The Secret to Living a Successful Meaningful Life

When we look at such topics, there’s real need—we’ve got two kind of words, two important words. One is successful and the other one is meaningful.

We, generally, are quite lazy about life. We don’t question things very much. We hear a word or a term or something, and we go like, “Oh, that’s cool. I’m on board with that,” or, “It resonates with me,” as people tend to say. But if you ask, “What does it actually mean to you?” and it’s kind of like, people need a little time to sort of begin to formulate some words. But I think it’s very good when we are thoughtful about these topics. If we’re not thoughtful, then we’re fundamentally just stumbling through life, embracing things by tradition or by what’s popular now; whatever’s a new item on the menu, but we’re not really thinking very deeply about it in relation to our life.

I’m not talking about being profoundly philosophical, just like, think about it a little bit. Try to put things into words. And you’ll suddenly—If you ask yourself, “What do I mean by that? What does that really mean to me?” it can be very helpful in developing insights.

So, in terms of the word meaningful, it’s defined in the dictionary as “having a meaning,” (That’s really helpful, right?) or “having a purpose.” So, I think the second one is a little bit more connected to probably what we’re thinking and what inspired you to come out and consider this.

But having a purpose, it has to be—it can’t just be any kind of shallow purpose. When we talk about having a purpose, we’re generally thinking of, although it may not be very specific, something that has quite deep meaning. It doesn’t just have meaning. It has a deep meaning.

Success, on the other hand, is defined as a favorable or desired outcome. But, once again in the vein of looking at things a little bit more closely, not all of those things that we consider desirable bring success. A really good one is marriage: Before getting into a relationship and considering a serious commitment, we thought that was highly desirable. But then you have to, if it lasts that long, 10 years, look back and go, “Well, how successful has this actually been?” So, I’m just making the point that something we may consider to be desirable doesn’t necessarily guarantee any real level of success in life.

I would like to suggest that happiness is potentially a measure that you could use to gauge success, I guess. Happiness. How happy am I with the situation? That elusive happiness, the thing we aspire for, but if we are brutally honest with ourselves, we rarely actually achieve. Or is that too pessimistic for you guys? You okay with that? Yeah? Okay.

Just a little warning, I don’t do the fluff, because the fluff doesn’t work.  It can contribute to more problems. So, I think the need for real honesty and to be guided by wisdom is actually very critical when it comes to things like this, which are actually so very important.

We live in the most extraordinary times. I was talking with someone back in New Zealand, where I’m residing; and you know there was a time, not so long ago, when my grandparents, when they got married, they were living in a dirt floor house in the countryside, and they used to put newspaper on the walls to create a bit of warmth. That sounds a little bit desperate, but actually it wasn’t that long ago. I’ve lived most of my life in Asia, different parts, but primarily Southeast Asia.  And I’m actually most comfortable in those kinds of environments, where people live such—not everyone, but a large percentage, live such basic existences which, of course, I experienced. But we are living in this extraordinary time, where there’s the availability of all forms of distraction and entertainment.

The quest for happiness and for—we’re actually looking for lasting pleasure. The flashes don’t really do it for us, even if they’re kind of intense, or I engage in some activity that gives me a shudder, a blast of, you know “Boowwwaaaaahhh”. And then it’s kind of like, that’s it, it’s all over. And we’re back to where we were.

We actually seek lasting happiness, but we are living in a time where it’s been described as an epidemic of unhappiness. That’s kind of a bit of a downer to hear that and to consider it. People are more engaged in consuming different things, all forms of distraction, entertainment, pleasure seeking, and yet the levels of unhappiness, and even (and I hope this is not too serious—well no, it’s very serious, and we should be serious. I hope it’s not too disturbing.) depression, like it’s like off the charts. Where we see, especially in the last 15 years, it’s not like a steady ramping up, we’re seeing just this massive jump, and it’s highly problematic, because we don’t seem to know what to do with it.

And people want to put it down to mental health issues and things, but it’s—I think, in my personal opinion, it’s a lot deeper than that. It could be potentially tied to our value system, to our choices, to expectations that we may build and have, which are actually unrealistic. And what happens is that, while we plan for great happiness, we don’t really experience it. In fact, we can experience even the opposite. We can have the moments of flashes of, wow, really nice, but it often doesn’t last.

I really feel that—I used to run a lot of programs in prisons in New Zealand. And I’ll just repeat something I said the other day to some people. Usually, the first session that we have, and you’re in there with all these big muscle buff guys with tattoos, and it’s just like an ocean of testosterone, it’s all “Rrrrrr!” and you ask everybody, “So how many of you actually had a plan that on this particular day you were going to be here in prison? Did anybody have, was that their plan?” And of course everybody laughs. They think that’s hilarious.

But really, if you didn’t plan to be here, in fact you planned something else, the fact that you were here, doesn’t clearly indicate that you’ve lost control of your life? Because in your mind, you’re heading in a certain direction. You’re heading towards an outcome that you think is desirable, but then you end up in this situation.

The reality is, wherever we find ourselves at any point in life, it is the product or the result of choices that we have made, decisions that we have taken, actions that we have taken. And so, there’s a little—if we accept that as being real, then there’s actually a little kernel of massive hope in there. That little kernel of great hope is, “Wow! You mean all I have to do is make really good choices, engage in really good course of action, and it’s going to produce a wonderful outcome?” It’s like, yeah, totally. Totally.

We live in a time when we are constantly being sold false promises. It’s what advertising is all about, is it not? It’s what social media is all about—the offering of false promises upon which we build unrealistic expectations. But then when we get on with things, we encounter another type of reality.

Are we doing okay, or…? Yeah? Nobody want to throw anything at me?

I’m going to read you a little excerpt from an article, because I think it’s highly valuable. Personal experience is—provided we can look at it clearly—personal experience can be really helpful for us.

So, there is a gentleman by the name of Mo Gawdat. He was the chief business officer at Google X. Google X, they call it the tech giant’s moonshot factory, meaning that’s where they dream up all of the extraordinary ways that they can fundamentally exploit everybody and make money through the use of advanced technology. He said—he was an engineer to the core, but his life was suddenly turned upside down when his 21-year-old son suddenly died. He had an appendectomy. He had his appendix out, which should have been a really straightforward and simple thing, something routine, and it all went awry, and his young son died. And he said that that really gave him monumental pause and the need to start really looking at his life and what he was doing.

So, I’ll just read you.

“Even before I made it big at Google you could certainly say that I was at the top of the tree. A former stock market trader, I made a ton of money while working in Dubai. I had a huge house. My colleagues and friends were similarly rich and successful. And to top it all, I had married my university sweetheart and had two beautiful children. My life had ticked every box. My Rolls Royces, [no I didn’t misread that, that was a plural.] My Rolls Royces soon arrived, exquisitely engineered. They were as perfect as my own existence appeared. I looked at them for 20 minutes, then I left them in the garage, without even opening a car door, and returned to my unhappy life. Yes, that’s right. Despite attaining all the things the modern world tells us we need for happiness, I was profoundly miserable. [He learnt] through experience what surveys have already demonstrated, that after a person’s needs are met, more wealth won’t lead to more happiness. If anything, the causal relationship is reversed. I found that when you go even higher, wealth starts to work against you. People start to treat you differently. You start to feel a constant disappointment.  My theory was that I was born happy, and the more I engaged in life, the more unhappy I became.”

It’s kind of like, whoa, that’s unexpected, isn’t it? Or no? Combination.

“I was very unhappy, and I was complaining about everything, and I was constantly trying to control the world down to a T. I bought cars, spent money, and tried to fill the gap in my soul in any way, and it was just not working.”

So, this is his very frank confession about the nature of his life, where he then decided to chart a whole another course.

The fundamental reality, though, is that material things, material experiences, material relationships are not completely fulfilling. Even when you can consume large quantities of them, they don’t touch you in your heart of hearts. They leave you wanting, hoping for more, for something else. This is an extraordinarily important discovery. And it’s like really important to be quite straightforward in our own life, and honest about it.

What I’ll share with you now is what I know to be the secret to success. The foundation of the secret to having a real, meaningful, purposeful life and to finding true happiness is the discovery of who you actually are.  When I say that, it means something incredibly profound.

The great Vedic teachings and yoga wisdom has laid it out for thousands of years that you and I are eternal spiritual beings. This body in which we are residing is not truly us. This is a temporary place or thing that we are inhabiting. And the monumental mistake is to identify this gross physical body as being the self, and it is understood that it is actually the pathway and foundation to all unhappiness. Wow! Yeah.

We live in a time where these little thingy thingies [holds up phone] are really contributing to the erosion of what was always considered traditional and ancient wisdom, these things that I’m speaking of.

When you take a picture with this, what is it called? When you take a picture of someone or yourself, what’s it called? Selfie. A selfie. Here we have a massive statement, that the temporary material body is the self; and what follows from that is that how this body looks is going to determine whether I am desirable, whether I am lovable, whether I am acceptable. And that really stinks. That is cruel. That is cruel.

I often repeat a little story. I can remember when I was a completely—a teenage idiot, as many of us were. And I’ve got my drinking buddies, right? And everybody likes to get out in the cars on the weekend and scream around and pick up chicks, and that was what was going on—and look for somewhere to party. That was the whole focus. And it’s sort of like you’ve discovered this whole new thing; you’ve gone through puberty and your body’s all fired up, and your mind and hormones are all raging. And I’m sitting in the car with my friend, and he’s got his girlfriend with him, and she’s been really upset with him for a while, and I’m not sure what’s going on. Then suddenly she just blurts out, “You don’t care about me. You’re only interested in my body.”

And I went like, “What?” And I thought, “Wow!” I didn’t think much about it, but it struck me so intensely that over the next couple of years, I frequently revisited that idea, because it really touched something in me, that we all can have that kind of experience. She is saying, “You don’t care about me. You just care about and want to have sex with my body.” And so, she’s feeling disconnected in that so-called relationship. She’s not feeling anything deeper. It’s all just so superficial and on the bodily level.

It wasn’t going to be until a little while later when I discovered and began practicing initially Astanga yoga, and began studying some of the ancient texts of India, that it sort of like, oh, there was this whole ‘nother perspective. This whole thing arose, where I began to really gradually and increasingly appreciate; and I discovered that the path of spiritual seeking was a path to discover who I truly am, apart from this body, who I truly am in the core of my being.

Over time, I began to understand certain types of things. For instance, why do we even want to be happy? What’s wrong with being on a bummer? Why? What’s wrong with that? Why can’t we just embrace the bummer? And there’s a fundamental reason: because we are eternal spiritual beings, we have a spiritual nature and part of the spiritual nature is to exist in a state of limitless happiness.

But when I’m inhabiting a body and I’m just locked into the idea that the body is me, that tendency to look for happiness manifests in the quest to find different kinds of stimulation and experience for the body and for the mind. And yet my experience of those things is, even when I have really titillating and just wonderful moments of so-called happiness, that of course, doesn’t last, I experience, it doesn’t really touch me in the core of my being, that I can have all the goodies (just like this guy here is talking about) I can have all the goodies and be so lonely and so empty and so devoid of happiness.

I’ve had a very extraordinary life, which I sometimes make mention of.I left New Zealand when I was very young. I was 18 going 19. I had decided that I had to find out what life was for and about and who I truly was. It was kind of like more important to me than anything. I quickly ended up in India as a monk, living there for quite some time, and went from there out to, initially the Philippines, to open an ashram with another friend from the same ashram that I was living in.

And then through the years, many different things happened. As a monk I would beg, I would walk on the roads hundreds of kilometers, live a very solitary life, cultivating this inward journey. I’m not saying this is necessary. This is absolutely not necessary, okay. It’s a lot easier than that. And I ended up having a whole variety of experiences.

One of them was, I developed a process for doing semi-precious stone mosaic, and became connected with the biggest jeweller in the world. We used to decorate palaces, do massive ceiling installations, private jets and yachts, and visit with kings and queens, and carry around hundreds of millions of dollars of jewellery to show them and stuff.

So, it’s kind of like in my personal life, these things that I’m talking to you about now are not just theoretical. I’ve had the opportunity to see how people are functioning on many different levels, even extremely rarefied atmosphere of the truly one quarter of a percent or less, one tenth of a percent of the world’s population. And I know this to be true. But as I said, it doesn’t have to be like this.

In the Vedic teachings, they spoke about the actual purpose of human life was self-discovery, self-realization, and then God realization, that this is what makes life deeply meaningful, this is what infuses life with great and wonderful purpose, and in the process of this journey to embrace a lifestyle that gives you the greatest opportunity, not only for that discovery, but to experience life as actually being quite wonderful, where you can experience true happiness. But the need to take this journey is of paramount importance. Everything else that you do is minor in comparison.

Are we okay with this? Yeah? Serious or what? Yeah. It’s deadly serious.  It’s deadly serious.

Your life is finite. When I say your life, I mean the time that you will spend in this body. We are temporary residents of this body. We are simply passing through, and we should make proper use of the opportunity for real spiritual discovery.  It will be so transforming in your life. And will create—you will be a much better person. And the effect that you have on those close to you, and even those that are not close to you, will be wonderful. Imagine that, if people actually truly loved you, because you are so nice. I don’t mean artificial nice. But you can actually shed light on things.

In the quest for self-discovery, the ancient sages and yogis, they really did some amazing things. They proclaim that one of the characteristics of the spiritual being is, of course, this need that we have for happiness. It’s not just a want. We are constantly driven, even though we may be on a monumental bummer, and everything can be going wrong for us, we still hope and aspire for happiness. Right?

We fear death. Well, the good news first is that you never die. You can’t die. You’re an eternal spiritual being. Your body can die. Yeah. You gotta up and leave it one day, and the shell that remains is declared dead. But you, the eternal spiritual being, are not dead. You are the one that brings life to the body, and when you leave, the life is gone. The life is not dead. You are still alive. It’s only the body that is dead.

You have a monumental capacity and desire for love—to both love and to be loved. This originates from the soul itself. Actually, I don’t really like using this word “soul” very much. It’s a sort of—everybody’s very confused about this word. The Sanskrit word is atma. Atma literally translated means the self. So, they say the body is not actually the true self. The person residing within is the true self.

Most people in the Western world, if you ask them about what is a soul, the most common answer is, if people believe in the existence of a soul, they will go, “Oh, I have a soul.” And my response to that is, “No, you don’t. You don’t have a soul.” “What’s this guy talking about?” You are the soul. If I make that statement, I have a soul, then I would ask such a person, “Okay, then who exactly are you, who is the owner of the soul? (I have a soul.) And what exactly is the soul that you have?” And of course, you ask that question and everybody’s just like, that’s too far out.

But it shows you the flaw in many of the things that we sort of feel and think about and accept, but we don’t look at very closely; like the assumption that material things will basically fulfill me and make me perfectly happy.

So, the living being, the spiritual being, by nature and inherently desires to love and to be loved. That’s where it arises. It is a spiritual desire. And the way in which this love is expressed, or manifest, is in acts of great kindness. Isn’t it? In this world, we say if somebody loves someone, they seek to please them, to do something nice for them. Isn’t it? And when we do it, what is the experience? I mean, even if it’s not immediate family member, even if it’s just somebody in the street that’s fallen over or some kid that’s got lost or something, and we go out of our way to show kindness, is it not a really nice feeling? Everybody experiences that. It’s actually a really nice feeling.  And we should ask why. Why is that? What is that feeling? Why do we experience it? And the explanation is, because part of our own eternal spiritual nature of me, the spiritual being, is not only to love, but to manifest that love in acts of trying to be pleasing. And so, when we do that, we are connecting to something deep within us.

I mentioned earlier that—when we were talking about my experiences in jail, how it is a fact that you can actually determine the quality of your life experience by making really good choices, by acting not in ignorance, but with great clarity and spiritual direction. And one of those very simple things that you can do that will really contribute wonderfully to your life is simply to be kind. Every day, if you became resolved, every day try to do at least one kind act. And I’m not suggesting it just for some shallow reason, but consider that it is part of your spiritual journey, your journey of—inward journey of self-discovery. And it will really reinforce the fact that you’ve got more control over your life than you think. You can actually, you can decide that you will experience happiness and begin to engage in the activity and the things that will bring that experience of happiness.

So, one of the really important parts of a real spiritual journey–you’ve got like two kinds of components. One component is to cultivate wisdom. And I’m not just talking about some casual phrase or some pop psychology or whatever’s happening at the moment. It’s like every so many years, you’ve got a whole new focus and direction. I strongly suggest—

To me, it’s really, really sad that we have abandoned many of the wisdom of the ages, where people espoused principles, usually in kind of like proverbs and little sayings that they would have, that this knowledge was acquired over thousands of years and proved to be true. And it seems like we’ve entered this era where we’re attempting to abandon all of the values and the wisdom, the collective wisdom. And one of the reasons is, a lot of it is tied to religion, and there’s been this abandonment of religion for whatever reason, mostly because we want to just go out there and party and not feel any guilt—rape the planet and not feel bad about it. Really.

It’s extraordinary how much we have become conditioned. We have gone through 100 years where they have absolutely perfected the art of psychological manipulation. The population is manipulated by advertising and messaging to a degree now that was incomparable to anything that’s gone before. And the fundamental message is no guilts, no hang ups. The only person that’s important in this world is you and your feelings, and you should strive to fulfill all your desires and feelings. Pretty much, that’s the message. And by the consumption of products and services and relationships and things, I will find the happiness that’s been promised.

And of course, the experience is no, that’s not true. It’s not working out like that. But the effect of chasing such an empty philosophical idea has led to this catastrophic growth in unhappiness and tremendous sadness. That’s—and unwillingness to make long term commitments. It’s all about how I’m feeling now.

We have the ability to live a happy and successful life. The need to cultivate wisdom, to actually cultivate answers to your big questions. And a lot of it means that you’ll find it’s tied to tried and tested, very ancient wisdom. That is going to help you in your decision making and guide you in your life and guide you in your relationships. But the massive transformation comes from the cultivation of this deeper appreciation that I am an eternal spiritual being, temporarily passing through in this body. I’m not going to be here that long. It all comes to an end rather quickly. The aging process is mind boggling. It’s really astonishing.

We’ve become very disconnected from each other. We’ve become very disconnected from the world. The process of cultivating the knowledge of the soul, my spiritual identity, will bring about a transformation where you look at yourself completely differently, where you look at others really differently, and you will look at this world really differently.

But in order for that to become a reality (This is what self-realization means, that it becomes real.) one of the most powerful transformative things that you can do is the process of meditation. Meditation is not what many people think it is. For a start, it’s not a mental activity. It’s not just an activity of the mind. Meditation means immersing myself in that which is transcendental, or that which is spiritual, just like on a really hot day, and you’re all sweaty, and you go down the beach, and you walk out into the ocean, and you immerse yourself in the cooling waters. That image is what meditation is, when you immerse yourself in that which is spiritual. And it is the power of that which is spiritual that begins to have a cleaning or a purifying effect on the heart and on the mind. It begins to dissipate the fog.

I mean, just this idea—I don’t know what you guys think, like when I’m talking about this idea that you are not this body that’s sitting here on the chair. You’re the one inside. You’re the one inside. But it’s kind of like, what do you mean by that, I’m not the body? We’ve spent so much time sitting in front of a mirror and looking at ourselves in shop windows when we walk past. We can’t help it. And looking at other people’s bodies, identifying them as being the bodies. And now in this age, the selfie. I mean, the selfie is just ridiculous.

If 15 years ago, okay, before smartphones, 15 years ago, if somebody—say, we’re all hanging out at a mall or on the beach or something, and somebody walked up to you with a camera and said, “Could you take my picture, please?” You’d probably think, okay, nothing wrong with that. And you’d agree, okay, click, take the picture. Then they go, “Thank you,” and then walk to the next person beside you, and give them the camera, “Could you take a picture of me, please?” and then take it and go to the next person, “Can you take a picture?” and then I keep—People would look at you like, there’s something wrong with this person. Seriously. This person is vain and performative and shallow. Right? Now that’s the norm. That’s the norm. We have lost the plot. Big time.

In order to get back to reality, you need some guiding star, you need some torchlight of knowledge, you need something that’s showing you the way. And this is what real, what I will call, yoga wisdom is really all about. But it cannot just be mental understanding. You need to engage in activity, where you begin to experience the reality of it. It’s more than just, “Ooh yeah, that’s interesting. Ooh, never thought of that.” It’s way beyond, where you start actually seeing differently.

If people would adopt the process of the cultivation of wisdom, yogic wisdom, and they would engage in the meditation process, this world would be a lot happier. We’d be consuming way less. People wouldn’t be so hungry and just chasing things. People would not be so harsh with each other.

And there’s a deep spiritual reason for that. If you begin to identify yourself as an eternal spiritual being, then you look upon all others as also being my brothers and sisters. We are all eternal spiritual beings, and I have no right to abuse, to use, to exploit, to be mean, to be anything other than helpful. We will be inspired to be helpful.

One of the great qualities that will manifest in everyone’s life is compassion. Compassion doesn’t mean that you become weak. Compassion would also require you to be incredibly strong, and out of compassion to stand up, to protect others. But it has a whole ‘nother focus.

So, this process of meditation, which we are sharing with you, this has been practiced since time immemorial. It is a practice of taking transcendental spiritual sound. We’re not just talking about empty syllables.

So, the example I always use is, it’s just like, there [pointing] you’ve got this microphone on a stand here. Because of the lights above, you’ve got a shadow on the floor. If I got down on my hands and knees and spoke into that, it’s not going to work. I can use the same example with a fan. The fan is on and oscillating, and there’s a shadow on the floor. If I put my hand in front of the shadow, do I feel anything? No, you don’t feel anything. But when I put it in front of the actual fan, I feel the force of the air, the wind.

So, these spiritual sounds, they’re not shadow. There is substance, there’s a spiritual potency there. When they are received properly, it is understood that they have descended from a spiritual plane. And if I immerse my heart in these sounds, as a regular meditation practice, it will have the effect of dissipating the fog that I am currently living in. And as the fog dissipates, I begin to see everything differently. And I begin to behave differently with others and with this world and in relation to my own self. The meditation process is utterly transformative.

In this current time in which we live, the process of using spiritual sound, mantra meditation, is the recommended spiritual process for this time. So, what I’d like to do—and so I’ll just let you know what we’re going to do. I’m going to lead you in a short chant. (You want to help? Thank you very much.) I’ll lead you in a in a short chant, and what I’d like you to do is, perhaps if you want to close your eyes so you feel relaxed and comfortable, and (You want, yeah, do you want to do the harmonium?  I’ll do this one. I wasn’t going to go for it yet. I’ll get it in a minute.) that—and just let it go. Just let it go, and open your heart, take in the sound, and experience the sweetness and the powerfulness of this process.

After we’re done with that, then we’re going to have a break. If you want to grab a tea or anything, you’re free to do that, and we’ll do a little Q&A. And I’ll sit here as long as you want and answer any questions. If you want to get rid of me, don’t ask any questions.

It is my great joy. I have had been very blessed with the association of wonderful spiritual personalities that have actually transformed my life. I’ve been engaged in this particular type of process for about 54 years. That used to sound like a scary number to me. Now it doesn’t. It’s kind of like a big zero. And I promise that it is effective. I promise that it is very powerful. I promise that it is transformative. And I do everything I can to try and share the wonderful gifts that were shared with me.

So, okay, we good with that? So, we’ll use the mantra—I think you got a card—the one that goes Aum Hari Aum. So, we don’t really need to get into, “Oh, what does this mean?” One of the problems in explaining some of the mantras is they actually have profound meaning, and on many different levels. But in terms of literal translation, Aum represents the highest and most complete Absolute Truth. The sound Hari references the one who removes the burden of our heart. Sounds pretty nice, yeah? So, I will chant (You want to, yeah.)  I will chant.  I’ll chant the mantra twice, and then invite you to join and chant twice also.