Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - The Mind-Body Path to Mental Wellness

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Sadhguru (yogi, mystic, visionary, and New York Times bestselling author) shares his perspectives on mindfulness, why mental health is such a widespread issue today, where we should find joy, and holistic ways to take charge of our mental health. BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Because I think a lot of people, you know, see your presence and, you know, experience your energy. And, you know, you have something that I want, that Jonathan wants. You know, there's something very attractive about the way you have, you know, composed yourself and your thought and these tools. But I am curious sort of on a personal level, what brings you joy? Like, what do you like to eat? What music do you like? What's joyful for you? No, my joy doesn't depend on what I eat.

Now I'm in America, so obviously I'm not eating what I want. So, see, this is where the problem is. We always think something brings us joy. See, when you are a five-year-old girl, you are simply bubbly, isn't it? What happened to that? When you're five, if you were so bubbly, by the time you're 40, you should be ecstatic. In natural process of growth, I'm saying. But just the reverse happens simply because there is no separation between what is you and what you gather.

When I say what you gather, one thing is you gather this body. You are not born like this. Slowly you gather this body. And then you gather the impressions of the mind. And then you gather people and things around you, relationships, wealth, money, whatever else. What you gather must serve you well. But unfortunately, what you gather, you carry it on your head, the burden of it. It's Myambialy's breakdown.

She's going to break it down for you. Because you know she knows a thing or two. So now she's going to break down. So break it down. Hi, I'm Myambiallic. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. Welcome to a Thursday edition of the, breakdown. This week, we're sharing our enlightening conversation with yogi, mystic, visionary,

and New York Times bestselling author, Sad Guru. I was so excited to talk to him. I had heard him on other podcasts, and now he's here. He is here. We were so excited to hear his perspectives on mindfulness, why mental health is such a widespread issue deserving so much of our attention today and some really, really excellent holistic suggestions on taking charge of our mental health. Enjoy our chat with Sud Guru and tune in on Tuesday for a brand new full episode of Miami-B-Lx break down. Break it down. What do I do with a big doctor, doctor, doctor, neuroscientist?

Well, it's really our pleasure and a great honor to speak to you. Thank you so much for being such a huge part of, you know, a larger understanding of mental wellness and hopefully a path that we are all in some way on towards enlightenment. it's really an honor to speak to you. Maybe we can start by talking a little bit about sort of what your perspective is on mental health. You know, it's obviously a very popular idea and it's something, you know, that's become a real part of our modern consciousness. But the challenges of mental wellness have been around since as long as humans have been around, if not earlier. Can you talk a little bit about sort of how you see this sort of mental health situation that we find?

ourselves in? See, both physical health and mental health, I've always been a part of human existence. And if we pay attention, has always been a part of every other life's, you know, life also. I'm saying every other mammal at least. If not, I don't know if the worms and insects have mental health issues, but I'm sure they have physical health issues. What I see is if they have physical health, they also have mental health issues. It is just that as human beings, we are slowly becoming more of mind than body. So our focus on mental health is more, you know, gradually shifting from physical health to mental health.

Physical health was a big issue when nourishment was a challenge and, you know, scarcity of food and shelter and things. like that. Now, those things to large part of the population at least, unfortunately still significant population is left out of that, but at least for the large part of the population, physical, what is needed for physical health is largely taken care of, but we are still not having physical health. America spends nearly $3.5 trillion on health care that shows even physical health has not manifested as it should in an affluent society, because essentially affluence means that initially we are seeking choice of nourishment, and once that is taken care of, we are looking at choice of lifestyles. With both these things achieved, if there is so much ill health,

obviously we are doing something fundamentally wrong. Why, when you're asking me a question about mental health, I'm talking about physical health, is, in my perception, I don't separate mind and body, because what you call as mind is a certain combination of memory and intelligence. Tell me one cell in your body which doesn't carry memory. Tell me one cell in your body which is not intelligent. It is doing tremendously intelligent things every moment of our life. Things that we can never figure in our brains, our cells are doing, isn't it? Every one of them.

And memory-wise, how your forefathers, looked a million years ago, still even your epithelial cells still remember the skin tone. They have not forgotten a thing. So both memory and intelligence is at a phenomenal level in every cell in the body. So we don't see mind and body as two separate things. It is just that there is a physical body and there is a mental body. Or we can put it this way in modern terminology. There is hardware and there is software.

If the hardware is corrupted, there is no way the software will run well. If the software is corrupted, the hardware will not run well. This is well understood. So having said that, there are for present focus on mental health, there are genetic issues with people. There are social issues. And there are individual issues, of course, of thought and emotion going out of.

of control. So when we say genetic, we can say somebody is pathologically, you know, designed in a certain way that some things are off. And those things may look particularly off if they're living in certain type of societies. In certain other societies, those things may be just looked at as, okay, that's how he is kind of thing. But in some societies where everything is straight-jacketed, that person may look totally odd and sticking out and he cannot be in that society, he must be locked up somewhere. It will come to that. So, genetic aspects can be overcome.

Today, you are in the science, I am not the person to tell you. But today we know this. But in the yogic sciences, we have always seen it this way. I have been saying this to people. Give yourself to me for 24 hours. I will see that your genetics have no influence on you. You can be away from that. If you do certain things with yourself, genetics are there.

But you can be away from that. Today, I think they're using some term as epigenetics or whatever. How you use your genetic information is your choice. There is genetic information. You look the way you look, I look the way I look. This is genetic information. But how we use this, how we feel about it, how we think about it, how we act upon it is essentially ours.

Whether we get trapped in this genetic information or we rise about this and make use of this genetic information is left to us. So this transformation is always possible. Yogi sciences are fundamentally focused towards this. Because when we talk about a human being can become liberated, what we are saying is liberation is from the burden of memory. Memory, just not conscious memory alone. Every cell in your body carries every cell in your body carries every, evolutionary memory, genetic memory, karmic memory, articulate and inartic forms of memory,

conscious and unconscious forms of memory, all these memories together make you a body of memory and that determines how you are right now. If you rise about that, if that does not decide who you are right now, then we say you're liberated. So the whole science of yoga is always focus towards this liberation that the past should not determine who you are. If your parentage determines who you are, you have not lived your life. You have just been just an offspring. Like any other creature, you are an offspring. You are not a human being.

It is only to this one species that we attach the word being. Because all other creatures are ruled by their memory. We can choose how to be right now. It doesn't matter who my grandmother was, but I can choose how I want to be right now. This other creatures don't have. They will go by their evolutionary and genetic memory. They have no freedom to rise about that.

So this is why we are a being because we can decide how to be. If we did decide how to be, then I'm asking both of your simple question. If you had a choice how to be, would you choose to be blissful or miserable? My M. Bialx breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine, drink more water. There's no real data.

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Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my and beyond it's breakdown to help support the show. Blessful. Yes, of course. Jonathan sometimes wants to be miserable. No, that is, you may be a religious dance. I have a follow-up question.

First of all, that's so beautifully said. And, you know, what you're talking about takes an amount of effort that I think a lot of people, especially in our modern day and age, people are often resistant to. And I think while psychiatry and, you know, the sciences have tremendous value and are life-saving and life-altering in ways that, you know, even we could never imagine, there is a strong turning to, you know, prescription medication often as the first thing to do when you're feeling dis-ease, right, or when you're experiencing suffering. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit about, you know, what the purpose is of looking for holistic solutions and kind of approaching problems with this sort of holistic philosophy as opposed to, the first thing that you do being, you know, to ask for medication,

which is often what people have been trained to do in this culture, and often what practitioners are trained to do first. That is because they want to support the economy. It's a business, all right? It's one of the largest businesses. So somebody has to support it. If you don't buy any medicine, how to run the economy. That's a different matter.

All I'm saying is you're talking about there is a problem and then there is a solution. But we must understand when it comes to our problems, whatever as individual people we are going through, problem is manufactured by us. I am not interested in finding solutions. I am interested in people learning how not to create a problem. Why you create a problem and find a solution? Because that's how the economy runs for, you go on creating more problems. and finding more solutions.

And it just goes on. But human life is completely gone in this problem solution drama that's happening in everybody's life. So I'm saying a simple thing. I was talking to a group of top-level psychiatrists in UK, and they were telling me that there are 72 varieties of mental ailments which have been identified. It is okay if it's for study or understanding, The scientists who are involved in it, they name it this way, that way. But as an individual person, if you have 12 of the 72, what to do?

As an individual person, there is only one thing. Is your intelligence working for you or against you? You already answered this question. If you had a choice, you would be blissful. If your intelligence was functioning in favor of you, you would definitely create the most wonderful things within you. But if it's working against you, once your intelligence has turned against you, there is no damn thing in the universe which can save you.

Nothing. So you can put a chemical and feel good for some time. Whether you get it in prescription or in the back street, people are finding various kinds of solutions, all right? So where you find the chemical? There are a whole lot of people that I've met, groups of people in Los Angeles that I've met. They watch that the drugs that they have found in the back.

back streets of Los Angeles or a solution for everything. All right? So, we need to understand this, this whole thing about mental ailments. There are pathological issues, genetic issues, other things. But the social issues are in just the way we respond to what's around us. Are we responding consciously or are we in a compulsive state of reaction? This is a fundamental difference. The line between sanity and insanity is so thin.

Between health and ill-health also is so thin. If you keep crossing it for fun, one day you don't come back. That's when you complain. So you don't cross that. The society has to develop this discipline that has to create a culture, that there is no virtue in acting crazy. Right now, I don't see much of this. I'm, you know, like whatever, the movies and things that are happening, what I see across the world, particularly it started with Hollywood, I think, but now it's across the world that how do you handle your emotions?

If you get something angry, you take the pots in the kitchen and throw it at somebody or at the wall at least. Is this the way you handle your emotions? Is this the way you handle differences between people? Either you must punch them in the face or shoot them in the head. There is no other way to handle this. So this is a whole culture. And people are surprised why is there so much violence? Well, look at the games that children are playing.

They are shooting comic characters. Right from the age of 5, 6, they are to shooting comic characters and cartoon kind of images. When they turn 18, they will come off age. They would like to shoot something real. It's beginning to happen. They are telling me over 230 shootings have happened since the beginning of this year. That's more than one per day. So I'm saying, people are thinking it's the guns, it's the human beings.

Yes, for those human beings, guns are available. That's another issue. But the important thing is human being. If I have a kitchen knife, should I poke you? Everybody has a knife in their homes. Should we take it up and poke our neighbor? Why is such a thing coming? society is cultivating such a culture that violence is a part of our life, all right?

So, violence against yourself is mental illness. Well, you may be doing it in an uncontrollable way. Maybe it's not in your hands right now. At such a time, you may need some chemical support from outside. I'm not saying medicines are completely useless. No, they are useful. But many people, they would not be able to manage themselves or doctors would not be able to manage them without chemical inputs.

That is accepted. But for a whole lot of things, human beings, if they take responsibility for their health, and they develop simple tools as to how to manage my body, how to manage my chemistry. See, today everybody knows because of medical sciences that human experience of life as a basis, has a chemistry attached to it. There is a chemistry. There is a chemistry of joy. There is a chemistry of love.

There is a chemistry of blissfulness. There is a chemistry of stress, anxiety, misery. For everything, there is a chemical basis. So essentially, this is the most complex and sophisticated chemical factory on the planet, the human mechanism. Now, the question is, are you a great CEO or a lousy CEO? But our education systems, our social customs, have nothing about this. We are busy wanting to conquer the world without any sense in ourselves. But now the way we are empowered with science and technology,

if we do not take charge of ourselves, we are going to be the biggest disaster. Already we are an impending disaster, you know, both in terms of environment. And these days it's fashionable to talk about World War III. See, this is almost like World War I happened, World War II happened, so three must happen. number system this is, all right?

In two generations we have seen two world wars. Now the third generation must see the third world war. Otherwise, they will miss out all the action. How to make movies without a world war. But now the way we are empowered, if we go for such a foolish thing, we cannot say somebody is mentally ill. All of us are, absolutely. Sudguru, in a society that you described that has these mental challenges, these have this sickness, how do people start to change?

Can you tell us about inner engineering and how people can start to take steps towards being more well and that freedom that you talk about? See, when we talk about engineering, let's talk about just engineering. Engineering essentially means we create a machine. which does what we wanted to do. If you create a machine to do one thing, if it does another thing, that's not a well-engineered machine. It doesn't fail. It does what you want it to do.

That's a well-engineered machine. So, we are talking about this. This is the, in terms of design and its manifestation, it's the greatest piece of engineering on the planet. Do you agree with me? Yeah? This is... The question is, it is so complex and the management is from inside. If you don't manage it well, this piece of engineering can be a big mess for yourself and the rest of the world.

One human being can do terrible things to the entire humanity right now. We have that kind of capability. A thousand years ago, if one human being went a little off, he would do some damage to somebody next to him or to himself. But right now, one human being can cause massive damage to the entire world. world, the way we are empowered. So when this is the case, engineering yourself in a way that you want, you don't have to engineer yourself the way I want.

But fortunately, if you keep our things aside, whatever social and other influence aside, when I asked you that question, if there was a choice, is bliss the choice or misery the choice, everybody says it's blissfulness. Can I tell you my problems? My problem is this. This is the 40th year. 40 years ago, this happened. One afternoon I was sitting somewhere with my eyes open,

and suddenly I realized that tears of blissfulness are just flowing, and I'm just sitting there for hours without being with no sense of time. What I think is a few minutes is passing off as hours. Then I sit down and think what's happening to me. My logical mind tells me, maybe you're going off the rocker. I ask my friends, what do you think is happening to me? They say, come on, what did you pop? Did you pick up the mushrooms in the mountain?

Did you do this? Did you do that? Then I experimented with this and I realized, if I keep my hands off my psychological process, every cell in my body drips ecstasy. When I realized this, this is 40 years ago, I sat down and planned. that in two and a half years and at that time the human population was 5.6 billion, I sat down and made a plan,

in two and a half years time, I will make everybody blissful because who would not want it? Who will not want it? You and both of you guys said you want it, all right? But see, today people say, we have touched over 2 billion people, whatever. But that's not my idea of humanity. Eight billion people are there today.

Why is it? This is because the cycles of misery are such. Once you get into the trap, it keeps you going. And there's a whole society supporting that. People are telling you your misery is normal. Your misery is normal. Your ill health is not normal. Every cell in the body is designed to create health.

Why would they turn against us? We're doing something wrong, isn't it? Something fundamentally wrong. Is misery normal? No, every child is bursting with joy. If you just feed him enough, he's bursting with joy. What happened? What happened is we did all the wrong things.

First and foremost thing that's happened is this. We have something called as education. Education is an extruder machine, which is trying to turn out the same kind of nuts and bolts from every human being, and we're turning out more nuts than bolts. The important thing is one fundamental thing we missed out on is in education we are giving so much significance to memory

and no significance to human attention. See, when you're in school, you get good marks or whatever nonsense you read, if you can puke it on the examination paper, you get the marks. If you pay attention, you never got the marks. So this is a basic flaw in our, our way we are bringing up our children, the way we are raising whole generations of people.

All of us are victims of it one way or the other, all right? Because everywhere your memory was rewarded, your attention was not rewarded. Because in this universe, in this life, things open up only where you pay intense attention. Where there is no attention, nothing happens. The same old cycle happens. So I am saying right now misery is a certain cycle. It may be a genetic cycle, it may be a kormic cycle, or it may be an individually manufactured cycle. It doesn't matter how.

But essentially, it's a cycle. If you want to break any cycle, you need a very intense form of attention. So, inner engineering, first aspect of it is learning to pay attention to yourself. When I say yourself, not your persona, not your thoughts, not your emotions, not like that. To the life that you are. See, first we are life. Then we have thoughts, emotions, our psychological dramas, and then how we manifest that in the world, many, many things, all right?

But fundamentally, we are life. Everything else is secondary. But there is no attention to that life at all. Our personalities, our psychological drama, has completely drowned the life that we are. Essentially, life is naturally exuberant and alive and joyful. This is the nature of everything, not just human life. But instead of being alive with life, we have become such a big psychological drama. Now, we don't know how to direct the drama.

That is illness, isn't it? If you could direct your drama the way you want, then you would create a joyful drama for yourself. Or something that you enjoy. If you enjoy misery, it's fine with me. But you will do something that is good for you. But right now the drama itself is going out of control because drama has become bigger than the life that you are. This needs to change.

Means you need to engineer yourself in its right perspective because this is how life is happening. Just because we are given a certain intellectual capability, unfortunately, instead of using it to our benefit, we are making it such a big problem. Every problem that we have created on the planet, whether it's environmental, or political, or wars and stuff and discriminations, everything has come from human mind, isn't it? What a fantastic instrument. Look at the way you're using it.

This has happened because mind has become the master. You should be the master of your mind. Then you will use it the way you want. Right now, the psychological process is a cycle of what information and data you have gathered from that there is a cycle. That cycle is. is ruling you. That cycle is dominating you. If it's happening little well for you, you think it's great. The moment it turns into a tornado, then you are sick. That is not the point. The important thing is

you are not above it. You are beneath it. That is the problem. I mean, there's so much to unpack. One of the things that really comes out is this idea that we've normalized an illusion if the core nature of the human existence is to exude bliss, to be able to feel, at a very high level, then most of the population believes that that's not true. So they're in an illusion. They're not free. They don't have the capability, or they have the capability, but they don't have the understanding that there can be another way.

So part of the first step is to say, wait a second, the struggle that one finds themselves in, there is an alternative. You know, sometimes we can't start to change until we know there is a change that's possible. See, instead of being a human being, we are still being human creatures. This is the problem. We have not established our way of being. When I say establishing our way of being, it is not that we have to think up something, how to be. I must be blissful.

This is not an idea or a philosophy. There is enough scientific evidence to show only when you're in a pleasant state of experience, your body and your mind will function at its best. There's no question about it. And if you have to be successful in anything that you're doing, your body and your mind should function at its best, only then you're successful. Now, what is this pleasantness of experience? See, if your body becomes pleasant, we call this help.

If it becomes very pleasant, we call it pleasure. If your mind becomes pleasant, we call this peace. If it becomes very pleasant, we call it joy. If your emotions become pleasant, we call this love. If it becomes very pleasant, we call it compassion. If your very life and it is become pleasant, we call this bliss. If it becomes very pleasant, we call it ecstasy. If your surroundings become pleasant, we call this success.

Only in creating pleasantness in your surroundings, you need the cooperation and capability, to create that. But to make body pleasant, mind pleasant, emotion pleasant, energy is pleasant is 100% your business. Creating pleasantness in the surroundings. You need the cooperation of the people and the forces around you. Otherwise, it will not happen.

But to make body, mind, emotion and energy is pleasant, it's totally our business. This is what inner engineering is about. Tools, not philosophy, not technology, not. teaching, not ideology, not belief system, tools to make it happen. As human beings, we have become the most dominant species, not because we are the strongest, because of our ability to use tools, isn't it? So we are talking about subjective tools.

Without a tool, suppose whatever furniture you're sitting on, if I ask you to unscrew that with your hands, you may lose all the ten nails and it won't come. If you put your teeth to it, you may lose some of them, it won't come out. But if I just give you a screwdriver, in a minute you'll take it out. That is the power of the tool. So, inner engineering is not a philosophy, not an ideology, not a teaching, not a new religion. It is a tool. Just learn to use it.

This has been fascinating. I mean, I have a million other questions, but can I ask you one final question before we say goodbye? Yes. I'm curious, what brings you joy? Boy, something should bring you joy. Well, I'm curious because I think a lot of people, you know, see your presence and, you know, experience your energy. And, you know, you have something that I want, that Jonathan wants. You know, there's something very attractive about the way you have, you know, composed yourself and your thought and these tools.

But I am curious, sort of on a personal level, what brings you joy? Like, what do you like to eat? What music do you like? What's joyful for you? No, my joy doesn't depend on what I eat. Now I'm in America. So obviously, I'm not eating what I want. So, see, this is where the problem is.

we always think something brings us joy. See, when you are a five-year-old girl, you are simply bubbly, isn't it? What happened to that? When you're five, if you were so bubbly, by the time you're 40, you should be ecstatic. In natural process of growth, I'm saying. But just the reverse happens simply because

there is no separation between what is you and what you gather. When I say what you gather, one thing is you gather this body. You are not born like this. Slowly you gather this body. And then you gather the impressions of the mind. And then you gather people and things around you, relationships, wealth, money, whatever else. What you gather must serve you well. But unfortunately, what you gather, you carry it on your head, the burden of it.

It's like this. Someone who was talking about this. So I painted some bricks in gold color and ten bricks. So, see, this is gold bricks. You carry it because this person was always somebody else is wearing one kilogram or two kilograms of jewelry. And they were struggling. So I said, here I'm giving you gold bricks. They were not gold.

I painted them gold. And put it on your head and work all the time. Enjoy it. So whether they're just mud bricks or gold bricks, the weight is same and the trouble is same. your neck will break after some time. So the problem is what we carry, we don't understand that we need to carry it with a little distance. We carry it as ourselves.

See, this body, what was soil became food? What was food became your flesh and bone? But now, in your experience, it makes you feel this is you. What you gather can be yours. Can never be you. Isn't it so? What you gather can belong to you, can be yours, but it can never ever be you.

So your physiological process and psychological process, if you learn to carry it with little distance, you don't have to bring joy in your life. You'll be bursting with it all the time. I'm not eating the food that I want to, but I'm still joyful. Well, thank you, Sadir. You brought me and Jonathan, tremendous joy getting to hear your wisdom. And it's really such an honor to speak with you. Jonathan, anything else you want to say?

It's so nice to speak with you. We look forward to being in person and having a longer conversation one day. Thank you. I'm in L.A. sometime this next month. Hope to catch it. Let's do it. We would love that. Thank you so much.

Thank you. No one's got it. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Myambialics Breakdown. If you like what you hear, rate and review and follow us at Biolic Breakdown. Tell us your favorite parts of the episode from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's Myambialyx Breakdown. She's going to break it down for you.

She's got a neuroscience Ph.D. or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break down.