#374 Create your personal map to navigate life's journey by integrating ancient spiritual wisdom with modern science, with Sanal Bhanu Rajan.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
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Sanal Bhanu Rajan  0:00  
So it's about how we react to the words, not only to the words that we think. But we also react to the words that we speak. And we have a lot of self defeating narratives about ourself that we speak out of habit out of reinforced behaviours.

Agi Keramidas  0:25  
You are listening to personal development mastery, the podcast that empowers you with the simple and consistent actions you need to master yourself and create a life of purpose and fulfilment. I am your host Agi Keramidas and this is episode 374. Today, we will find out how to effectively integrate the ancient spiritual wisdom with the innovative practices of modern science. In this episode, you will find tactics for reshaping your personal narratives. And you will learn how to use the concept of a personnel Map to navigate your life's journey. A fascinating conversation. Let's dive right in. 

Agi Keramidas  1:15  
Today, I am delighted to speak with Sanal Bhanu Rajan. Sanal, you are a thought leaders and international speaker on spirituality and mind transformation. With roots in traditional Indian spirituality, you have spent over a decade developing a unique approach to mind mastery, blending traditional wisdom with modern efficiency. Your mission is to initiate a global shift in consciousness and share this knowledge with a wall so that people can live happier, healthier and more peaceful lives. So I'll welcome to the show. I'm delighted to speak with you today.

Sanal Bhanu Rajan  1:56  
Thank you, I'm happy to be here.

Agi Keramidas  1:59  
It's as I was telling you just before we pressed record, it is a topic that we live with is so important. And there are so many insights to be had. So we will explore among other things, there are many but this mind transformation and perception of reality, were some of the things that really caught my attention when I was preparing for this conversation. And before we go there, can you share a little bit more about your journey, maybe a key defining moment in your journey so far that changed everything for you towards what are you doing what you're doing at the moment? Well,

Sanal Bhanu Rajan  2:46  
the key defining moment happened around a decade before. Now it must be 13 years, I guess. But yeah, it was when I was really getting deep into spiritual philosophies myself, like, as part of growing up, I always had that practices and everything as part of the cultural growing up and my family was really rooted in it. But I myself got interested in the philosophy, dual nature of reality and getting really interested in it around that period of time. And then I went and saw masters in Himalayas and came back, but mostly with the inspiration from the environment that it generated, the kind of Lao and harmonious, graceful nature of us being brought out and all the beautiful emotions being present there. So I was like, Okay, if I want to be working with some something in my life, I want to be working with this, I would rather be doing this work, rather than any other work. So I kind of took the inspiration there. But so I guess, the ego in me, general wanted to walk the old path and teach the same stuff. So I kind of wanted to bring some sort of a new signature to it, and some sort of like a new twist to it. And I got on this journey to developing a framework or a set of methodologies that I put together over the course last weekend, and which I'm presenting now.

Agi Keramidas  4:54  
Tell me what is it you wish you said the framework or methodology is For a words that you use, what makes this approach your approach different from other existing methodologies or schools of thought? Yeah.

Sanal Bhanu Rajan  5:12  
So basically, it is not a methodology, it is a set of methodology. So, there is principles taken from so many traditions from so many places. So there's principles taken from Hinduism, there's principles taken from stoicism principle spoken from arithmetic part, principles taken from hypnosis, from the world of NLP, from neuroscience, from cognitive psychology, from General Semantics from cybernetics, so it's an adoption from a rich variety of areas. So it's a blend, I would say, at this point, rather than on methodology. So if there is one methodology there is, is I would say, it's more of what I'm presenting with this is a map, so to speak. And we all have a map to how we navigate through life. And the question is, how useful or how, how well, this map serves us in navigating through life and life's difficulties and everything in a more harmonious way, with the less of the struggles and lots of suffering, you know, as gone along the path. So it's kind of a map, I would say. So it's not the truth. I'm not presenting here, or concerned with presenting here, the Absolute Truth of anything. So this is ways of looking at it. This is just a map. And I'm not presenting here, the territory. And the real question of the map is not whether it can really represent the drudgery, but it's about how much useful advice when it comes to relating to it. So and I encourage everyone to just experiment and test and explore with it, rather than making any sort of conclusions with it, because that's the that's the real way we can find out how, whether something works or not by just testing it out by experimenting and exploring with things.

Agi Keramidas  7:39  
You were talking about this blend two different modalities like East meets the West came to my mind or you know, science spirituality, traditional, or all of them. Meet. My, my question, and I appreciate what you said that you are. It is about the the map, rather than describing the absolute truth. My question was sought from this very different modalities. You mentioned neuroscience, NLP, among many others. What are those common characteristics that are between all of these very different, you know, perspective, so schools of thought, how, what are these common things that you have picked? Can you give one or two examples that help maybe help us understand? Yeah,

Sanal Bhanu Rajan  8:37  
so one simple principle I would always make sure people get is the principle of semantic reaction. So it's about how we react to the words, not only to the words that we think, but we also react to the words that we speak. And we have a lot of self defeating narratives about ourself that we speak out of habit out of reinforced behaviours, behaviours, you know. So, this point is where weidel feel really understand. Like, my reaction is to the words rather than to the person. So it helps someone to really become better at social interactions to not only just with themselves in with their own thoughts and with their own speech, but also when they are in a social in a psychosocial situation with another person and they are telling you something and you're reacting but you don't take it so personally anymore because you realise you do have semantic reaction. And you are react Think through those words, and the inferences that you make. And you have about those words rather than you the reaction being specifically to the person and then we take it out personally and taking offence of it and a whole thing that unfolds.

Agi Keramidas  10:22  
I know that's very weird.

Sanal Bhanu Rajan  10:25  
So, and we are living in a society where, you know, everything is offensive. And like, you know, we have to kind of tiptoe around the words that we speak and so much censoring what we say and, you know, so yeah, so just like having awareness to these kinds of principles for someone just in generally interested in improving themselves, or just improving their spirituality or something, they're not going to go into fields like cybernetics, and general semantics to find valuable nuggets. So that's the thing, the point is that we are all going to look in certain directions, but every places, they all have valuable nuggets, and you don't have to get the whole thing, just that little piece and you bring that out from that is already powerful, making powerful shift in your life, just like one principle from one modality. really fierce, just with fierce intentionality bringing into your being, it changes things, you know, just Yeah, so you, I don't even expect, all the people do get all the things even right doesn't matter. It's just a thing of just something is gonna just click and just few of the pieces, they get it right, it's already makes a huge generate do sort of snowball effect over the course of time.

Agi Keramidas  12:02  
I will ask you more about this, because I think it's very important. And we'll discuss about some maybe practical ways you can because it's one thing to talk about having awareness to your reaction to the words that you that you're saying your internal dialogue, or, you know, someone else says, but actually practising it, doing it and detaching from this identification with all these unconscious if you want most of the time reaction. That's not necessarily the same, when actually, I'm not, I'm going to ask you that now, because it's relevant and all just keep a subject. So can you offer some practical way one can, as you said, gain more awareness from this semantic reaction to the words as you will describe so

Sanal Bhanu Rajan  12:57  
semantic reaction, the way I utilise it, is through explicitly asking questions with internal dialogues. So for example, or one of the one of the principles that I encourage everyone is to identify with the eye that creates, so taking that creator frame. So if, if I'm taking that frame, then I would be asking the question, let's just say I'm feeling anxiety, or I'm feeling a lot of sadness. So I would just be asking myself, What am I creating right now? You know, so I'm going to have a semantic reaction to those words that I'm using. Now I'm asking the question, so that I'm going to semantically react to the question. And that creates an internal orientation within a creates a certain sense of a direction. And that's what we need because where attention goes energy goes there, and that thing will grow. So the moment you ask a question like okay, what am I creating? Or let's say what am I choosing to create, right now? So you're asking a question like that, it creates an orientation of you being in your power is this is a concept from story system, the Ring of Power, where you bring the the principle inside, so you bring the power within, by taking ownership of it. So all of these goals within because every question has presuppositions hidden within. So the presuppositions within the question will naturally create the right orientation, just as the mind simply is willing to even look into to consider the question And so, so that's one way of using it so semantically, you can also change your personal narratives. That's what another thing. So in psychology, we speak about the course of the autobiography itself, and the protests of so in that the autobiography itself is what we in spirituality, put it in a simple word as ego. So autobiographic self, the definition is, is the stories that you are telling to yourself, to make sense of yourself in the world, you know, so these stories are true, which you understand also yourself, like us on a personal level. So the thing is, when seldom, we really pay attention to the narrative, to the stories that we are sharing with people and how, whether it's really serves us in life or not, we don't really take personal narrative as a real thing, we just kind of think like, we are just describing things about reality. But it really matters, because you're going to semantically react, if you are describing yourself as a victim in life and, and just like create an instant disempowerment, like losing your groundedness in the moment, so just making habits of noticing the habitual way of your description of your own reality to people, and seeing no, or taking a note of them. And seeing if it's not serving you just making an upgrade to that personal narrative, but not by completely telling something that you don't even feel connected to. But like really tapping into that story and looking at, what are the strengths that you brought into that situation that allowed you to handle that situation, for example, and align with your own strengths there, rather than changing the narrative like that, and seeing when you're saying that, like, you can even try it on in front of the mirror, say, the old story, and say, the new story and see how you feel within, as you say, both of these versions, and making a commitment. So you can say I'm choosing to make a commitment to doing this weigh in. So every word matters about like choosing making an upgrade in your semantics, in the way you describe. So it becomes huge. So it's not just about simply battling out thoughts and just being in the dot free space, because thoughts are going to be there and you have to communicate through them in those world through words, that's not going to change. So it's better to pay attention to this kind of a and develop those areas. So you can do the dividends pay off in a big way. And you're approaching it in a different way, rather than mind as the enemy and just being free of the mind being the goal, the goal to go all and in just in sort of idea.

Agi Keramidas  18:25  
If you enjoy this episode, can you find one person you think would find it useful and share it with them? I'd really appreciate it, it helps the show grow. And you'll also be adding value to people you care about. Thank you. And now let's get back to the episode. Thank you there is our repeat one question that I got from your comprehensive answer. There was one question to ask ourselves. I think you said it What am I creating right now and I take that as a very powerful question that can instantly create a shift inside our mind and with other consequences that will will follow so that I took personally as I think a very practical and you know its own it's simply a question. But his I understand how you meant about taking ownership and big bein from the Creator point of view rather than the victim mode of view. So now there is something I wanted to ask you since you mentioned the map. So assuming that we're talking about the map and I will use the words spiritual growth, I hope that is accurate enough. and what it represents, because it's not always easy to describe that you mentioned the, you know, the Absolute Truth. I'm not going to go there yet. But let's say this map you were referring to of growth of spiritual growth. Is that in your experience? Is that map universal? Or does every single one of us have a different map? In other words, different actions or habits or things that we need to do in order to progress on that journey?

Sanal Bhanu Rajan  20:38  
Yeah, so the map, everyone is born with, with this adaptive intelligence, you know, we are all born with this adaptive intelligence. And as we move through life, we are growing up, we develop this map, and this map can be contributed by several, several things culturally, it can be influenced, it can be influenced by the family, it can be influenced by the books we read, can be influenced by the teachers can be influenced by the friends, it can be influenced by the people we associate. So the map is something that we keep on developing. And we don't just simply finish with a map and simply say, because as as a new challenge shows up, we go through the experience, we make adaptations to the map so that next time we find ourself in those kinds of situations, we can adapt to better with it. So we it's an ongoing process of upgradation. So the point is not to get rented with a map, it's just a map. You know, the point is, how useful it is. So is it serving me so at the moment, when you find yourself really struggling and suffering in the way you are handling a situation, you can clearly see the map is not really serving you? Well, at the moment, this is a simple process. If you're struggling and suffering in the way you're handling the situation, you can see the map, so the territory is not going to reorganise itself to meet the map, the map is has been reorganised itself, to read the directory, so. So just like that, it's the time to make an upgradation to the map, you know, and being conscious of this thing, that I do have a map and making sense of things through this map. And, you know, I can make changes to this map so that I can have a different experience of the experience. But now that frees you, instead of seeing the situation as the problem, you have no more choices within the situation. Now that's, that's, that's always power. If you have a lot of power, you have choices, and if you don't have power, you're you don't have any choice. So that's when you say, can you make an indifference on this matter? And if you can, then you have some power? On the matter, otherwise, you have not. So in a situation, if you find yourself this choiceless with only one way of behaving to it, then it's kind of like you have no power in that situation. You're, you're powerless, you know, so the way I look at it is just like, you know, these, these kinds of things, make a notice of situations where you don't have a rich variety of repertoire of responses to the situation, but you're stuck with just only one or something which is kind of not even working very well, you know, in terms of the kind of results that you're yielding from the situation, it's not working very well. So then you're like, okay, okay, this is a place where I can develop, which were ideal responses. So how what am i Believing to be true, because if some almost the truth, every state that you are in, there is something that you deeply believe to be true about the world, about what's going on, about yourself about what you are capable of? What is possible. So there are all these things that you believe to be true in the moment about the moment of the moment. So just being able to tune into it and seeing okay, this is how I am seeing this moment. Being able to see and cultivating that capacity to take different to be able to take different perceptual positions and look at that situation. Okay, if I were to be If this could be the truth of this moment, how do they show up to the moment just explore with itself that capacity to be able to explore, you know, to be in a place where you can do that not stuck with? Ah, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is what I see is all there is how I see is how it is and being just stuck in that tunnel vision. So, that's the places where you can pay attention to and make shifts first and support always this the requisite variety. So, this is a term that I took from cybernetics. So reclusive variety simply means that the record variety of responses, if a system needs to try and move forward in an environment, the system should be having the correct amount of responses or more in comes in relation to the kind of performances and challenges that the environment would pose. So the system has less than that, then system will fail. So the point is to build that, which variety of responses within. So I kind of see we human beings as also systems, because we are not just one thing, that's a lot of parts to us and other moving parts, and they're all interconnected and interdependent. And Minnesota's as we work as a system, rather than as a person, person is a really a word that needs much separation, because we think of each person as a person, and they just kind of like, you know, making something really complex. That's something we do in society, it's called the term for it is called signification. We make something into a thing, something really complex into a thing so that we can look at it and we can speak about it. And you know, we can, yeah, but but that is not that thing that we say it is right, so. So seeing ourselves as system is more of a better way of looking at us, as human beings.

Agi Keramidas  27:30  
Thank you. And there were a couple of things that my note that I highlighted from what you're saying the first was about, keep on developing the mob upgrading it. That's important in what you're saying about also having or building a repertoire of responses rather than, you know, having to have one, as many people have the same response for for that, and

Sanal Bhanu Rajan  28:00  
people are always looking for one solution. And I would always say that's just the bad way of looking at it, you'd never want to have just one solution. It's better to have five or six or seven solutions. Now you can make an informed choice from the seven different solution because not always the same solution is not always the same as different solutions has completely different. After

Agi Keramidas  28:27  
there is something else that I wanted to ask you. And I'm going to change the subject completely. I mentioned there, but I'm very intrigued to hear your thoughts on it, when I gave them the reduction of you in the beginning assets, that your mission involves making an impact and initiating a shift in consciousness. So I wanted to ask you, how do you envision the shift happening on a on a global scale,

Sanal Bhanu Rajan  29:00  
while this shift happening on a global scale is when of course you know, the methodology or the framework is at the point where it is spreading to more people where people are not so much truth obsessive in the society because we have been fed into this whole truth trap, I would say you know, so all sorts of truths being shared in news and media and the thing is they have impact they do have impact, real impact on individual individuals watching it. The ground of being they're operating from the shaping of their phenomenology, you know, within, so they're doing a lot of stuff and it can really alarm the threat response system and can take away someone from their groundedness and now they are operating in a far less operative from a place where they are By not having access to so much of who they are and who, so much of what they're truly capable of, you know, in things that wisdom and understandings and capabilities that they have learned, they just don't have it because they're operating from a place where this there's this whole fear mongering is just going on. And, and it is just difficult because we are operating in a time where things are just drastically change, we are not operating from a time where technology and everything was, like nowhere near is now we are in a place where we are sitting at some place, and we just know everything that's happening in the world. Like back in the days, you people might know, maybe one kilometre from where they're living, because we were, we were tribal people, we lived in tribes, you know, it's, we are not aware of all the atrocities and everything going on. So it just affects an individual compartments, such as one news, there's so many things. And so it's just about we are in a content shock at this point, and we have more content than we can consume. So it's, it's highly relevant. That's something that comes out where we need to have this sort of like an obsession to truth, kind of fall apart. And to see what really serves us and serves all of us, you know, what we can co create together rather than even this idea of law of attraction and manifestation and completely against it, the sort of subtler demanding the commanding the universe in which the attitude has to be universally is my best friend, and I'm co creating with it. You know, rather than this, this whole sort of I, I deserve it, and I'm just gonna command and let the universe does obey my commands or something like that? I don't know. I'm not really in

Agi Keramidas  32:18  
there when you say it, when you say it like that, it certainly does sound very wrong. Yeah. So where would you direct a listener who has found this conversation intriguing and would like to know more about you and connect with you,

Sanal Bhanu Rajan  32:40  
I do have a gift for all the people listening to your podcast right now. So they can go to podcast gift now.com. And there is more than nine hours of professionally recorded videos of mine giving talks here. So it kind of exploring on many topics, regarding their self esteem, self worth, so many Wade, topics are being spoken about. So listeners can go into the podcast gift now.com, that website, and they can get that gift, like that. And also check out my website, spiritual logic.com. So in that website, also, I'm sharing, you can see people who have worked with this framework for two months, and they have after one year or so kind of speaking from from that place, how their life is full. Yeah. So also, they can follow me on Instagram. My Instagram is wisdom, with Salah and also my YouTube is the same wisdom with Santa. Well,

Agi Keramidas  34:06  
I want to thank you very much for this insightful travelive conversation and to what you shared with with us today. I want to wish you all the very best with this mission that you're on. It is so important, especially in these times that we're also all the very best from my heart with that. I would like to conclude with asking you for some actionable parting wisdom. So what's one piece of advice or some simple practice that the listener can start incorporating right now into their lives to to the point to the purpose of what we were discussing today. So

Sanal Bhanu Rajan  34:54  
I would emphasise it's a simple practice the practice of ground broadness. So for me groundedness is the state that emerge when you are grounded in certain set of ideas. So these ideas are, I am okay. Whatever happens, I'm okay whatever I say I'm okay. Whatever I do, I'm okay. So, this and just feel connected to this idea. So it depends on persons, how deep they feel connected, but as they say the words again and again in the mind, they will notice the semantic reaction kind of growing stronger, you know, adage, it should be fairly, most people just easily feel connected to those ideas. It's, it comes naturally to us. So, whatever I do, I am okay, whatever I say, I'm okay. Whatever happens. I am, okay. So really being grounded in these ideas, it creates this really strong sense of groundedness. Within. And when you're operating from there, you have access to almost all of your capabilities, and you can you make decisions on your feet, and you're you, you're able to harmoniously and gracefully engage with life, and be able to shop and meet the moments from at your best. And another practice would be make a journal and not down there, start paying attention to the stories. Because we are all storytellers. And so that's what we have in common. Everything that we share with someone else is going to be a story. You know, whether we say it's real or not real story. So it's about the stories, the stories that you're telling about yourself, to others, it really matters. And making a note of these some of these disempowering stories that you habitually are used to describing to people and you know, when you describe that story, you immediately feel a disconnect from your power mediately feel moving away from your groundedness Yeah, so you'll start noticing it, once you are tuned into it. It's kind of like being a good kind of sphere of why, you know, so you develop this quality of noticing how words taste like you know, how so the quality of it and your Lang doesn't taste so good. Why am I just you know, drinking it, right. So you make up Grapes, grapes rather than being mindless and being stuck with Oh, no, that's the whole truth of the situation. That stories, the whole truth and being wedded to the story, even though it's making life taking away a lot from you. Yeah.

Agi Keramidas  38:35  
And before I end today's episode, an open invitation to you listening right now. I invite you to find me on social media and send me direct message about anything you prefer. You can tell me who your favourite guest has been so far, or who you would like me to interview next, or what topic you would like to hear on the podcast show. Drop me a line and I look forward to chatting with you. Until next time, stand out don't fit in!