HealthyGamerGG - Dr K. Explains: How to Escape Your Ego (Free Members Lecture)

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

Today's episode is a special one! We asked our members to vote on a topic they felt would be most beneficial to share with everyone for the holidays from our backlog of members content, and they chose this lecture on ego! So, today we will be discussing in detail what ego is, how it forms, and how best to utilise it for our own advantage in life! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You all want it advanced? Here it is. The more you say I am dot, dot, dot, the more problems you're going to run into. Basically recognizing that, okay, like, I'm not my thoughts. I'm not my emotions. I'm not even my identity. I am that which is. If you want to suffer less, the elimination of a humk-ar is very important.

Hey, y'all. HG members is officially one year old. We asked our members which lecture they wanted to share with our general community, and the answer was overwhelmingly the series on ego. So please enjoy this gift from our members to, y'all the general community. Happy holidays, and I hope it helps. So today, what we're going to do is advanced perspectives on a humkot. Let's start with like sort of super big picture. So in the West, our model of the mind is based on people talking. And from talking, we get a extrapolation into

thinking, right? So we have people like Freud or Jung who like listen to people talk. And based on what they said, they concluded certain things about their minds. In the East, we had direct observation of the mind, which we had in the West as well. So like Freud and Jung and people like that, they analyzed their own dreams and looked at their own thoughts. So it's not that there wasn't direct observation in the West. It's just that generally speaking, our method of understanding was like more based on talking, right? And so Freud learned a lot. A lot of his theories were based on his extrapolations of other people's minds, whereas the yogis studied their own mind for like 70 years in one lifetime. So what this results in is this conception of, okay, there's

different things in the mind. Okay, so if you look at the function of the mind, we have our monas. This is our emotional mind, our reactive mind, and also where likes and dislikes come from, right? So if I eat a fruit and the first time I try a fruit, I think, oh my God, this is delicious. That's not a thought. That's not an analysis. It is a reaction. So this is the monas. If we also sort of think about emotions, emotions are kind of like that too, right? So you don't get to choose which emotion you experience, your emotion is an automatic reaction to a particular circumstance. The second part of the mind is the buddhi. So this is our analytical capability, our reasoning capability.

And it's also things like some of our memory functions. Then we have Ahamkara. So what the yogis then noticed was hold on a second. So we have thoughts and we have emotions. We have logic and we have analytical reasoning. But the mode of our logic can change, right? So sometimes my logic is very, intact and sometimes my logic is very biased. What's the difference? So then what they sort of noticed

is that there is a mode of operation of the mind. That there is something, there is variability between Manas and variability between Budi. And what is that thing that creates the variability? This is Ahamgar. We'll get to this more over the course of this lecture. If you all want to dive deep into the most important topics for our community, check out HG memberships. So the first thing to understand is that there needs to be no outcome from small talk. This is a Vassana too. Your mind is Vassanhas all the way down. So the key thing about detachment is not that you don't have wants. It is that your wants do not control you. Membership grants you access to monthly streams as well as a back catalog of a year's worth of content. In addition to quests and so much more. If you're interested, you can sign up for 10 bucks a month at Healthygamer.gagmer.g.

Or click the link in the description below. Hope to see you there. So Ahamkar is the sense of eye. And then if you sort of think about it, right, like even early on, like children will exist, but their Ahamkar won't be present. So if we look at something like an infant, it probably has thoughts. It certainly has emotions, but it doesn't have a sense of I, me, mine, right? And then when kids get a little bit older when they get to be about two, they start to develop this quality of possessiveness. And then as we continue to get older, we start to develop identities about ourselves. Now, I don't know if this kind of makes sense, but the Buddha just does logic and reasoning and thoughts, right? But it's,

It doesn't have a persistence to it. So we can analyze things one way. We can analyze things another way. We have this kind of thought. We have that kind of thought. But if you sort of think about the Ahamkar, the sense of I is persistent and built up over time. So this is something that kind of builds up over time, which is very important. So Manas doesn't build up over time.

So our likes or dislikes, it's not like I love a banana like more and more and more every time I eat it. Or I love a banana less and less and less every time I eat it. There's absolutely some element of, you know, tolerance and things like that. So I may not enjoy the banana, but the monas doesn't accrete over time. So then the question kind of becomes, okay, how does a humgara form? So this is where we get to the fourth part of the mind, which is samsqqqa. And in our core lecture on Vedic psychology, we spend a lot of time talking about somsars. So let's just do a super quick overview.

So anytime I have an experience, that experience comes with some emotional energy and then also can come with some with the activation. And depending on the balance of these two things, some of that emotional energy will get stored. So let's say I go swimming, or let's say like my parents teach me how to swim the hard way, which means they pick my ass up and they throw me in the pool. And then I'm floundering, I'm kind of almost drowning,

and the experience is traumatic. So this results in some amount of emotional energy. And then they pull me out of the water and then like I'm not panicking for my life anymore. And then I run inside the house. But the next time I see the pool, this emotional energy gets recalled and I can have a panic attack. Now I have a phobia of water. Does that kind of make sense?

This is somers. So as we sort of think about it, as we go through life, we accumulate some scars because we're not neutral after every experience, right? We don't return to true baseline. There's something that is left from each experience. So even if we talk about something like playing video games. So as I play a video game, oh my God, I played this game today. I had such an epic match.

We made a comeback. I feel so good. I feel so amazing. That was so much fun. And then I get my alarm rings and I'm like, oh, crap, I have to like go to my 7 p.m. Final exam study session. So I go to my final exam study session. My mind stops thinking about the game.

But unless I processed that emotional experience, that gets stored. And then the next. day, as soon as I'm done with my final exam, that emotional energy, that wanting, that enjoyment from the game returns to my mind and I want to play the game again. So this is the key thing to understand. So we have our mind and it has stuff happening inside. And whatever stuff we process in the moment gets fixed and whatever else doesn't get stored. So as we go through life, we have all of these different experiences, some of which get processed and some of which get stored. So this is what life is. This is the sequence of events. And then what

happens is as we accumulate our combination of somers, amongst other things, this is what results in identity. So if you sort of think about your identity, your identity is a storehouse of different perceptions, reactions, interpretations, logic, whatever, that gets activated at a particular time. So for example, like, when I'm taking a shower, I'm not like Dr. K. Right? So like, I'm just taking a shower and there is like literally no difference between me washing. I mean, you can say there's a physical difference, but you know, in that moment, if I'm washing my face and a prisoner is washing their face or a prince is washing their face, like the experience of washing your face is roughly the same. Let's assume that everyone has the same soap and the same water temperature and everything like that.

There is no sense of me in that sort of experience. Then if we sort of think about it, the moment that I start streaming, I become Dr. K. So out of this storehouse of identity, my mind then reactivates these two things. And now I'm in Dr. K mode. My voice changes after I'm going to be done streaming and my kids come home from school, then what's going to happen is I will activate a different Dr. K. So instead of talking like this, my mode of thinking will change, my emotional energy will change, my voice will change.

So if you sort of think about it, like your sense of identity is highly variable in the sense that you activate it and you deactivate it. And so if we kind of think about, okay, which part of the mind, And does this relate to? These are essentially sumscars. So now what we need to understand is that our Ahamkara is a combination of somers. Now, this is really important to understand because our Ahamkara causes us all kinds of problems based on our somsars. And now what we're going to do is go a little bit to Western science and sort of explain how this works. Okay, so we're going to give you all a parallel system. In our brain, we have this thing called the default mode network. And the default mode network is super cool.

It's basically what makes us human. So if you look at animals, forget about animals. Let's say bacteria or amoebus. So I am a bacteria. And I've got all my pilli out here, right? I have all my enzymes in here. And then what I sort of detect is, okay, there's green stuff. This tastes good.

And there's red stuff. This tastes bad. So even a bacteria can interpret signals and say, I want to move in this direction and not in disdirection. So a bacteria is capable of stimulus response. So what makes us really human and animals are capable of stimulus response as well. So what makes us human is we can take a set of stimuli and we can create a meta-level cognition about it. So I'll give you all an example because I know that's kind of weird. Let's say a dog is like trying to establish dominance in its pack. So there's dog number, let's say this is dog number, this is our dog number one. And then there are

three members of the pack. So fights with this guy and he wins, fights with this guy and he loses. Let's use L's and W's. Okay. And fights with this person and he loses. So this dog will sort of establish these, we'll engage in these three relationships. Their win loss record is a win-loss loss, right? So then there's a hierarchy of A1BC. Does that kind of make sense? Am I losing y'all? So this is sort of how animals work, right? They sort of say like, okay, like I can have this isolated experience and I can interpret this experience. But what makes the default mode network really interesting is that we can have experiences like let's say I'm bad at basketball, I'm bad at math, I'm shy. And what the mind can then do, the default mode network, then what it ends up doing is

it takes these three individual conclusions, which are established by other parts of the mind. And it rises one level above. And it says, I'm bad. Now, this is, it's important to understand this. So if we look at like, why does our human mind do this? So if we sort of look at, like, this is kind of my theory, right? So there's some, I've read some research on this, but we don't really, this is kind of like my interpretation of it. So if we look at like human beings, human beings were tribal, right?

So what that means is let's say we've got 300 people in the village. So if we look at the survival of the village, understanding which humans were good at what kinds of things allowed us to specialize. And once we started specializing in dividing labor, right, when every person, then we have farmers and then we have weavers and then we have hunters and then we have doctors and we have all of these different divisions of labor because we understand that not all human beings are the same. We arrive at these conclusions. We differentiate the labor and it gives us a survival advantage. This is why human beings have taken over the earth. Right. So if you sort of think about a mother dog, what's the difference between a mother dog and a human mother? Well,

the mother dog does all of the job that a mother needs to do. She needs to hunt. She needs to feed her kids. She needs to groom her kids. She needs to teach her kids. There's no like division of labor. They all share work, sure. So you'll have like packs of animals that will share work. But it's not like some moms stay at home licking, grooming all of the kids. And then some moms go out and hunt. All of the mothers in a particular pack of animals usually do everything together. Right. So there's no division of labor. So the default mode network is like important from an evolutionary standpoint because it allows us to form meta level conclusions and allow us to divide our labor. The problem with that is that in the society that we live in today, we do not function as tribes. Right. So the way that we

live today is like you kind of have to do it. Like you can have some division of labor like if you get married or you have a small family unit. But it's not like when you sign up for life like you get born into a cohort of 300 people. And the 300 people that you get born with are like a team for the rest of life. This is the way that human society, this is the way the human brain is evolved. So now what we tend to see is that this result of ego, and there are all kinds of other problems, this system doesn't really work the way that it used to. And at this point, the ego causes us all kinds of problems.

So it doesn't mean that the ego is bad, the humkata is bad, but this is just kind of how it functions. Okay. So the default mode network is able to form meta level conclusions. And now how do we understand this from a Vedic perspective? So we're going to use, I guess, a different color for the Vedic perspective. This is a sumskar. Right. So I played a game of basketball and I got benched. And at the end of the game, like someone passed me the ball because I was the only one open. And I was open because I sucked and no one wanted to cover me. And I took, I shot my shot and I missed and we lost the game and that everyone's like, you suck at basketball. Okay, sumscar. I'm bad at math. something similar happens.

Sumscar. Sumscar. And then what do we end up with? We combine these three different samskars into Ahamkar. Now, why is this important? Because Ahamkar, remember, controls our emotional and our Buddha experiences. So this is like kind of literally true that your sense of identity will shape your thoughts and emotions. And so I remember this is, you know, Dr. K's experience of trauma 101.

So when I was 15 years old, I was sitting. I was sitting in the library one day and I was studying. And there was one girl in our class who was like considered to be the hottest girl. And the hottest girl came and sat at my table and then started like talking to me. So since I was like a loser at the age of 15 and the hottest girl came and sat down at me like and sat down next to me and started talking to me, my reaction was this, there's some kind of trick. This girl is like trying to take advantage of me. like there are people hiding, they're going to be looking at me,

like she's going to do something and I'm going to be the butt of some joke, right? And why is that? That's because I had lots of some scars where I was bullied. And since I've been bullied in the past, I look at this situation, which is the hot girl is coming

and sitting down next to me and talking to me. And then like, so this is like, this is how my mind interprets this thing. So my thoughts are paranoid. My emotions are shameful, anxious, because of my interpretation of the situation.

As it turns out, The girl just happened to be nice. And she was like one of these genuinely good human beings who was like, oh, like that kid has no friends and is sitting alone and I have lots of friends. Let me go and talk to him so that like this person doesn't feel lonely. And like that's all it was. There was no trick. If we look at what a humkhar does is we have the real world, which is objective. And then what happens is our humkar takes these real world stimuli and then interprets.

them based on our past experience of being bullied and whatnot. And then it generates a set of thoughts. Okay. And that's all it was, right? She was just a nice human being. And what my mind produced and the echoes of my past experiences developed a sense of identity, which then created particular thoughts and emotions that then messed things up. Okay?

So this is the real world out here. And if you guys want to see like good examples of this, just look at any gender focused space on the internet. And what you'll tend to find is that people are bringing a lot to the table. Right. So like if someone kind of like if someone says, hey, my partner didn't get me the right cake for my birthday. Right. And then there'll people who will be like break up with them. Your partner is abusive.

They're the red flag. It's like all this kind of unfiltered nonsense. And if you kind of think about it like how does this person, this is just, you know, one little block of text. How is this person interpreting the text? They're interpreting the text based on their own experiences. They're a humkart, et cetera, et cetera. And we see that a lot in our community, right? So people will sometimes post for help.

And then people will say, like, why don't you try this? And they'll say, that won't work for me. Which is not necessarily wrong. Okay? I'm not saying, like, so the humkhar has a function for a reason. So it's not that it's completely false. It's based on your experience and your experience matters. My point is that if you look at,

look at the function of the mind, there is the objective world, and then there is something that we add to it. This is what a humkhar does. And so if we want to really live our life in the best way possible, and I mean this both objectively and subjectively. And what do I mean by that? I mean that if you want to suffer less and you want to be more successful in your endeavors, the elimination of a Humgar is very important, or the control of a humkhar is very important. Because this is what allows us to observe the world as it is. Right? So our interpretations can get us out of whack.

Even in a case of like something positive, like I want to be super careful about like even positive signals from the outside world and interpreting them correctly. I don't want my ego to get control and fall victim to the flattery. Like people will say like, oh, you're so great or whatever. And really, you're not. Like, I'm a, I'm like, I'm a nothing, right? I just am what I am. It's neither good nor bad it is if it helps people.

Great. So does that attitude sort of make sense? And so the interesting thing is that once we shed the ego, then we can actually, like, function correctly in the world. So I know this sounds weird, but in the real world. So you can have something like a setback. You can get an F in a class. You can miss a promotion.

And there's a very simple, like, logical way to approach this, right? So you can sort of say, like, okay, I miss the promotion. if I remove ego from the equation and I allow the fullness of my buddi, unencumbered and completely objective to analyze the situation, is there bias? Will I ever get promoted? Or do I need to look for a new job? Right? And if we let ego get in the way, it causes all kinds of problems.

Because let's say that we let ego get in the way and I say, oh, this person is biased. I'm amazing. This person is so biased, they play favorites. So instead what I'm going to do is I'm going to go looking for a new job. But if I'm objectively not that effective at my job, no matter how many jobs I go to, I won't get promoted. Right? So the correct interpretation of the real world in removing your ego from the equation is critical

to your success in life. The other advantage is that, see, when we remove ego from the equation, the ego is the thing that gets hurt. Okay? So this is objective improvements with ego. So when I work with people, I try to help them remove their ego from the equation. And once they remove their ego from the equation, they are able to see the world as it is. And you can harmonize with the world.

Right. So if this is the situation, there is a right move and there is a wrong move. In order to see that right move and wrong move, you have to remove ego from the equation. This is objective. And if you pay attention to your life and we'll get to how to do that in a second, you will see that the more you say, I am dot, dot, dot, the more problems you're going to run into. Even when people will sort of say, like, so in a lot of like trauma work or whatever, right? Like right now there's the sentiment of like, oh, like empowerment.

right? Like, I am great. I am awesome. I am lovely. I am, I deserve the best. I deserve to be loved. I deserve to get everything that I want out of life. I'm like, wow, that's really interesting. Where do you get that idea? Right? So all of this, like, I don't know if toxic positivity in the sense of entitlement that we see nowadays. Like, I deserve the best. I don't know what you deserve in life. I have no idea. I don't know where that's written or what you base that on. Right. Like, I literally do not know how people arrive at that conclusion. Show me. me any evidence that you deserve the best in life. Like, I don't, I don't see that. It's a wonderful dream. I think you should strive for the best. I think we should support you in striving for the best, but I don't, I don't know where this sentiment comes from. So whether it's positive or negative, a negative, a humkhar, but even towards the end, so like in my clinical work, what I do, someone comes in with a negative a humkar. I am a loser. And then what I end up doing is I try to give them a positive a humgar. You're a winner. And then sometimes, in my practice, they come in with a positive of a humkhar. I'm a winner. They're a narcissist. I deserve everything. And then what we try

to do is transcend a humkar. You are neither a winner or a loser. You are just you, right? That's all you are. Transcend a humkar. This is my goal. So as we eliminate the ahumkar, we allow ourselves to be more objective and we can take the right tasks. And then the other thing that it does is it reduces our suffering. Because if you sort of think about it like, you know, after Michael Phelps won his first four gold medals, the next day he woke up and he was suicidal, which seems really confusing, right? We'd think that you should be like prideful and happy and exhilarated and whatever. But this is what a humkhar does. Because like, okay, now I have won.

I don't know if I can win again. Today I'm the best. But the moment that you become the best in the world, a moment will come where you are no longer the best. Can I live up to my expectations? Is it only downhill from here? I've achieved everything that I can in life. now it's just downhill. Oh my God. Let me quit while I'm on top, right? Like, I don't ever want to be beaten.

So if you sort of look at and I've worked with professional athletes, esports athletes, musicians, whatever. These people are like, I want to get to the top. But if you sort of think about it, if you strive to get to the top and you achieve your goal, there's only one direction to go, which is down, which is like terrifying. Right. And this is where if you think about the top, what is the top? The top is a comparison to other people. This is a humgar, because remember that one of the functions of a humkart is comparison. So if we look at better, worse, best, worst, in order to have this, I must have a sense of I'm here and someone else is here. I have to have an eye, okay? So this is what's kind of weird. So as we, as a humgar enters the picture, it shapes our thoughts, it reduces our outcomes, like it doesn't end up doing well.

There can be an improvement in outcomes, by the way. So if you're kind of moving from here to here, this can be an improvement. So we can see improvement from this phase to this phase. And then ultimately we'll see improvement from this phase to this phase too. And for the record, we're not recommending or I'm not recommending the elimination of a hum car completely. What I'm recommending is a control of the humkar. So it should not be in control of you. So it's okay to have some degree of pride, right?

So that's okay. But the question is, are you in control of the pride or is the pride in control of you? Are you in control of your ego or is the ego in control of you? So now the question becomes, okay, Dr. Kay, you are saying that a humgar should be controlled. Absolutely fine. So how do we do that? So now we're going to teach you some advanced concepts. So we're going to start with the basic concept. If we look at a humgar, a humgar is a combination of some scars, right? So like literally if we look at the process of psychotherapy, if someone says, I am a loser, then what we do is we go back to their past, their traumatic experiences, and we therapies. their traumas. And as we

therapies their traumas, I am a loser, thought starts to disappear. Does that make sense? Very simple, right? We do therapy for trauma. And if you sort of look at like what happens in trauma, right? So we have all these experiences like my parents are

abusive. They're always yelling at me. And then what do I conclude as a child? I am bad. Because it's always my fault. My parents are always blaming me, always blaming me, always blaming me. And so as they always blame me, my humk our grows, I am a loser, my mind stops functioning properly, right? Because now it's controlling my buddi and my monas. It's now controlling my logic. And if it controls my logic, I conclude that I

really am a loser, right? This is why people with trauma don't realize that they're decent human beings. It's because the mind is not functioning healthily, because the Ahamkar is in control. So, this is one thing that you can do, is you can work on the same. samskaric level. The second thing that we can do is just focus on something like Shunya. So if you look at yourself, not look, but if you pay attention to yourself, you are just a bundle of experiences, right? You are that which experiences all of the things in your life. So you have your thoughts, you have your emotions, you have your conclusions, you enjoy pizza, you dislike smoothies, whatever. But the one thing that's always the same is that you experience it. So your

body changes, your mind changes, your identity changes, but you are always you, right? So like, I don't know if this kind of makes sense, but, you know, like, I used to not be a doctor and now I'm a doctor. So that's not like really a core part of Alloak. It is, it is a pair, it's like a shirt that I put on. It is part of my identity. But like, it's not me, right? So if you took me and dropped me off on a desert island and I lived the next 40 years of my life by myself and never interacted with another human being, would I still be a doctor? You can debate that as much as you want to. The question becomes irrelevant, right?

What makes a doctor? It's a philosophical, intellectual question. But I'm just me, whether I'm practicing medicine or not practicing medicine. So what you really are is that which experiences. So the second way to get rid of a humkhar is through schoenya-oriented practices. That's just an example. So scho-oriented practices are practices where we've discussed before in other parts of HG. Basically recognizing that, okay, like, I'm not my thoughts, I'm not my emotions.

I'm not even my identity. I am that which is. So, and people love being just that which is. To be that which is is is like amazing. So I'll give you all just examples of being that which is. So like flow state is a good example of that which is. When you're in a flow state and you're viving, you're playing some music, whatever,

you're not thinking I'm the best, I'm the worst, I'm good, I'm bad. You're just saying this is enjoyable. I am one with this experience. See, the Ahamkar is not one with an experience. In fact, it is a sense of identity. that is independent of an experience. Does that make sense? So if I'm just sitting there, vibing with the music that I am playing, I am one with the music. But if my humkhar is active, am I the best musician here, am I the worst musician here, are people judging me, do I look like an

idiot? Am I sexy? All of these kinds of thoughts will impair your cognitive focus on the experience at hand. So Shunya-oriented practices are designed to remove all the other layers of self so that you're just left with raw experience. But you can experience this in other ways too. So I think watching a sunset is a really good example. Walking on the beach is a really good example. So that's the second mode of a home car dissolution. Okay. And you will notice that the best periods in your life are the ones where like you have no sense of identity. Okay. Even if we look at like drugs of abuse, like part of the reason that people get addicted to things like opiates and fentanyl and stuff like that is they let you forget who you are for a little while plus euphoria. So that's like a good combination. So now we're going to

get to the two new things, which are Vassanas and Klishdas. So these are advanced techniques. They're difficult. But they will be very, very powerful at melting your humkhar. So Vassana is a mental habit. Now, this is going to sound kind of weird. But 99% of your mental experiences are habitual. They're not real. They're not correct. They're just habits. Okay. So people say, oh, I struggle with desire. I can't control my desires. After I have dinner, I want desire. After I have dinner, I want dessert. So if you really pay attention to that, what you'll notice is that that is a vasana. It is a mental habit. Every time you have dinner, a part of you will want dessert. You also notice that you have other kinds of asanas. Every day when you go to school, you will think the same thing. You will double

check your appearance. You'll make sure there's no toilet paper on you. At the end of your walk down the hallway, you're going to make sure no one put a sign on your back because you get bullied. And so if you sort of look at like even the structure of your thoughts, the majority of them are habitual, especially if you're suffering. And people think, this is the huge thing, people think, yeah, the reason I think this is because it is real. That is why my mind consistently thinks that's not correct. It's a mental habit.

Because you have thought it before, you will think it again. So if you look at your Ahamkar, what you will discover is that 99% of your Ahamkar is a vasana. It's simply a repetition of the energy of the mind. And just because you say something a thousand times does not make it true. just because you think something a thousand times does not make it true. And yet we go on believing that our identity is correct, but it's not correct. It's just a habit. So if you want to really understand this, this is where things get tricky, okay?

So normally, if I were to tell you, hey, the stuff that you believe about yourself is not true, how would your mind respond? It would say, no, Dr. Kay, you are wrong. And then it would provide, it would give you reasons to then give me. Here are all of the reasons you are wrong. Now, where are your reasons coming from? They're coming from your Buddha. Is your Buddha in control of your Ahamqar?

Or is your humkhar in control of your Buddha? If your humkhar is in control of your Buddha, your reasons are wrong, right? Because they're a distortion of reality. And you will observe this like you may say, but can't you be right? The answer is basically no. So what we know is that the more narcissistic you are, the more divorced from reality you become. This is a scientific fact. So the more your humkar is active, the more incorrect your logic is,

and the more your reasons are useless. But people don't think that way, right? Because when the Ahumkar is active, it's stealthy. No one thinks, no narcissist thinks I am being narcissistic right now. They think that their interpretation of the world is objective. This isn't a subjective interpretation. Everyone does hate me. Here's all the evidence. And so this is why this is like, when we talk about this being advanced, like, you have to have a foundation, in practice to be able to understand this. In practice, what I mean is like, you have to have a spiritual practice. Meditation.

You have to be good at observing your mind in order to even realize this. Otherwise, you'll never get it. I can say this intellectually, but you will have no awareness of it. It won't make sense to you. So what I want you all to do is observe the habits of your mind. And what you will notice is like it's fucking eye opening. That your desires, it's just a habit. And once you realize it's a habit, you will realize a couple of other things.

The first is if it's a mental habit, you don't even. want it. It is an echo of a want. It's not even a real desire. It's just my body is used to it. My mind is used to it. There is no actual merit to your desire, which is another thing that a lot of people don't understand. They think that the reason that I want something is because it is good. I'm logical to want these things. But if you really tunnel down into it and you learn to recognize Vassanas, what you will realize is that a lot of your thinking, your desires, all kinds of problems, staying up late at night, procrastinating, these are all vasanas. Because you've done it before, you do it again.

And if you sort of think about it, right, people struggle with procrastination. What does that mean to struggle with procrastination? You can't struggle with procrastination unless you are doing it a lot. You don't struggle with procrastination once in your life and wake up one day and say, oh my God, I struggled with procrastination. My life is so hard. No, the people who struggle with procrastination struggle with it every day. And if it's every day, what is happening on the screen of your mind?

It is a vasana. It is just a mental habit. I don't want to do this work right now. And you can do whatever kind of somersore-oriented work or therapy or whatever the fuck, like exploration, whatever. Forget about all that. This is what's cool about this methodology. It doesn't matter where the thought came from. You don't need to therapeutize anything.

All you need to do is notice it as a habit. All you need to do is notice that this is an echo from the past. It is not actually a real thing that I need right now. It is something my brain and body, mind have gotten used to. And the more that you are able to see that these things are vasanas, the less control they have over you. Okay, so let's understand this. Let's say I have a desire for, let's say, marijuana. So there's me, and there's marijuana over here, and I struggle with this, right?

So I am at this level. So this is a conflict. There's a tension. You're on the same floor, right, as the marijuana. And it's like you, it's like, round one, fight. And it's like, you're on one side. You're on the left side of the screen. The marijuana is on the right side of the screen.

You're like, you know, do, do, do do do do do do. Do do do do do do do do do do. Do do do do do do do do. Right? And then you're struggling with the marijuana. And sometimes you get K-O'd and sometimes you KIO the marijuana. But every fucking day, you wake up. So you're like existing over here.

You're fighting. But if you recognize that this is a vasana, then you, sit up here and you are looking down on this, you are an observer of now a streetfighter two tournament. You're not actually involved. And then the cool thing is like this is where it gets weird from reality, right? But the interesting thing is that when you recognize, okay, like this is just my mind wanting the marijuana today. And then what you can do is you can even ask yourself, am I going to win today or am I going to lose today? Which one will happen? It's really bizarre. Let's see if I can win today. Let's give it a shot. Can I control my mind or will

lose. And as you go through this process, I know it sounds weird. You all just really have to try it. Just observe as many vasanas as you can. And just to watch them. What you'll find is that like this stuff starts to melt away. Because you're over here, right? You're not on the same floor with the marijuana anymore. It'll start to sublimate your desire. You'll just struggle with it less. Now, the key thing to understand is that the strength of this opponent will make this easier hard. If this is a very big MJ, then it's like, it's going to like break into your floor anyway. So you have to start this with small desires or small mental habits. Like, okay, I get coffee.

Like, first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I get coffee. I make coffee. And the question is, okay, can you not do that? Can you just wait 15 minutes? Let's see. Am I able to notice the habit of my mind? And if you kind of look at all of your suffering in life, how much of this suffering is the first time you've thought this?

99% you've thought before, which means that these are all just vasinas. They're just echoes from the past. They're not created in this moment. Now, your mind may argue with me logically. It may say, but no, but these, my boss is real, right? My boss is going to continue to dislike me. So what, right? You can be tranquil about it.

You can look at the real world. You can say, okay, boss is biased. Let me move. But Dr. Kay, that's not so easy. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And see, here's the problem. So I'm talking about what is in your mind. And the second I start talking about doing something out here,

your mind will start to come up with all kinds of reasons. But I'm not, I'm not, I'm not worried about any of this shit out here. I'm not worried. I don't care whether it's viable or inviable or anything like that. That's not what I'm good. We're not concerned about the real world. What we are focused on is what happens in your mind.

And then you will notice it's vasana's all the way down. So this is the crazy thing. Dr. K, it won't work because reasons. Okay, now let me ask you a question. How many times has your mind told you it won't work because reasons? Holy shit. This is a vasana too. Okay, this is a Vassana.

All of these reasons. How many of you had before? Is this the first time you came up with these reasons? No, this is a Vassana too. It's all just a chain of echoes. An echo is not what exists in the present. It is a echo from the past. Your mind is Vassanhas all the way down.

And the more that you begin to understand that these are Vasanas, the more power you will have over them. Now you all are going to say, but Dr. K, like, hold on a second. How does that work? Okay. just observing it's avasana, like, how does that actually cause me? Like, that won't work. Like, I don't understand how that works. That's Avasana too. If you tried it before and you've already arrived at a conclusion, wow, that's so interesting. You tried it before? Did you try it this way? Yeah,

I tried it basically that way. Did you understand what you understand now? Not exactly, but I've tried it before. It doesn't work. That's Avasana. So this is what's tricky. And to understand that your mind is 99% Vassana is very difficult. Y'all wanted advanced shit. Here it is. I don't expect it to be easy. So this is the kind of. of stuff that if you really want to crack your humkar, it starts with understanding. Just look at what of this is habitual thinking. And if it's habitual thinking, we want to try to melt it away. Let us start to think based on our circumstances today instead of bringing things from the past. And this is where we get to the second part. So we're going to give you some help with that, which is glistachta.

So glistachta means is that the way they sort of thought about this is like, this is a pen. And so a pen is just a pen. It's not a good. pen, it's not a bad pen, it's just a pen. It's just a chunk of plastic and metal and ink, okay, rubber. What tends to happen as we go through life is the world just is there, right? It's not good or bad or whatever. And then our mind attaches coloring to all of these objects. So this is not a good pen or a bad pen, but my mind will say this is a good pen, this is a bad pen. It'll say this is a worse pen. Because look, you see how it's broken? This is a shit pen. Look at this low quality. ink. It's like a wobbly little tip. It's not, the ink is not, doesn't look good enough. So our mind

goes through life and these are just two, these are just two hunks of plastic. They're not good or bad. They're just hunks of plastic. This one is a little bit flimsyer than this one. This is a statement of fact. But then what my mind does is it colors the object. It starts adding all kinds of things. This is a shitty pen. And then if I get a shitty pen, then I feel I'm happy. It's just two hunks of plastic. But my mind adds all of this coloring to it. You know, you don't see things as they are. Your mind attaches all kinds of meanings to them. So I'll give you all another example. Someone calls you a loser. So what does that mean if someone calls you a loser? Are you a loser? Now here's the thing. When someone calls me a loser, what does my mind

add to that? So in one scenario, I can say, oh my God, I'm such a loser. This person is so wise, or this person is a loser. My mind can fill this in with all, I knew it. I knew that was true. I was afraid that it was true. I believed that it wasn't true, but it turns out it is true. See, I knew it. I understood all along. This is all of the coloring that your mind adds, right? Whereas I could also say, like, how so?

What is it that makes me a loser? Help me understand. If I'm a loser, okay, like, what does that mean to be a loser? Like, let's not add anything to it. Let's just, okay, a human being has called me a loser. They've said these words. That's all the reality of it is. It doesn't mean anything, right?

And you will say, no, but Dr. K, but like, that has consequences. Because what if they're like a big content creator and they call you a loser, right? That means that their community like, this is going to happen, this is going to happen, this is going to happen. That has real world consequences. Sure. So what? This community doesn't like me. So this will necessitate some real world response, right?

So I can look at that objectively and I can say, okay, so like I guess I should prepare for some kind of, I don't know, like brigading in my chat. So be it. So if there's a brigading in the chat, I need to contact my mods. I don't need to be mentally untranqual because of this. I don't need to add, I am a loser, oh my God, it's happening again or whatever, right? So I can objectively say, this keeps happening. My mind is observed that I'm doing something that is upsetting people. Let me understand what that is.

So if we look at glistas, glishdas are things that we add. They're not inquiry, right? They're not like, let's understand what's going on. There's just stuff that we add to the table. And if you really pay attention to your life, what you'll find is that the real world is out there. And then glistice is like most of your experience of life is what you add to the equation. So there are two things that you all need to do. And the more advanced into meditation we get, there are some things that become like easy to execute

and some things that require subtlety to execute. And we're getting to advanced stuff, which means it requires subtlety to execute usually. We'll give you all a couple of tips. So this is what I want you all to do. If you want to understand glistah, notice that there's all kinds of stuff in the world that exists. And notice what your mind adds to the equation. This is what you have to understand. That will also let you lean into Vassana. Because once you understand, okay, this is not the real thing. This is a production from my mind. Then you will start to see that the coloring is one of the most

habitual things that your mind adds. And even if we get to like Sumskar and stuff like that, you'll see that Vassana and Glishta are kind of like the mechanisms through which a sumscar operates. So what is a sumscar? It's a consistent level of glistah that your mind adds. Every time I see a body of water, I feel fear because it's just a body of water. Can the body of water be dangerous? Sure, we're not saying that the danger doesn't exist. But your reaction to the body of water is not commensurate with reality. Because every body of water you see is not life or death. If you fall out of a plane and you see a body of wander underneath you, then that's like a life and death situation, right? Like, that's objectively life or death. But most swimming pools are not life or death.

But that's not how our mind reacts, because it adds a coloring to the situation. It does not see the world as it is. That is Glishda. And the second thing is that you will notice that most of your reactions in life are Vassana. And so what we need to do is just observe. Have I had this thought before? Is this a mental habit? And if you guys want a really, really, really good way to engage with Vassana, sit somewhere and do nothing for like an hour. And watch what your mind does. watch like and then do it again tomorrow and you watch how much of this is like habitual like holy shit my mind is just on autopilot all the time all the time all the time and we'll even have people in our community who are like i'm living my life on autopilot they're even aware that the mental functioning is there's no intention behind the mental functioning the mental functioning is automatic as you notice vasana as you notice glistha your power over a hamkata will improve because a hamkara is a combination of vasana and glistina. Right? So the Ahamkara is the coloring that you add to experiences. It is the narcissistic interpretation. So these are the two things that y'all should look at. And as you look at these two things, you may say, what does this have to do with Ahamkara? If Vassana and Glittha don't exist, Ahamkara will disappear. It can't stand. So as Vasanas go away and as Glittha's go away, a humkara has no, it won't, it requires these two things to function. They're at kind of a different level, but that's a conversation for a different day. Okay. When trying to work through negative ego, Would you recommend people to first move to a positive ego before desiring it entirely?

So I would say yes and no. So you don't need to, right? So let's understand something. A couple of things. The first is that negative, all ego can be dissolved directly. And the goal is to have a small ego that you control. That's really the goal. And by small, the more control you have, the smaller your ego becomes.

So those two things are actually like two sides of the same coin. The more in control of your ego you are, the smaller it is relative to you. Right. So if I'm like a giant and there's like, you know, a grasshopper that I have on a leash, like I can control the grasshopper. So in the same way, the more in control you are, the smaller the ego will be relative to you. So you can directly dissolve negative ego. In fact, we have studies that show that, right?

So we know that, for example, like mindfulness practices will reduce narcissistic behavior. We know this. At the same time, the direct dissolution of ego is a difficult, slow, and subtle process. So if your ego is very, very powerful and it is very negative, it can be hard. It'll take a while to dissolve it. So from a practical perspective, oftentimes, especially if we're talking about people who have lives where they have consequences. So if you had like two years where you could go to a monastery and just dissolve your negative ego, go for it, right? That can work.

But practically what I work with is people who, their negative egos, have consequences today and tomorrow. They're in abusive relationships. They act like dormats. They let other people manipulate them. They let other people take advantage of them. And that has a real world consequence. So oftentimes what is easier than dissolving ego because that's hard is to build a healthier ego. So practically like, you know, and the two will kind of go hand in hand almost, right?

So as we look at especially like the Sumskar exercise, we kind of talk about, okay, when you this triggers like how do you see yourself? So seeing yourself in a different way is easier than not seeing yourself at all. So you don't have to develop a positive ego first, but it is easier to move from a negative ego to a positive ego than it is to move from like a negative ego to no ego. Or arguably it's just, I mean, it's not easier. But practically that's how it works out. There's weird subtleties to that. The question doesn't really translate. But like, so if you kind of think about it, right, so if I have some aspect of my humkart that is negative and I were to transform that into something that is more positive.

That'll help me more in the short term than dissolving my whole ego, which is like a weird, it takes a while. Is being judgmental also related to the ego? Okay, so judgment can be related to the ego. So here's, let's just use one quick example to illustrate. Okay. So someone asked the question, what about judgment? So let's just use one last example to illustrate. So remember that the manas and the buddi are here.

And the monas makes judgments. You are, and even then, so this is why I like Sanskrit, because what do you mean by judgment? So there's two kinds of judgments. There is a logical conclusion and there is a reaction. These are both judgments. So what do we mean by this, right? So if I like, if I'm walking down the street and I see someone's face and I'm like, fuck this guy's face, this is a minus reaction.

There's no like logic to it, right? I dislike that guy's way. There's a judgment. This guy has a terrible face. This person sucks. And then I can also make a judgment from the buddi. Let's say I have a friend in my friend group who is very drama oriented, narcissistic, whatever. And then I like logically conclude from a calm mind that hanging out with this person is a mistake.

Both of these are judgments, but they come from different parts of the mind. Now, the role of a humkhar in this is remember that a humkkar can influence both of these. And so if we sort of look at, okay, like this friend in my friend group is toxic, that thought can come naturally from Buddha and be conducive with reality or it can come from a humkhar. And this person in my friend group is someone I am jealous of. But I'm not aware that I am jealous of them. Therefore, my humkara has to tear them down to make myself feel better. So I'm going to call them toxic and I'm going to try to remove them from the friend group. Do you all see how like it's bizarre?

Like you can come to the same conclusion depending on how the mind functions. So it's almost like saying, okay, like if I have a math equation that equals five, what's over here? Well, we could have one plus four. We could also have two plus two plus one. We could also have one times five. There are all kinds of ways to get five. So any judgment that you have in life, there are many ways to get there. Maybe it's your munis and you just don't like their face.

maybe it's a logical, uncontrolled, uncontrolled Buddha in the sense not controlled by a humkhar, or it is being controlled by a humkhar. You can arrive at the same conclusion. And this is what the yogis sort of figured out, right? It's like there isn't a good or a bad. There is just a, like, it's not like a conclusion is like good or bad. It's just what is forming the conclusion?

What's your methodology? So a scientific study can find any outcome. The question is what's your methodology? Because that's what tells you whether something is accurate or inaccurate. Okay?