:01:03 – 00:56:04:03
and then zero consumerism
00:56:04:07 – 00:56:09:10
and deep contentment and a connection with their ancestors.
00:56:09:10 – 00:56:12:12
And the tradition of this land was very
00:56:14:11 – 00:56:16:08
what I’ve seen in the films
00:56:16:08 – 00:56:19:06
was far more shallow than that.
00:56:19:06 – 00:56:24:13
What I’ve seen in my own early life was even shallower and what I see
00:56:24:13 – 00:56:27:23
in the people in their mid thirties late twenties
00:56:28:15 – 00:56:31:15
is like negligible.
00:56:31:15 – 00:56:33:16
But once again, people who are.
00:56:33:16 – 00:56:38:05
Yeah, but people who are like maybe ten years old, kids who are ten years old.
00:56:39:02 – 00:56:41:26
So there’s again, a youth
00:56:41:26 – 00:56:46:11
in my generation, you know, to people who are late forties, early fifties
00:56:47:15 – 00:56:48:25
mid-fifties,
00:56:48:25 – 00:56:52:00
there is this huge movement back to our roots.
00:56:52:17 – 00:56:56:02
You know, to find out what our roots really are.
00:56:56:16 – 00:56:59:10
Because I’ve gone through the cycle of it.
00:56:59:10 – 00:57:03:25
I’ve seen how much it disconnected me, how much the corporate disconnected me.
00:57:04:11 – 00:57:06:08
And there are many people in this world.
00:57:06:08 – 00:57:09:13
And so there’s this revival of going back to the roots
00:57:10:00 – 00:57:13:00
and the deeds of these people
00:57:13:19 – 00:57:17:26
are being reintroduced to the tradition.
00:57:20:19 – 00:57:24:10
So I would say that the very young generation
00:57:24:20 – 00:57:27:20
are going to again come back to the tradition.
00:57:27:27 – 00:57:32:01
But there is a huge population in between that’s disconnected.
00:57:33:01 – 00:57:34:20
So is the Mahabharata.
00:57:34:20 – 00:57:39:17
Is it a sacred text like we would like the Bible or the Koran?
00:57:39:28 – 00:57:42:28
Is it is it like that or is it
00:57:43:18 – 00:57:45:27
more of just a historical text?
00:57:48:05 – 00:57:48:25
It’s so
00:57:48:25 – 00:57:52:13
under the entire Indian literary canon,
00:57:52:27 – 00:57:55:18
there are the Vedas, the four Vedas,
00:57:55:18 – 00:57:58:18
they are the sacred texts.
00:58:00:01 – 00:58:01:07
Then that is something
00:58:01:07 – 00:58:04:12
which is known as the Deus Purana,
00:58:05:13 – 00:58:08:16
and then that is something which is known as the darshan.
00:58:09:04 – 00:58:12:04
So the versions are the philosophies,
00:58:12:16 – 00:58:15:14
they are the different ways in which you can and
00:58:15:14 – 00:58:19:11
in which you can interpret the Vedas in the larger vocabulary
00:58:19:19 – 00:58:23:16
and the worldview, meaning answering questions like what is the eternal,
00:58:23:27 – 00:58:25:04
What is the human soul?
00:58:25:04 – 00:58:27:15
What is the connection between the soul then?
00:58:27:15 – 00:58:31:01
And there are many views of this, so they are the philosophies.
00:58:32:22 – 00:58:35:22
So the most sacred texts are the Venus,
00:58:36:08 – 00:58:39:08
the Tundra’s, which are
00:58:39:16 – 00:58:42:16
which some people say are
00:58:42:18 – 00:58:46:28
based on the Vedas, and some people say they are parallel to the Venus,
00:58:48:01 – 00:58:49:24
but they connect with the deities
00:58:49:24 – 00:58:53:07
and they are more experiential and less philosophical.
00:58:55:09 – 00:58:58:09
They teach you how to experience a higher energies
00:58:58:15 – 00:59:01:18
and the highest claim of freedom
00:59:02:22 – 00:59:05:05
through their practices.
00:59:05:05 – 00:59:07:00
The Mahabharata
00:59:07:00 – 00:59:10:10
and the Ramayana come under the EPOS,
00:59:10:16 – 00:59:13:19
so it technically translates as
00:59:15:18 – 00:59:17:12
This is what happened.
00:59:17:12 – 00:59:20:26
So you can see it is historical in a certain sense.
00:59:21:28 – 00:59:23:17
However,
00:59:23:17 – 00:59:26:17
you can hear me
00:59:31:11 – 00:59:32:18
okay.
00:59:32:18 – 00:59:35:18
Do you remember what you were saying
00:59:36:04 – 00:59:37:29
when we
00:59:37:29 – 00:59:39:04
were.
00:59:39:04 – 00:59:42:04
Yeah, I think we were at the part where
00:59:43:29 – 00:59:47:11
we were talking about the how disconnected
00:59:47:23 – 00:59:50:16
many people are from our tradition.
00:59:50:16 – 00:59:53:16
And but the younger people.
00:59:55:01 – 00:59:58:01
So there is this movement back to the roots
00:59:59:00 – 01:00:02:00
and people are getting reconnected.
01:00:02:20 – 01:00:03:03
That’s good.
01:00:03:03 – 01:00:06:10
I feel like I think that pendulum swings.
01:00:06:10 – 01:00:06:25
One way
01:00:08:01 – 01:00:10:25
to the left and one way to the right is always going.
01:00:10:25 – 01:00:15:20
We we go one way or we disconnect and then we feel like
01:00:15:20 – 01:00:18:22
we have gone too far, then swing all the way back.
01:00:18:22 – 01:00:21:15
And we’re always trying to find that all the way back.
01:00:21:15 – 01:00:24:17
Yeah, that middle ground where we can have
01:00:25:22 – 01:00:28:25
a balance and a connection at the same time.
01:00:28:25 – 01:00:30:10
Absolutely.
01:00:30:10 – 01:00:31:03
Absolutely.
01:00:31:03 – 01:00:36:17
I mean, that’s my guest also Vanessa, you know, to find that middle ground
01:00:36:17 – 01:00:39:17
where I can earn
01:00:39:26 – 01:00:42:08
what I need to earn
01:00:42:08 – 01:00:46:25
through my work, but also be content
01:00:46:25 – 01:00:49:25
with what I have and live in a way where
01:00:50:21 – 01:00:54:03
I’m living in balance for the whole web of life.
01:00:54:03 – 01:00:57:00
So to say.
01:00:57:00 – 01:00:58:23
And what do you feel like?
01:00:58:23 – 01:00:59:27
We’re going to wrap up
01:00:59:27 – 01:01:03:08
pretty quickly, but what do you feel like are some misconceptions
01:01:03:24 – 01:01:08:17
of the Mahabharata or Indian people and also people maybe in the West?
01:01:10:26 – 01:01:11:18
Well, I think
01:01:11:18 – 01:01:14:18
one of the biggest misconceptions,
01:01:14:21 – 01:01:17:21
at least for people outside of India,
01:01:17:27 – 01:01:20:27
is that the Mahabharat is
01:01:21:08 – 01:01:26:07
the story of the battle between two cousins over property,
01:01:26:07 – 01:01:29:11
I mean between two sets of cousins, over property.
01:01:30:25 – 01:01:31:22
I mean that.
01:01:31:22 – 01:01:35:17
So yeah, there is a battle and there is one group of cousins
01:01:35:17 – 01:01:41:11
and another group of cousins, but that’s not really the crux of the story.
01:01:41:11 – 01:01:44:11
The battle is simply a small part
01:01:45:09 – 01:01:48:09
of a much larger narrative
01:01:49:05 – 01:01:52:09
of bringing back on original
01:01:52:17 – 01:01:55:17
or bringing that balance back onwards.
01:01:55:20 – 01:01:58:20
So that’s the real story
01:02:00:17 – 01:02:02:06
in India.
01:02:02:06 – 01:02:06:00
So that’s the misconception that people from outside of India on my dad
01:02:07:01 – 01:02:09:27
in India, I’d say that the misconception
01:02:09:27 – 01:02:13:25
is unfortunately many people, a greater
01:02:13:25 – 01:02:17:08
majority of the people have not read the Unabridged Mahabharat.
01:02:17:08 – 01:02:20:29
So what people really have read is the condensed version
01:02:20:29 – 01:02:23:29
of about 600 700 pages,
01:02:24:05 – 01:02:26:28
which is just 1/10 of the epic.
01:02:26:28 – 01:02:29:02
And that contains only the events.
01:02:30:01 – 01:02:31:12
So people are
01:02:31:12 – 01:02:35:15
aware of the events and people are aware of the Geeta
01:02:35:15 – 01:02:38:15
and its teachings, but they aren’t
01:02:38:16 – 01:02:41:16
aware of a huge
01:02:42:07 – 01:02:45:07
amount of wisdom in the Mahabharat
01:02:45:16 – 01:02:48:16
which comes in the second realizations and decisions.
01:02:49:23 – 01:02:53:17
And so they only have a partial view of that because what they see
01:02:54:09 – 01:02:56:21
or it’s not much of a misconception,
01:02:56:21 – 01:02:59:21
but I’d say a partial view of that in India.
01:03:00:23 – 01:03:03:05
And so for people
01:03:03:05 – 01:03:06:19
who maybe don’t want to read 6000 pages,
01:03:07:02 – 01:03:10:13
what would you suggest they do in order to
01:03:11:23 – 01:03:13:29
have a better understanding
01:03:13:29 – 01:03:17:02
that included the wisdom that intended
01:03:17:02 – 01:03:20:02
to be imparted on readers?
01:03:22:00 – 01:03:24:08
They could do two things, Vanessa.
01:03:24:08 – 01:03:28:09
One is that they could first read the public, Geeta
01:03:29:23 – 01:03:32:16
and understand the Geeta, because that’s, let’s see,
01:03:32:16 – 01:03:34:13
the core philosophy of the Dharma.
01:03:35:15 – 01:03:36:06
And then they
01:03:36:06 – 01:03:39:15
can read the through Mahabharata.
01:03:39:17 – 01:03:41:18
I mean, they can
01:03:41:18 – 01:03:46:13
get the book on Kindle if they want to, and they can skip the passages
01:03:46:13 – 01:03:49:24
that have geographical description and botanical description.
01:03:50:07 – 01:03:51:07
So there are many.
01:03:51:07 – 01:03:53:29
About one third of the book is geography and mortality.
01:03:53:29 – 01:03:57:16
So not the ancient recorded much of geography and Montana also.
01:03:57:16 – 01:04:00:16
And so they can skim that.
01:04:01:01 – 01:04:04:06
So that still exempt about 4000 pages.
01:04:06:04 – 01:04:08:11
Now if they don’t want to read that also,
01:04:08:11 – 01:04:11:16
then that’s exactly what I’m trying to on my website
01:04:11:28 – 01:04:16:27
is I’m trying to condense the Mahabharata, but in a two tiered fashion.
01:04:16:27 – 01:04:20:14
So the main narrative
01:04:20:29 – 01:04:24:07
is the main story along with the subtle dharma.
01:04:24:27 – 01:04:27:27
And then there are links that go into detail.
01:04:28:03 – 01:04:30:19
And but right now I’ve got about
01:04:31:22 – 01:04:34:23
120 odd posts on my blog,
01:04:35:10 – 01:04:39:10
so it’s in the form of a blog book, you know, and I’ve got a 420 posts,
01:04:39:18 – 01:04:43:06
which is still just half of the first of the 18 books.
01:04:44:03 – 01:04:47:00
And once I’m
01:04:47:00 – 01:04:48:06
like,
01:04:48:06 – 01:04:51:20
Yeah, you know, once I’m done redesigning the website, I’ll be publishing
01:04:51:20 – 01:04:55:18
one post every day so people can keep up with that, you know?
01:04:55:26 – 01:04:56:23
I mean, etc..
01:04:56:23 – 01:04:58:29
It will be at a fairly good speed.
01:04:58:29 – 01:05:00:10
It’s not too slow, not too fast.
01:05:00:10 – 01:05:02:24
So people can keep up with that.
01:05:02:24 – 01:05:05:05
I share links with you for the public
01:05:05:05 – 01:05:09:08
beta for the actual 6000 page books that are out there
01:05:09:20 – 01:05:12:20
and my website and people can choose
01:05:13:01 – 01:05:16:00
how they wish to read it.
01:05:16:00 – 01:05:17:28
Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah.
01:05:17:28 – 01:05:21:18
And that’s that feels a little bit more manageable
01:05:21:18 – 01:05:25:24
because I feel like going into a 6000 page book and I like one book,
01:05:26:05 – 01:05:29:00
but usually my long books are like 8000 pages.
01:05:29:00 – 01:05:32:16
But 6000 pages is it’s very
01:05:34:15 – 01:05:36:26
I hear you then as a thousand pages as long.
01:05:36:26 – 01:05:39:27
And I remember I think it was Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged,
01:05:39:27 – 01:05:42:27
which was just a little over thousand pages.
01:05:43:13 – 01:05:44:19
And Warren vs
01:05:44:19 – 01:05:47:27
I think was a little over a thousand, maybe on the thousand, I don’t remember.
01:05:48:23 – 01:05:50:12
But yeah, I mean, thousand is long.
01:05:50:12 – 01:05:53:12
6000 is very long with you.
01:05:55:03 – 01:05:56:00
Well, I
01:05:56:00 – 01:06:00:01
you know, there’s so much more to cover in this, this epic because it’s,
01:06:00:01 – 01:06:04:13
you know, it’s very long and it and there seems to be a lot to it.
01:06:04:13 – 01:06:07:23
But I think this is a good stopping point.
01:06:08:01 – 01:06:12:29
And maybe when you have, you know, in the future
01:06:12:29 – 01:06:16:19
we can come back and and talk about all the things that we we missed.
01:06:18:11 – 01:06:22:08
But this has been an enlightening episode
01:06:22:15 – 01:06:26:24
and I feel like this will be so educational and
01:06:27:25 – 01:06:29:15
inspirational for a lot of our
01:06:29:15 – 01:06:32:15
our listeners.
01:06:33:09 – 01:06:33:22
Thank you.
01:06:33:22 – 01:06:35:01
Thank you so much, Vanessa.
01:06:35:01 – 01:06:39:25
It was I love talking on this podcast and it was fantastic to talk with you
01:06:40:23 – 01:06:43:23
and of course we’ll include all the links that you
01:06:44:12 – 01:06:48:15
you provide and we’ll put them all up, including your website
01:06:48:15 – 01:06:53:16
and the one for your book that were are all on Amazon.
01:06:53:16 – 01:06:56:16
I think most of your books are on Amazon, is that right?
01:06:57:11 – 01:07:00:16
Yeah, the Travelog and the short stories are on Amazon
01:07:01:01 – 01:07:03:17
and the rest is on my site.
01:07:03:17 – 01:07:05:03
Yeah, perfect.
01:07:05:03 – 01:07:08:21
And thank you, folks, folks, for coming on this epic journey.
01:07:08:21 – 01:07:09:26
What did you learn today?
01:07:09:26 – 01:07:15:06
What did you know beforehand about the Mahabharata and have you heard of it?
01:07:15:14 – 01:07:16:18
We want to hear from you.
01:07:16:18 – 01:07:20:29
So where you can communicate with us and communicate with the other folks, you
01:07:21:00 – 01:07:24:04
folks is on our Facebook community group page.
01:07:24:13 – 01:07:26:05
You can continue the conversation there.
01:07:26:05 – 01:07:29:05
So we have a page and then we have a community group
01:07:29:05 – 01:07:31:06
where you can have these conversations.
01:07:31:06 – 01:07:34:24
And we really encourage our listeners to go on there
01:07:34:24 – 01:07:37:28
and have these conversations with one another because that’s, you know,
01:07:38:07 – 01:07:41:07
the fun of having these
01:07:41:14 – 01:07:43:23
philosophical conversations
01:07:43:23 – 01:07:48:27
is that we keep that conversation going and we have thoughts
01:07:48:27 – 01:07:52:09
that come up afterwards and we want to hear from you.
01:07:52:09 – 01:07:56:05
So that’s one of the best places to keep that conversation going.
01:07:56:05 – 01:07:56:29
But also you can
01:07:57:27 – 01:08:00:13
write comments down below on our YouTube page.
01:08:00:13 – 01:08:03:03
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01:08:03:03 – 01:08:06:19
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01:08:19:26 – 01:08:23:26
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01:08:23:26 – 01:08:27:25
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01:08:28:00 – 01:08:29:24
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So definitely subscribe whether it’s on YouTube
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01:08:36:09 – 01:08:39:09
So thank you for unraveling the mysteries of folklore.
01:08:39:18 – 01:08:42:12
And until next time, keep the folk alive.