same time shambu Raja left and went to the Mughal at the same time uh Akbar left and came to the marathas you see is a similar times you know and then the story goes there it's a very interesting story later so I find these two princesses had lot income common the one thing I've got to know after these conversations with you is that uh Hindus and Muslims are on both sides of the battle like it wasn't like all the Muslims were on one side and all the Hindus were on one side it was just mixed at that time no but in what has happened in uh in the Mughal regime or the when the Islam Islamic Invaders invaded us and we had we could have fought them uh like they say very few British ruled us and we if we would have spat each of the India Hindu would have spat the britishers would have uh gone in a flood they would have disappeared in the flood of that spit so we were so


the flood of that spit so we were so powerful but we were not United so they they came and ruled us but here according to the uh their politics politics and their policies uh Hindus should walk with their head down there were many rules for Hindus they cannot ride a horse they cannot sit on an elephant in certain areas they uh they will have to pay heavy taxes 60 70 percent of their income if you convert then you only pay say 10 to 15 percent of your in taxes so and the schools were closed by aurangzeb later on no Hindu schools should run temples were broken and then at Giza attacks humiliated them further but my point was that there was Hindus even on the Mughal side and there were Muslims even on the Hindus of course they are rashford Kings in the Mughal side right but but what about the maratha side not many not many Muslims not many Muslims not many Muslims they've had few there were few especially in the Navy


had few there were few especially in the Navy they were few I can't say no but in in shivray's regime in his little kingdom there was no discrimination between Hindu and Muslim just because you are a Muslim uh you will get less paid it was not like that it was equal you know but here in the Islamic Empires and the sultanates uh automatically especially in the Empire the Mughal Empire uh the the Hindus had to pay very heavy duty taxes you know you know and then if they did not pay the taxes if they failed listen to this carefully if they fail to pay the taxes the mansab dots were free to take away their women and children and sell in the slave trade it was very rampant what was the slave trade at that point like who did the uh no they could sell them to household they will sell them to slave Traders they can be sent to other countries or months would keep the women for themselves the boys might have made eunuchs by very


the boys might have made eunuchs by very crude operation and they were sold for the protection of the harems in the even the months of that said harems you know so the slave trade for it flourished this is the there was a there is a there is a Dutch traveler I think Francoise pilset he arrived in India in 1618. of course he did not know Persian but whatever he observed he has written down in a book called jahangir's India he has seen that women and children have been sold taken away by the mansabdasan suit for not cheesy attacks I'm talking about also that um tax you know and it was happening from our advert's time and even before him that was never demolished okay and even when they say Akbar demolished Gizzy attacks it was not completely gone it was happening and those mansardars who did it were kind of not punished they were not punished so imagine what life was there and then when shivray took over one fort after another


and then when shivray took over one fort after another and he they even what they did shivrai did he also went into konkan and established see he is the only person I feel I don't know in history now who did not have a cost his jagir or his little swaraj when he said it did not have a coastal line but he dreamed of Navy what is the basic requirement for a Navy a coast that itself he did not have so he had to acquire the coast who the coast the West Coast like konkan uh the strip narrow strip that goes from Mumbai till GOA that was majorly controlled by adilshai so what he did in this peace period after he came back and escaped from Agra he tried to establish his rule in konkan okay he he knew his limitations what is the most important uh quality of a Statesman that the state Statesman must know his or her limitations how much they can push he knew shivrai knew that he does not have enough


shivrai knew that he does not have enough strength because he was left now afterwards he took over other forts also which were lost in purandar peace treaty he knew that he cannot push on the Eastern side because when he pushes on the Eastern or Northern side Northern side of his swaraj he will face the Mughal Eastern side of his swaraj he will face and where he will have to fight pitched battles against their heavy duty Cavalry and their heavy duty Cavalry is very strong on the planes but that was not the case in konkan is a very rough land you know there are there are straight Rock faces and then in konkan itself hundreds and hundreds of rivers come from the mountains and join the sea so that entire area is very difficult to move so he concentrated on konkan he had to get the coastal part he had to acquire ports he had to start building sea forts it is not just building ships where will he anchor his ships what happened so


where will he anchor his ships what happened so he started buildings he had already finished building because see these another this sindhudurg is answer to siddhis who were holed up in janjira so the janjira thought they had made it very strong two thousand siddhis uh the absolute mercenaries and Pirates were holed up in that uh janjira Fort these are of African origins yes Abyssinian origin are these the same as these we find in Gujarat today mostly yes they're the same see these are actually sir these are from the uh from the African countries gone so you want to know a little story about this it is very interesting sure so this story is goes like this hundreds of year 100 or 200 years ago before this happened this uh there was Kohli community on this janjira fort it was a small wooden foot so these siddhis had come in the ship okay and then what they did they hid in the barrels of liquor and then a few cities came forward and


of liquor and then a few cities came forward and befriended they got friends with kohli's and they drank and they danced all through the night and when the kohlis were drunk all the siddhis came out like a trojan horse they came after came out from the drums and killed the entire Kohli community and they acquired that janjira and then they built it that I think 30 bastians and so many Cannon mounted on the Bastion it's like a real real huge fort have you been to the fort in Savory it's in Mumbai no even that's a City Ford yeah yeah it's a smart smaller City it's near where I grew up Wadala really and when you store it's it's like this black stone but we actually shot a bunch of videos there my videographers used to refuse to stay there after dark because it was just so pretty creepy I mean any Fort is creepy right it's already seen so Much Death any food in all of it there's a very dark history


food in all of it there's a very dark history you know so like no matter what fort it is it has seen a lot of death yes it has seen would you argue that tree it's probably it's almost like yes it is every Fort has its uh tragic story and a happy story and a win story and the lost story but even the happy story has followed death but first death has come in order to become a happy story see that is the lie that's life you know yeah um anyway I'm going sorry so so this um so shivray has started building this this first Acquired and he started ship building activities and then uh he started he had taken over the Mughal forts now it was time to show that I am I have arrived so what does uh he was not officially a king he was still referred as a bhumayya jagirdar by aurangzeb and the likes of sharks this is the sultanates sultanate Kings so shivra wanted to show that I have arrived okay a


wanted to show that I have arrived okay a Hindu king has arrived well how what does he do he plants a coronation in it was it happened in 1974. so where does he have he has now shifted from Rajkot to Fort righgood why raigad it is at the edge of jawli a value of jowli wherefore pratapgarh is also situated in uh jawli Valley which was taken taken over by shivray from the murids which we had discussed so he uh he he wants to make it Grand and no Hindu king had recently coronated himself so they had to invent the rituals and rights of the coronation they had to search for the shlokas and there was a there was a Brahmin called gagabat who was shivray's family they had family connections and he is was from Maharashtra but he has settled in Varanasi Akashi so he comes there he invents all the rituals he studies the old scriptures and he creates a ceremony and there


old scriptures and he creates a ceremony and there see there are emblems of power that only it was a prerogative of a Bacha Mughal Bacha to use what are the emblems of power uh like a fish head a small fish head which means uh the weak that need to be protected a big fish head with teeth that is the symbol of Invaders then there are many like swastika the symbol of swastika that is which is actually a blueprint of a fort so there are many emblems and no shahad the sultanate the shahas could not use those emblems this with the prerogative of aurangzeb but shivray used those emblems created those emblems and used them uh in his coronation ceremony okay this entire thing is written by Henry oxendine actually my book starts from Henry oxendine who was a British officer based in Mumbai then so he was invited for the coronation They Carried the presents then they gave it to raigad then they went to top and then they stayed


then they went to top and then they stayed there right it is a huge it has a huge kilometers long uh flat table table on the mountain of riding what was happening in Mumbai at that time Mumbai the British were ruling Mumbai was the Bastion of the English people the a political so-called they had fortresses built and they were trading okay they were also helping siddhis now what had happened on the coastal there is dhanda rajapuri that area in konkan all the marathas were you know their very vigil in that area so there is I think a kilometer of distance between um the fort of janjira and the coast Mainland what you can call so they could not anchor their ships uh in near the mainland because of the marathas the siddhis could not do that so they had forced literally forced the British that they will come to Mumbai and park their boats there and the British had allowed it for some reason otherwise they actually see this would have troubled them also


they actually see this would have troubled them also but what these siddhis used to do they used to Anchor their ships near Mumbai and come to the mainland and Trouble the marathas and take their women and children for slave trade take their produce so this was becoming a big problem in the konkan area for shivray so this is one and even Mughal where depending on the siddhis and the Portuguese because there the ships sailing to Makkah were guarded by the siddhis and given by the Portuguese are given by the siddhis so they were kind of very kind and nice to these cities they had if they take the women and children from the coast what can we do that was there the attitude okay so so aurangzeb was like now when this coronation ceremony happened it must have hit aurangzeb really really hard really really hard so it is uh that time he started demolition of the temples you know in full swing and he also thought of reinstating GG attacks which was


he also thought of reinstating GG attacks which was canceled by Akbar the emperor Akbar I'm not talking about his son Akbar okay so shivrai knew that if um and there was and there were lot of liberal Muslims also were killed by aurangzeb he just couldn't stand them there was a guy called nanga fakir who had hailed from Armenia he was a Jew a new Hebrew very well his scholar of Hebrew he had converted a Bible Hebrew Bible into Farsi then he had turned into Sufi um then he wanted to convert he wanted to study Hinduism and he was studying upanishads but he never used to wear any clothes and he wanted he said that Islam must be reformed it must be liberated from its shackles and thousands and thousands of liberals were following him in that but Aaron Zeb could not stand him he caught this samrat his name his uh I think dargah is still there's some very old Delhi he was caught bought to


some very old Delhi he was caught bought to the darabar and he was asked why do you say only half the Kalma why don't you say the full Kalma that says uh you know Muhammad is the last by Gambar this is not my perception of Islam this is not my theory of Islam it is what samrat said samrat said that nobody can be the last by Gambar the the religion needs to evolve and I may be the last spring I am the scholar of Islamic scriptures I have read Run 100 times so I can reform it every religion needs to change with the changing world so our example asked him why did you then he did not know what to say aurangzeb so he went into another line he said you kissed and hugged your disciple Hindu disciple in public what was that relationship do you know what he was implying and on the basis of that relationship perception of aurangzeb or convenience of other mullahs samrat was hanged till death he accused


samrat was hanged till death he accused him of homosexuality yes what was the case for homosexuality it's absolutely no no in those days but of course what was happening in the harems what was happening with the eunuchs little boys we do not know but openly this was a big No-No okay openly it's it's a its entire thing is based on hypocrisy entire you know how some eunuch boys were used as sex slaves also one of the mansabdas said 15 000 Europe Boys in his harem and what were they used for I don't know I yeah I can just guess you know so this samrat so shivrai knew if and when aurangzeb descends in South then uh we will have to play pay heavy taxes my right will die my people will die and it's going to be a life uh worth committing suicide I mean it's not even the battles just waking up every day knowing that there's some new issue that's happened I was telling my family that


that's happened I was telling my family that you know even just running business is So Glamorous when you think about it before you started and then every day there's a mental health battle if you're running a business correct and here we are talking about a business we're talking about an Empire empire yeah where there is death involved there's torture involved there are very brutal enemies there are multiple different enemies who've banded together and you have to ensure that your people are happy and the economy is growing so it must end up in an easy life and somewhere it has to have taken a toll yes and also I will you know the my entire book is based on few lines which I have written myself it is like this now we say ahinsa I don't believe in that because this poem goes like this written by me when peace demands suffering and shame War Remains the only option that is most Humane you know you have to fight to keep your people uh safe


you have to fight to keep your people uh safe and at peace what is said about his demise what happened that time it is written in uh Dr kamla gokhile's book also what has happened now imagine and I am also a woman so I understand that history part I think better than men may because I'm a mother yeah I want my son uh to be at the center of power I don't want my my son of my others she would raise other wife okay so what people say there is a conspiracy now look shivray comes to uh raigad he is all that I'm campaigning from some campaign he comes and he falls in so now the situation is like this shivra is a try good he's ill and almost dying he doesn't know he's dying why how much will nobody knows you know that you are going to just die after a short illness so the Raj vaidya and all are invited that time on that uh their P the the ministers have already arrived one by


P the the ministers have already arrived one by one there is this who is a tax collector revenue Minister then there is uh the the man who impersonated shivray and saved his life in at Agra then there is but I feel she must have come to raigad that time I'm not sure okay they were all there now shivra is sick and we do not know what conversation happened between there we don't know but Baker's right they write that they he said this he said that and it is it sounds very exaggerated anybody who is so ill cannot talk such long paragraphs and paragraphs you see according to me and he according to the English correspondence he vomited blood okay so we do not know what this is what that pepticals are burst or we have no idea but there was gallstone problem we no we don't know anything but I fight so he just dies where now the situation is look uh shambu Raja is at panala okay he's he's there vanala he's come back


okay he's he's there vanala he's come back from the Mughal and he's at panala here there is there are his two queens basically even another queen is also there but what she was this Aqua by sahib Washi at jinji I'm not sure because one of her daughters were at Gingy so I'm not sure whose Queen was she this shivrai has four queens or five queens that came alive okay but main main queens were soirara Rani sahib and those were there at the Fort why don't we hear about the other children that children had the only boys no that time importance of boys had a boy that's why she got she is so important in that she's already dead is a queen consort during the coronation so she is very important so the situation is like this then who now the what the ministers many people say that was completely innocent and was twisted by the ministers ministers and um Balaji auchi the script uh the the ones who write all the letters of


uh the the ones who write all the letters of shivray and then morupan pingle they um very innocent and she the entire thing was twisted by the ministers but according to uh research books my research based on uh these books you know soira Rani was also involved and she very much wanted her son to become the next [Music] um so what does they they do what do they do they close all the gates she orders the closure of all the gates incoming and outgoing crowd from Reiger so that the the news of raja's death does not travel outside and does not reach samaji's ears now what day what day what they plan is to quickly do not manchaka Rohan not rajabishek manchaka Rohan is little different the the sihasan or the throne cannot be kept empty after a long time after the king is dead sir king is dead and long live the king immediately somebody has to sit on that um Throne so that is known as manchakarone it's not a


that is known as manchakarone it's not a full-fledged coronation so quickly that coronation has to take place and I feel I feel that the the ministers and soira Rani Sab both were equally responsible see what would have happened these people were not some cunning planning useless guides they were the two wheels of the uh of the swaraj which uh shivrai created they were great men okay and if uh if uh anaji datto had not started a new way of collecting Revenue they could not have every full moon day salaries of 40 000 cavalrymen forty thousand infantrymen um the the fourth shibandhi the the the fourth defense then civil servants had to be paid that that Sarah had to be collected and very wisely collected and no Force should be should have a shivra never wanted a force to be applied on the farmers or the cultivators so all this was managed by anaji dattu okay and Moroccan pingle was not just he they were all Warriors along with


was not just he they were all Warriors along with um I think I told kondaji another Morata so what happened so the thing is um the thing is who is supposed to be soira rani's brother he is God he also he gets the wind of what's happening around because he had to be told he controls the Army you know but what he sees there is the praja which is also written in the reference book The praja praja is the subjects are are extremely attached to shambhuraje they not only he resembles the king at the shivraj shivray but he also is very good to them is very good to them so they all are for then the last moment how he changes colors how he rescues and how shambhu Raja is made the next chatrapati is another story for the final part of this podcast I have to take you back to aurangzeb yeah because I I feel like we did a Trilogy the last name was actually a four-part series yeah and this is the


was actually a four-part series yeah and this is the fourth one just if you could go brief outline of how did he die and what happened no he died a very broken man in the Deccan in in 1707 and what where are we now we are in uh 1680. now we are in 1680. our exam died in 1707 27 years later 27 years of a thrilling um war and he was older than shivrai the so-called Emperor because the entire Google system had broken down he spent about that many years he came to the Deccan in 88 81-82 but before that he was in Rajasthan which is also very interesting that story you have to say I have to tell you that story how he would try to drink his own son Akbar but when it comes to South 27 years he remains there with the only dream of taking over shivra swaraj and he fails he takes over bijapur he takes over and adilshai but he fails to take over the maratha because the system was that strong


take over the maratha because the system was that strong no that system wasn't that strong because there was a fire of Vengeance in the hearts of the marathas after the tragic and brutal death of sambhuraji he was tortured yeah so that is that will come you know the next okay um okay is there anything else you'd like to highlight about his death's death I I I always had this question ever since I was growing up and from the first time I heard of this story what exactly happened to the successors was very disheartened heart he he gonna take over the maratha kingdom see you can take over the Forts and then he was used to lose them ever so quickly because Rani tarabai the doctor in law of shivray was uh excellent Warrior she saw to it that she jumped from foot to foot and controlled the uh Cavalry and maratha cavalryan infantry that was her after her husband's death Ram Raja she is the one who really made the Mughal


she is the one who really made the Mughal run for their money and he died in the camp in ahmednagar where I was born in the camp uh Mughal Camp a frustrated old man whom people were making fun of from behind because see all his mansadar and his warriors were also kept away from home 27 years can you imagine 27 years away from your home and you cannot see any winning this thing and this senile old man is trying to you know push them to the war hmm so he had a very pathetic death he actually I would like to end this episode with one of aurangzeb's poems sure now we are talking about his death huh life is a twinkle a breath now it was life now it is death he wrote this himself that's how he looks at his own life a twinkle a twinkle and he wrote it was only held you know it what he did all his life will Allah forgive him he doesn't know he had guilt yes full of


he doesn't know he had guilt yes full of guilt when he died full of guilt and he's always Sons stunned they started war of succession before when he was on his deathbed who won it who was sambhaji raji's friend not friend you won't call it but they kind of because because they they must have met at Aurangabad and he must have treated shambu Raja with respect otherwise went there two three times what was his story as an emperor modems he because he inherited a very attacked Kingdom he was a very weak Emperor you know later on the after aurangzeb there was no strong Emperor later on sort of like the maratha Empire started growing after that yes and they started taking back uh parts of the territory uh sort of not now it took another 30 40 years for uh you know then the peshwas came in the picture so all that is another story yeah what about the Sikh Empire at this time I know about this period period sure what happened later


know about this period period sure what happened later uh uh I'm not sure so sure but who had bundelkhand he had come to meet shivray and he wanted to fight against aurangzeb and he wanted to join Shiva so shivra said you fight from your land and little kingdom was again reinstated by this chatra saal Buddha in uh with the guidance of shivray so people were Rising against this Islamic torture you know that time um you know I would have asked you that how do you look at the long-term impact of shivran not just the maratha Empire but on the history of India in general as far as I'm concerned I'm a free woman I can do what I want I can learn go to any college I can study and I can travel to any City in this part of the world and I will not be a second wife to anybody I would rather stay single okay as far as I'm concerned I'm a free woman freedom I got that freedom is thanks to


woman freedom I got that freedom is thanks to shirai ma'am thank you I thought that we have ended our trilogy but clearly not this was a very impactful fourth one so thank you so that was the episode for today I hope you enjoyed it let us know what other aspects of History you'd like to learn from TRS we intend on covering the Gupta Empire the Chola Empire in future series is just like this until then guys remember to follow us on Spotify every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the World download level super mind as well ranveer and the team will be back soon bringing another Stellar episode of TRS just for you [Music]


today the biggest complaint that women have about men is he's not in touch with his emotions he can't express how he feels he can't tell me what he's going through all over the world all over the world all over the world and if you look at men in particular I think men struggle to open up to other men as well right how many of us could walk up to another man in our life and say you know what bro I was just crying last night right without all your friends laughing or or making fun of you I was speaking to so many mothers this week and they were always telling me how it's hard to express as a mum how annoying it is to be a mom like kids are so hard there's so much Challenge and difficulty in having a child and raising a child and sleepless nights and exhaustion and letting go of your passion and so many things that come with it but so many women are telling me they're saying I can't open up about this


me they're saying I can't open up about this to another woman because then she may judge me that I'm a bad mom all of us have the same 24 hours in the day but I feel like if you choose to go about your day with high frequency activities like meditation like learning like diving people into spiritualism I personally feel the quality of your life improves set the example for worldwide audiences when it comes to high frequency activities and high frequency thoughts this is a high frequency conversation that I hope will help you turn your life into being slightly more high frequency than it already is Jay is at a stage in life where he has a lot to give back to the world he's achieved extreme success in a very short amount of time and at this point in his life my gauge is that he's trying to dive even deeper into spirituality that was my attempt with this conversation I hope you enjoy this beer biceps and Jay Shetty collaboration we made it with all our hearts and I


we made it with all our hearts and I asked him a lot of my own genuine questions as I'm about to turn 30 in about six months time his new book eight rules of Love is now live we link it down below make sure you go buy it make sure you go read it to improve your life and turn it into being more high frequency and of course our meditation app level Superman is also live we'll link that as well down below this is Jay Shetty on the runway show for more episodes like this make sure you follow us on Spotify every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world because TRS is a Spotify exclusive this is Jay Shetty on TRS once again all right [Music] man this is the first time we're meeting in person and uh congrats on all your success it's been incredible to watch and I'm grateful to be back on your platform because what you've been doing is amazing so like congrats man grateful to be talking


so like congrats man grateful to be talking to you you've taught an entire generation a lot of things about life and I'm talking about a worldwide generation but India's proud of you bro thank you man that means means the world to me I'm grateful to India I wouldn't be anywhere without India so I'm I feel the same level of love and respect back for everyone here because everything I'm teaching is inspired from here how does it feel being back it's amazing I was just saying to you this is the first time I'm in India from a professional standpoint I always come for personal reasons I come for Spiritual Retreats spiritual wisdom spiritual guidance but this is the first time that I'm actually on here as part of my book media tour and it always feels amazing I mean we just looked down just thought always feels like home but you you also come here for your own spiritual reason yes yes so uh what do you end up doing like what do you do in


you end up doing like what do you do in those spiritual Retreats usually I like going to the Eco Village in palgar Vada and I like just switching off I literally won't be on my phone I'll completely unplug and I like to just go back to living in a meditative monk-like way in the way that I used to and to be able to just wake up at 4am every day meditate again for many hours reflect Journal introspect I find that getting to do that for two to three weeks a year is such a great reset I find that naturally because of our careers we're always on our phones and we're always plugged in and that's great and that's fantastic but I think once a year it's so powerful to just completely switch off so I won't reply to any emails I won't check my text messages we will have pre-prepared our content in advance so that people are still served and the communities taken care of but I don't have to worry about any of that


I don't have to worry about any of that and so that's what I usually do this time I'm not doing that this time I'm here with you I'm uh talking about my book in so many places and so yeah this time I won't be doing that here okay yeah what do you miss about that face specifically I I don't know if I miss it I feel like it was a special time in my life and I'm really grateful that I made that commitment it's almost like how I see University like people always like I miss like in University things are like this I'm like I don't really miss anything I'm just grateful for those experiences and and I love my life right now I love where life has taken me and so I'm very grateful for where I am now but it's refreshing to be back in arenas where no one really cares about anything you're doing apart from who you are becoming and who you're developing yourself as so I think being unplugged and switching off is


so I think being unplugged and switching off is a beautiful thing to reconnect to okay uh I remember the last time I asked you if you ever feel that life gets difficult with all the wisdom that you have yeah yeah I have the question for you once again because it's like it's been two years since then yeah what's the last two three years been like for Jay Shetty yeah while while you're encompassing all of this wisdom in the new book and everything I think I think life being difficult is what helps you make good content right like it's it's the challenge it's the stress it's the pressure like you look at your favorite musicians their best songs come from pain or heartbreak or some sort of challenge in their personal life I think it's very hard to create from a place of no stress and no Challenge and the truth is that everyone no matter where they are is you know this like we both know lots of successful people we know lots of people who are starting out we know lots of


of people who are starting out we know lots of people are in the middle of their Journey everyone's got their own stress or their own pressure so the last few years for me I mean when Think like a monk came out that was a real moment for me where I saw the love around the world for the work that I was doing it almost felt like and it almost felt like doing a book was different from doing the video and the podcast it was just a different depth that came from it which was really special and at the same time I think the challenge of the last few years I mean I'm always challenged because wisdom doesn't this is how I like to think about it that wisdom doesn't mean you have no problems it just means you know how to solve them quicker and so I think a lot of people who may spend a week or a month experiencing anxiety wisdom can limit that time to one hour or one day and so rather than spending days and weeks and months and years where


than spending days and weeks and months and years where you're in your head and all the negative thoughts are repeating themselves you're able to pull back and figure out where you want to move in the next two to three days and so I don't think wisdom takes away anxiety I think if we're waiting for a day where we never feel anxiety or we never feel stress or we never feel pressure that day will never come because those feelings and emotions will always naturally arise but all we can do is know how to take action on them and I've also found that the more I do whether it's something more scaled or something more scary or something more big that's where the anxiety comes which is great that every time I'm out of my comfort zone I naturally feel anxiety I naturally feel stressed I feel an imposter syndrome when I do something bigger and greater but it's a good thing I've learned to realize it's a good thing like you've built a positive relationship with anxiety correct


like you've built a positive relationship with anxiety correct okay correct um I know this is like a slightly upfront question yeah but therapy and psychology are some things I've been getting into on the show amazing uh and I also feel like when I speak to a lot of therapists they say meditation is great and a lot of them vouch for it and wisdom from cultural text is great and that's what my life has been about till this point but now I've been introduced to therapy and I saw that it helped I feel like all three work together yes have you ever had an experience with therapy yes yeah absolutely I'd like to ask you what kind of problems do you have to bring up in therapy is it is it stuff that you're not able to speak online is it Fame related because that was my problem like I felt like Fame was isolating me too much from everyone else I'd like to know what it was yeah absolutely I well so there's a few things I I describe as


well so there's a few things I I describe as and and I agree with you that different things uh you need different tools for different challenges right and I look at therapy as helping you unravel the past and coaching helps you build a future so I'm a coach myself and I work in coaching and everyone that I coach has a therapist as well so I recommend therapy as part of a joint program to my coaching practice even if you're very spiritual and even if you're very spiritual even if you're meditating whatever you're doing you need to unravel your past and heal your past and you need to build your future so therapy and coaching are a must regardless of how spiritual you are or how meditative you are I therapy and I'm being very honest with you here I'm not holding anything back at all but therapy has been something that I've almost felt guilty sometimes that I feel I didn't need so I went to therapy to basically ask is there something wrong with me and I


basically ask is there something wrong with me and I don't even know it like almost to check a blind spot if that makes sense like a checkup yeah yeah like a full body checkup where I'm like I don't think I need it but that shouldn't mean I shouldn't go because a lot of us we can trick ourselves and I always know this trick of the Mind the Mind always makes you feel oh I don't need that that's for people who need it like and a lot of us have this mindset so whenever I feel that I'd say to myself no no then that means I have to go right if I think I'm immune to something I should go so I went to therapy for that reason to say look I had some challenges in my childhood I this this I feel pretty good about it but maybe I haven't unraveled it deeply enough maybe I haven't looked at it and so that's why I went to therapy because I don't want a blind spot in my life I


I don't want a blind spot in my life I don't want an area in my life that's going to trip me up in 10 years time because I didn't bring it up now and I think I've done a lot of self therapy over the years which has helped me be in that position like for example I found that a lot of the people this I discovered through my own therapy that a lot of the people that loved me when I was younger they loved me but then they made me feel guilty for not loving them back so they would give me a lot of love but then they'd make me feel guilty or shame because I wasn't loving them back enough and I saw that I was perpetuating this pattern in my life I was loving my wife I was loving other people but then I would make them feel guilty for not loving me back to the same amount and so I started to realize these patterns very early on and I think that's what's so amazing about therapy


and I think that's what's so amazing about therapy is that you learn these patterns of your past that you're repeating or you learn patterns of the past that you're avoiding and now you can choose wait a minute do I want to repeat that pattern or do I want to avoid that pattern and so I think for me it's been really healthy to bring all these unhealthy patterns to the top so that I can actually make a genuine choice to say do I want to be that person or do I not does that make sense yeah no it does yeah I think you also absorb some stuff from people in your past and then throw it onto you that's what I'm saying that's what you've got to remove yeah that's what therapy does for me therapy for me helps me figure out what am I carrying from from the past that is ruining my future because we're all carrying things from the past that are ruining the perfect relationship that are ruining the perfect job opportunity that are ruining the perfect startup idea


job opportunity that are ruining the perfect startup idea because you're carrying some mindset or baggage from your past ah now let's go very specific and speak about men's mental health yes that's another topic that my therapist has told me to speak about online and I thought you're the perfect other than that whole I know in India we have a phrase which goes which means men don't feel pain yeah and it's actually a phrase that applies to the rest of the world and most of the world's cultures as well and you have like a lot of uh uh masculine Brands masculine influencers really growing abroad where does this narrative on men's therapy and men's mental health stand I feel a lot of guys need it yeah a lot of guys don't speak about it but other than this uh whole thing about what guys should cry sometimes do you have anything to say about men's mental health and what you've learned over the course of podcasting yes I feel I've learned a lot through


podcasting yes I feel I've learned a lot through talking to other men uh on these conversations yeah and I'm so glad you've raised it as well because I think that what's really interesting about men's Mental Health is we've always Associated crying or feelings or emotions as weakness so where I grew up in London the our equivalent phrase is you know men don't cry or man up and you'd say that to a girl and a guy you'd say man up or you'd say you know stop being uh a big girl's blouse like you know stop acting like that like that would be a statement to to tell men to stop acting like a girl right like that idea stop acting like a girl and that's unhealthy in and of itself because not only are you telling men that they should man up you're now saying women are weak as well so you kind of perpetuating these two cycles I think that a lot of men need therapy for sure because most of them were told they could never express


because most of them were told they could never express their emotions today the biggest complaint that women have about men is he's not in touch with his emotions he can't express how he feels he can't tell me what he's going through all over the world all over the world all over the world and if you look at men in particular I think men struggle to open up to other men as well right how many of us could walk up to another man in our life and say you know what bro I was just crying last night right without all your friends laughing or or making fun of you or something and I've literally been talking to one of my friends he's going through something really tough and it's the first time in his life that he's been crying to me like genuinely openly and he's going through something really tough in his personal life that I won't share but he's he's actually crying and opening up to so many of us and we're all supporting him but even


of us and we're all supporting him but even if you ask him he would have said men shouldn't cry right and it's almost like we all go through something in life at some point that breaks us down that humbles us and why wait till that point to allow yourself to cry and I think crying's as natural as Laughing if someone tells a joke you naturally laugh you don't hold back your love and if someone says something that hurts you you naturally cry you don't hold back that tear and so I don't think we should hold back crying as much as we hold we don't hold back laughing but the biggest challenge that I've seen when it comes to men's Mental Health is I think this stoic idea that you can just be equipoised and Equanimity means no reaction no feelings we also I think as men and I I think this side is also important I think men feel the pressure to be that way because they think that's what women are attracted to as well


think that's what women are attracted to as well I think men feel a pressure that if I appear strong and if I appear powerful and if I appear robust then women will be more attracted to me or then I appear more attractive to everyone else as well and more powerful and so it's also a societal thing where we've made it that men are more attractive when they're powerful I think there's a responsibility associated with not crying yes like when you're told not to cry also expected to be responsible for providing yes yes exactly it's linked to that exactly yeah um but I feel if guys all over the world don't fix it the next generation is going to Bear the brand in the same way that our generation both a brand because we didn't unlearn it from our dads what do you think the dad's generation uh had going for them and they were in their late 20s and early 30s because I think this is the phase where as a guy you really figure things yeah you


where as a guy you really figure things yeah you figure life beyond your career yeah yeah start figuring relationships you start figuring like mental health yeah uh and there's a lot of changes that should happen now because I've personally I I feel for a lot of people uh that face Post 40 it becomes difficult to change things yes and there's Neuroscience related to it yeah yeah where it's just easier the neuroplasticity is easier right now yeah uh I I mean I look back and I feel bad for our parents generation because I don't know many of that generation that goes to therapy I don't know many of that generation that opens up to their friends and family I think there's such a what will people say mentality like if you think about it every generation has a rule that rules the way they live and I feel for our parents it was what will people say what will Society say like that ruled how they thought their first thought in their mind like if their first one in mind is I


mind like if their first one in mind is I don't want to be a doctor the first thought would be what will people say if their first talk was like I want to marry this person and they're not from my culture what will people say like that was drummed into their mindset in hours it's interesting I'd love to hear about from your perspective as well I'd say that the Mantra or the repetition in my mind the first thing I would be like but is that true to me is that what I want with my life like that I think we became more about us we became more individualistic whereas our parents lived on a society level platform and so I I actually feel sad that our parents may not have had or that generation may not have had the support and the conversations and the community that they needed which blocks so much growth and leads to so much long-term pain where even when you're 60 70 80 years old you're still thinking what will people say and I think we don't realize


will people say and I think we don't realize how these simple statements become the rule book of our life and we govern our entire life every decision is made based on this one statement that someone said to us when we were a kid what's happening in Hollywood with people that age because the world would look at Hollywood as the epitome of success like these guys have done the rich the famous it doesn't get better than this but I'm 100 sure not everyone is perfectly happy they've got their own set of problems yeah absolutely what's happening there yeah yeah I think a lot of people I mean first thing I'd say though that I find is that and and this is true of Hollywood but also just in that part of the world the statement I was just talking to my therapist is the most common statement you'll hear from anyone so no one there is avoiding the problem right there's something there where if me and you were just sitting at a coffee shop in La you'd overhear someone


at a coffee shop in La you'd overhear someone say I was just sitting with my therapist and they just gave me this really great piece of advice and they just came up with this so they just sent me this Tick Tock or it's a normal conversation so no one's hiding the challenge and that is true with Hollywood too like every Hollywood star has a therapist or as far as I know most that I know have a therapist people are very open to therapy and I think that's what we're encouraging is that who in the world including me and you and I know you don't feel this way there's no one in the world who's perfect there's no one in the world who doesn't need to help or doesn't need to grow and so I think the problem is not whether we're perfect or not the problem is whether we're open to growth or not and so I find at least in that part of the world there is a big openness about I see a therapists I see coaches I'm


I see a therapists I see coaches I'm trying to become better I'm trying to understand myself and you've got to remember as well that that's a culture that doesn't naturally have meditation and yoga and spirituality like we're coming from a culture that is rich in these tools they're having to do it without that culture like they don't have that Foundation of having grown up with the Gita or having grown up with parents that chant Mantra is at home or or have some sort of worship like there isn't any of that and so I think that it's amazing to me I've been so impressed by the openness to these ideas but what are the problems like usually oh okay yeah yeah that makes sense so uh I'd say that the number one problem I see across the board is there are people that believed that material success would solve all their problems so that's the number one thing and I think everyone has this hidden inside of them like everyone has this psychology implanted deep inside of them


everyone has this psychology implanted deep inside of them subconsciously we all believe when I get there everything will be good when I get to that Financial level I will be good when I get to that Fame level I will be good when I get that woman or that man or that person then I'll be good and I think we all have that subconsciously so that's problem number one and then when people achieve that level of material success they say what is this right this isn't what I looked for uh Gwyneth Paltrow who I interviewed on my podcast she said that I think she won I don't have the exact age but she won the Oscar at like 17 or 18 or 19 somewhere in that early age in our life and she said on the podcast to me she said I didn't know what else to achieve now like what do you do if you've already imagine you've won the Oscars between the ages of 17 and we can Google it I forgot the exact age but between 17


Google it I forgot the exact age but between 17 and 19 years old what do you go for next what there's nothing higher and so then you have to go inward right that's the idea that once you've maxed out outward and you've got nowhere to go you have to go inward so that's number one the second thing that I found is that so that's material success the second thing is that Fame actually became overwhelming so that the overexposure to people the more people knew about your personal life the more people were involved in who are you getting married to who are you dating who did you break up with like the overwhelming nature of the media commenting on every move you make that broke a lot of people because none of us are used to you know even though we talk about this if you have a million likes on a post chances are you have ten thousand negative comments maybe even maybe even fifty thousand but our brains are not trained to deal with 50 000 negative points of data Maybe we


deal with 50 000 negative points of data Maybe we used to deal with back in the day like there were two people in your Society who didn't like you or there were 10 people in your building who didn't like you but 50 000 people it feels it's it's overwhelming and so I think a lot of people are dealing with that where they don't even know how to deal with the scale of fame or scale of being brought down both both of them are hard and then I think there's a challenge of never really having time I really realized that people's lives and you probably feel this as well I I experience this in small doses we live such disciplined lives and especially when you're building a career you're building a podcast like you are you're building companies your life can just completely revolve around output but there's no deeper Foundation from where it's coming from and if you're not refining your intention if you're not getting time to feel grounded if you're not taking time to unplug and


grounded if you're not taking time to unplug and be away you start realizing that after all this time all you've done in your life is work you haven't experienced anything and I think a lot of people are feeling that way where they're like I've just worked for 30 years like since I was 15 years old I had a manager who told me I had to do x amount of shows because if I did x amount of shows we made x amount of money then they could take their 10 percent or their 20 from my life now as I'm getting older I'm realizing that people have just no I'm not saying this for me I'm saying this people are just making money off these people for years and years and years and the person's thinking I haven't even lived my life I mean these are just a few that could go on and on yeah yeah but you mentioned the Gita yeah and I feel like uh indianness protects a lot of Indians around the world uh do you agree there's a famous


the world uh do you agree there's a famous verse in our Vedic literature that says when you protect your Dharma your Dharma protects you but that phrase very clearly outlines that your Dharma only protects you if you protect your Dharma and so yes for anyone who is protecting their Dharma Dharma is protecting them not just by being Indian or being of a certain color of skin are we protected because many people may reject it so if we reject our Dharma then our Dharma won't protect so do you see that a lot I I see both you know I I so I grew up in London it's really interesting because London was already quite Multicultural and diverse by the time I was born so I grew up in a culture where Indian culture was not something to be embarrassed about my parents would have had to go through that when my parents moved to England people would make fun of their accents people would you know call them names like my parents would have had a really tough time right and


parents would have had a really tough time right and that's why I even more wish they had therapy because you can only imagine how much trauma they had to go through far more than my generation but what I found when I moved to the states is a lot of my Indian friends there will tell me and I'm only basing this on what my Indian friends tell me they grew up where Indian culture wasn't cool or celebrated or noticeable this is I'm talking uh probably about 20 25 years ago when my friends were growing up and so for them they used to hide their Indian culture because you've got to remember that for America at that time the only reference to an Indian person was Apu in The Simpsons like that's the Indian reference I remember the first time when I moved to LA which was five years ago now I went to get my haircut and this hairdresser literally told me she said she said where are you from I said I'm from London she said I've never heard it a brown


from London she said I've never heard it a brown person sound like you and I was like what do you mean and she goes oh yeah I literally have only I've never seen a brown person only I put in The Simpsons this isn't five years ago and I was and and I was just thinking that for so many people they have such a limited view of Indian people and therefore the Indian people that grew up there who are my friends will say that yeah we were bullied when we I have sick sick friends who was they were bullied for their turban Etc and so I just think that I've experienced that so much where different parts of the world came closer to Indian culture at different times and so I didn't really grow up with any fear of being Indian even though I was bullied sometimes for being Indian definitely bullied for being Indian but not as bad as my parents said this about you he said that Jay is taking Indian wisdom to the world you need you need an a person


to the world you need you need an a person of Indian origin to take all our ancient scriptures turn it modern and then take it out to the world so are you aware of this reality this is what you're doing or this is how the world perceives you because this is definitely how India perceives you in a good way I I so first of all I'd be honest and see if Indian see another Indian person doing something on an international stage it's always a good thing but that's but I love that and that makes me feel very happy and proud as well because possibly the only Indians who reject you are the ones who reject Indian culture anyway right right it's usually whatever got it got it interesting yeah and you understand that better than I do I think we speak to the same audience yeah yeah agreed agree same problem same uh fandom absolutely I would say that first of all I'd say that Indian culture Indian Heritage and Indian wisdom is so rich and it is so deep that I


is so rich and it is so deep that I alone cannot represent it I don't have that qualification like I don't and I'm just being honest like it's so vast and beautiful and phenomenal that if one person claimed to represent Indian wisdom then I you can't you can't it's too it's beyond one human being it's too powerful it's too beautiful and that that should make us more proud of what we have because if I felt I could represent it then that would be the most egotistical thing in the world so first of all I have that mood towards it that's my Approach but I'm still trying my humble attempt is to try my best to do that in the sense of saying that I would love for everyone to have access to these ideas access to this wisdom and we've seen that through the rise of yoga through the rise of meditation I mean you can see it ever in the world that these ideas are being adopted and to me it's beautiful to see the world taking joy


to me it's beautiful to see the world taking joy and taking solace in in our uh tradition and our wisdom and the Beautiful Thing I think about the way our literatures are written is that they're not sectarian they're Universal that's what makes them so special that nowhere in the Gita does it say this is for Indian people or this is for Hindu people or it doesn't say that and that's what I love about it so much that it was never written for a group of people it was always written for the world a monk once told me that they didn't have therapy back then so this is well I think the difference was back in the day is that there was so much natural siksha and diksha so people who don't know what those words mean like the uh uh flowing of knowledge between teacher and student and the mentorship aspect of teacher and student was always prevalent and the challenge today has become that we don't have that anymore like families used to have gurus and families


like families used to have gurus and families would have teachers and these teachers and gurus were not egotistic people who sat on top of a you know a throne and told people what to do and it wasn't that way they did it humbly there was a I always talk about how the monks in the ashram the senior monks would come and sit and listen to our classes right we were just kids who what did we know but the senior monks would sit at the back of the class and take notes and ask questions because that was the humility by which gurus LED so we've lost that culture also so partly the reason why I think so many young people question spiritual culture is because the leaders of spiritual culture have sometimes let us down because they've become egotistic or they've become uh you know they've they've taken it on in a different way and so I also empathize with those who struggle to adopt the culture ah I think the one commonality I've noticed with everyone who


think the one commonality I've noticed with everyone who accepts spirituality as a part of their life is that they've seen something really harsh when they were younger and that harsh moment of situation forces them to accept it and a lot of the people who keep rejecting it reject it up to the point where they see your harsh situation come up and harsh situations come up yeah God yeah um keeping this in mind like the trajectory of life and mind okay now I'm gonna go like really yeah when there's something I wanted to ask you for a while probably on the last one uh and I'm glad I'm doing this in person through the podcast I've been learning a lot about every single School of Indian thought different religions as well within Hinduism different schools of thoughts everything points towards Nirvana almost Enlightenment whatever you want to call it uh I'm sure that's something you've thought about barely if you just take yourself out of your life right now what you're doing with the world we


life right now what you're doing with the world we are taking ancient wisdom all of which points to that same goal of the journey by your soul it ends with Nirvana so when you go beyond this realm and you're not born back do you think about that for yourself maybe the old age yeah often I mean I think about my what will happen to what I've been calling my first self so I believe we have multiple selves if you think about your current iteration almost like how we have like apple 2.0 Apple 3.0 4.0 like you know iPhone 14 we're on now whatever it is like that idea of but there was once an original iphone and there was once an original us the original Self the first self but we've added so many personalities we've added doctor lawyer Banker engineer we've added uh relevant cool young we've added podcast videographer editor artist we've added so many selves and personalities but there's a first self there's an original Self there's a consciousness and I often think


original Self there's a consciousness and I often think about Beyond Death what will happen to that Consciousness because we believe that the Consciousness existed before this body the Consciousness exists in this body and the Consciousness will continue to exist after this body and I often think what will happen with that and like you said there are many different theories or many different concepts of what can happen but to me the biggest thing that I've taken away through my studies is that the nature of the Consciousness is more important than what happens to the Consciousness because what happens we will have to wait and see right we'll have to wait and experience but the nature of the Consciousness is to serve the nature of the Consciousness is to help the nature of the Consciousness is to care with compassion and empathy when you look at the whole universe everything that is made universally is always serving the sun is serving us water is serving us trees are serving us the animals are serving


us trees are serving us the animals are serving each other and serving the trees back everything is working in perfect Synergy of service and it's only when a human takes themselves out of that Synergy where we become the problem right you think about some of the problems that exist on Planet Earth today it's all because we're not thinking about serving we're thinking about controlling and owning and dominating and so I think to me I I try and lean in more closely to that mindset and practice that mindset of how can I connect with the service nature of the Consciousness because that is something I'm sure about that's something I can be confident about what do you think about your next life all the time all the time yeah I mean I think I don't think about as much so I'll I'll add a caveat I don't think too much about my past lives because I think it can get messy I know several friends who've done past life regressions or past life hypnosis or they've gone


regressions or past life hypnosis or they've gone through these practices I I'm not interested in where I was before I've tried I've never tried I've never tried uh out of choice because I don't want to add more chaos yeah than there already is like life is already complex in my in my opinion I'm not if anyone wants to do it you can go and do it to me my mind already has enough things to think about I don't need to add more past lives and things that to that I think for me the spiritual Traditions that we both uh take so much solace in and so much connection to talk about that Nirvana that heaven or that Moksha is the Eternal relationship with the Divine it's it's an eternal relationship it's not a physical place and it can be a physical place but beyond the physical place it's a personal relationship with divinity and so to me I'm more interested in constructing that relationship uh with the Divine as opposed to simply trying to


with the Divine as opposed to simply trying to go to a place if that makes sense would you want to live as a monk again I won't be surprised yeah I mean I think I would want to uh I think I would want to be wherever I can best serve that's what I've realized okay be where you can best serve because there was a time in my life where being a monk was the best way I could serve but now if I was to go back there maybe that wouldn't be service maybe that would be selfishness because it would be so personally motivated but actually where I am right now is where I can serve the most from it's almost like saying you know every seed grows into a tree but if the tree says I want to be a seed again but the seed doesn't serve as much as a tree does the tree gives shelter it gives fruits it plants so many new seeds and I think all of us have to go through that journey of going from


us have to go through that journey of going from seeds to trees um I've read this weird phase in my life where I don't really sense too many new material desires yeah but it happens once in a while you have the sudden drop of a material design it's a lot of spiritual desires amazing to go deeper down scriptural past to go into people's minds Etc uh but do you feel this do you feel like a reduction of material desires as you age and what else happens as you age what should you expect for their 30s yeah yeah okay that's that's a great question that's a really great question I would say that my material desires uh so I experience less of my material desires diminishing but more of me trying to spiritualize my material desires so what I mean by that is uh in the past if someone would have said to me that you know do you think that money is important in making a change I would have said no you can make a change however you


have said no you can make a change however you want to me now I'm like well money could be used as a brilliant way of making change if used in the right way it's the same way with influence right you don't need to have money or influence to make a change you don't at all but if you have access to it it can really help accelerate that change so to me I'm interested in being around people who can either be spiritualized in their material desires or spiritualizing my own and that way trying to use things for a higher purpose I think what happens in your 30s hopefully I'm 35 now uh I would say that what's happened for me in my 30s is I've become a lot more at ease with who I am I've become more accepting of who I am and I've become more open to the idea that I don't know everything and that I don't need to know everything I just need to know how to discern how to prioritize I think as you


to discern how to prioritize I think as you get older you start getting better at saying no and you know what to leave back and leave behind and what to say yes to and so I think even spiritually it's the idea of I know that there's so many things out in the world but I'm better at discernment I'm better at knowing what to prioritize what to put my energy towards what to focus on and what not to focus on when you're young you have so much energy it's all widespread it's desperate you're you're everywhere as you get older you you get more comfortable with that and okay with saying no and another thing that happens as you get older at least from a spiritual point of view is definitely the spiritual desires grow definitely that's for sure spiritual desires are growing for sure but I think you have more compassion and empathy for the challenges that you had when you were younger and that younger people have I don't think you look at it


people have I don't think you look at it from a point of view of oh I know and you don't know and you're confused I think you actually look at it from of course we're lost course were lost and you don't look down on a 21 year old or an 18 year old and 16 year old you actually feel more compassion and you think I know exactly what's going through your mind now which is why one also feels empathy for the 50 000 hate comments correct often it's teenagers correct young people starting out in life correct okay correct yeah you get more empathy and compassion for everyone because you realize how challenging life is you realize how complex the world is and you just realize that everyone's going through their own thing I think that comes more and more as you get older whereas when you're younger you you don't always see that [Laughter] you know what me and my wife have talked about this a lot I believe it's her Department to decide because it's going


it's her Department to decide because it's going to affect her body the most uh in terms of not in terms of looks I mean in terms of like it's it's a it's an experience I think one thing I'd like to encourage people to do is it's really interesting to me that when you have to get a driver's license I don't know what the rules are in India to get a driver's license so I won't well yeah I won't I won't go there but I'll go back to London but when you think about it like to get you have to prepare to get a driver's license you have to take exams to get a driver's license but to have kids there's no preparation there's no examination there's no Consciousness development and there is in our sastra there is garbadan samskar which is like a full process on how to conceive a child it's there and how to be your parent and how to be a parent uh not from a traditional ritualistic point of view but from uh


a traditional ritualistic point of view but from uh from a Consciousness spiritual based point of view but the reason why I'm bringing that up is because I feel like so many of us are on the treadmill of life and so we get a good degree we get the good job we marry the person we have kids because we think we have to and I think I've definitely been questioning why do I want to have kids what do I want to share with those children what are they going to teach me and so instead of asking people usually the question is as you nicely just played the role there and I know you were just acting but usually the question is when are you gonna have kids and even the question we ask ourselves to our partners is when will we have kids when should we have kids but really the question we should be asking is are we aware of how this will change our lives and are we ready for that and I think people rarely ask these two questions and I think again as


ask these two questions and I think again as we were saying earlier just as we're scared of going to therapy or saying we go to therapy or saying we need help I was speaking to so many mothers this week and they were always telling me how it's hard to express as a mom how annoying it is to be a mom like kids are so hard there's so much Challenge and difficulty in having a child and raising a child and sleepless nights and exhaustion and letting go of your passion and so many things that come with it but so many women are telling me they're saying I can't open up about this to another woman because then she may judge me that I'm a bad mum and so there's this shame and guilt that's building up and I think these are the important conversations for us to have because otherwise people keep suffering in silence and suffering in isolation everyone's feet this is how the world Works everyone's feeling the same way but we're all


Works everyone's feeling the same way but we're all scared of telling each other everyone's usually feeling the same thing when you walk into a room and everyone feels anxiety everyone's feeling it but no one says it and I want to live in a world where we express that when we walked into this room I you you said something really beautiful to me where you were just like Jay I'm I'm being distant because I'm I'm saving it for the interview and I really appreciated that because it puts everyone at ease because you shared your intention you shared why you were behaving the way you were behaving which wasn't which was wonderful it wasn't there was nothing wrong in the way you were behaving but even in the intentionality of that it puts everyone else at ease and so I feel like if we explained our intentions and our feelings and our emotions better to other people it actually helped everyone I think that's your purpose man putting out thoughts like this uh because through scriptural wisdom


out thoughts like this uh because through scriptural wisdom you're actually helping the world's mental health just a little bit we're not mental health uh professionals but I feel a Content creators who speak what these things do have a role man yeah and for me you're just a brotherly figure who asked someone questions too yeah and I love hanging with you because what you're doing for the world is beautiful and you know it's incredible to watch you do it because I fully agree with you that I think content creators are the culturally defining voices of today because there where there's a certain level of trust but from the audience which we value I know we see I see that as a responsibility I mean I just took three years to write this book because that's how long it takes to put out something that I really value and I think that way people who know how to put the spotlight onto ideas and thoughts we're not trying to it's not always put the spot on yourself it's like let's


always put the spot on yourself it's like let's interview this person let's talk to this person let's have this sex but on so I love that man yeah uh I still feel it's just the beginning of your journey man absolutely and I wish you all the luck thank you thank you for this fantastic conversation and all the luck for the Bookers thank you man thank you so much appreciate it so that was the episode for today that was the beer biceps this was the first time I actually met him in person and I'm glad that I got to share the vibe share the moment with you guys this was the first extended conversation that I had in person with Jay uh if you've not checked out our old episode that we're done I think about two years ago during the pandemic definitely go check it out whenever is a part of a podcast I feel there's a mammoth amount of wisdom to be gained and that's what my attempt was with this conversation as well we should go buy


was with this conversation as well we should go buy his book make sure you go download beer by Services meditation app level super mind both the links are given down below and make sure you follow the others on Spotify Spotify exclusive every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world this was Jay Shetty on TRS we'll be back soon thank you [Music]


what about those three skulls you have I had never mentioned that I had three skulls I said yeah I have those three skulls what about them he said what do you think you're doing with those skulls I said or while I'm studying the man Atomic he said do you think they're not having an effect on you so then he told me what to do to establish a a relationship that was not just me using you know them for anatomical purposes it previously had been human beings that had been dug up probably did not want to be dug up and now they were living in my desk when I first came to India in 1973 I started the ayurveda college 1974 and there was a movie came out Jay santoshima JJ sendoshimata there was no santoshi Mata before this but oh my God I went to see santoshi Mata use you all of these uh women were doing ariti to the screen now there's temples of santoshi Mata all over India so santoshi Mata didn't


Mata all over India so santoshi Mata didn't exist and now she exists around the time we began a podcast we'd done a bunch of episodes related to agoris and Agora one of those episodes was with my mentor Kiran khalap who had recommended that at some point we do a podcast with Robert swaboda the author of a Trilogy of books about Agora there are very few English speakers who understand the way this man does it was our honor having him on the show it spent a majority of his twenties along with Swami vimalananda who was widely regarded to be one of the great aghoris of our times so if Agora and agoris in general Fascinate you if slightly more Fierce conversations Fascinate You trust me you're going to enjoy this one you're going to learn a lot from it a lot of you keep requesting us to do more episodes with rajashi nandi trust me Agora based episodes are in the exact same Zone I do believe you


are in the exact same Zone I do believe you should get ready mentally for these two episodes because they're extremely heavy some may call them dark some may call them a little scary but I promise you they will change you in some way and if you feel like the episodes are getting too dark if they're getting a little too heavy for you lately what I will always say is that meditation prayer positivization and spiritualism are tools that help strengthen your body Mind and Spirit so if the episodes are troubling you maybe don't watch them honestly but if you want to watch them and still gain the positive aspects of those conversations without letting them affect you make sure you begin meditation very soon for the last two years the beer biceps team has built its own meditation app level supermind we've linked it down below the app contains meditations for beginners intermediates and advanced practitioners the link is given down below make sure you go check it out and for more episodes just like this make


it out and for more episodes just like this make sure you follow TRS on Spotify and Spotify exclusive every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world this is a conversation with one of the most fascinating humans that have come across thanks to the show and I'm sure that you guys are going to gain exactly what I gained through these two conversations the first one is more about the philosophy of Agora the second one is a more anecdotal episode I'm sure that you're going to gain a lot from both raise the cells enjoy yourselves this is Robert swaboda on TRS [Music] Roberts for both are so it's an absolute honor having you on the show ever since our common friend Mr Kiran khalep spoke about you spoke about agoris on the show but he said no no you need to talk to Mr Robert about this not me so welcome to the renvi show welcome back to India thank you great to be here how are you feeling


thank you great to be here how are you feeling good agoris are one of those topics that's really requested on the Indian internet there's very few people who actually know details about it honestly so we've probably only had maybe three or four guests who've really spoken about this topic in detail uh but I think you're the actual Authority on it uh why is that firstly why have you become this Authority on Agora well I I really don't think of myself as an authority if if if I even if people think of me as an authority it's only because of my mentor who who I referred to in the books I've written about him as vimalananda though he rarely referred to himself as Vemma and Nanda he didn't want people to know his birth name and he was not a a standard a Gordy a standard a Gordy always sits in the smashon and eats food out of a cooked in a human skull and wears only clothes that uh made from from cloth that has come


clothes that uh made from from cloth that has come from corpses and things like that he's done he did that kind of sadhana but he his opinion was Agora was not limited to that kind of attitude that kind of behavior that the attitude that you really have to have is that your entire life should be lived as if you were in a smashon which honestly is the way things are because we are living in a place where everything is currently alive but the reality is everyone is going to die and in the Mahabharata when King yudhisthira was asked what was the most amazing thing in the world he said that people see death all around them but nobody actually believes they're going to die so in vimal ananda's opinion the most important thing about Agora is that awareness of death is something that you try to maintain 24 hours a day okay you're constantly thinking about death and then going about your daily business because you have to while you're alive you have to do


you have to while you're alive you have to do what's necessary you have to do the things that is your cartavya your obligation the things that you personally need to do but at the same time you need to remember that all of what is happening is transitory everything is changing all the time everything that is created is going to be destroyed so you have to have the attitude that everything is impermanent and that you are watching everything burn as if it was in a smashon and it's in a cremation ground okay you know your book is extremely heavy I have a friend who's read it and I've read a few pages of it and I've consciously not read the entire book because I wanted to have this conversation with you and I do intend on reading your book um and I'm sure that all the listeners at the end of the two conversations that we have today are going to end up reading that book why do you think that people perceive that book to be this heavy according to you


perceive that book to be this heavy according to you yourself and how old were you when the events of that book were taking place so the second question first sure um I first met vimal Ananda when I was I had just turned 22. so and he left the Earth left his body when I was 30. so it was during that period 20 yes it was all of my 20s basically when I was living in India and why do people think it's heavy because I mean some of these the things that are described in there are very heavy like being in sitting on a corpse and doing sadhana and and and working with spirits and working with intoxicants these are things that are all ever a certain heaviness explain the words sadhana is something it comes from a Sanskrit root that means to to perform with the intention of achieving something so sadhana means to have a desire to to perform something in in ayurveda I studied at ayurveda for six years in Pune um in in ayurveda


for six years in Pune um in in ayurveda what is sadhana means it the The Taking of a someone who is unwell and moving them in the direction of becoming uh of letting go of whatever disease they have or someone who is well and making them even more well so they will have more resistance to disease but in the in the spiritual sense it means to acknowledge that you as an individual you have come here we all have come here because of the karmas that have brought us to this place and we have to deal with those karmas and if we just deal with those ketamas without without having any kind of perspective on them like why am I here and where am I going then we will probably get ourselves tied up entangled and more things and just continue doing what we've been doing but the idea of sadhana is that we try to refine this to get rid of many of those karmic connections that we have so that we can move in the direction of connecting to a


we can move in the direction of connecting to a better perspective on the Supreme reality and the Supreme reality is very simple it's awareness Consciousness that doesn't have any qualities whatsoever um basically a set of disciplines that help you evolve spiritually and eventually wash away your karmas yes where does it okay now let you continue with the story well I I think that the the but that that is really the the the the important thing and and vimilananda was of the opinion that only you should only move in the direction of Agora sadhana and Agora itself uh I you know I studied Sanskrit and the ayurvedic college so I'm very interested in Sanskrit Agora means not Gora and Gora originally comes from the root gur and gur means to cry frightfully or to frighten with loud crying with loud shrieking and wailing and originally that word Gora didn't have anything to do with the smashon originally it meant someone who was terrifying or awful in


it meant someone who was terrifying or awful in the original meaning of that word which means some someone that would make you be filled with awe like the devatas like Indra and the other Vedic devatas like the rishis uh beings who were so connected to the the the the the the world that is beyond this world that just looking at them and and if and possibly hearing them you would be filled with awe and eventually that word came to mean anything that was really how we use the word awful now awful terrible horrible Agora means taking everything that normal people including you and me when we are looking at it from the ordinary point of view anything that is really horrible and terrible like like death like War like like serious disease like any kind of very intense situation and acknowledging its terrifying or horrible or intense nature but not allowing that to cause us to be disgusted or terrified or angry not allowing ourselves to get to get diverted from dealing with it exactly as


get diverted from dealing with it exactly as it has to be dealt with Okay um how did you even come to know that someone like the swamiji even exists in India I think it's fair to say that that unless someone of that nature wants you to meet them you will never be able to meet them do you think your purpose was to write the book about him I certainly think that's an important purpose and he had another couple of purposes another couple of reasons for that uh things that he wanted me to do but a very important reason for was for me to be able to act as a witness to what he was doing and what he had done and what he was teaching and to be able to translate that into a form that people other people would be able to get some benefit out of okay um do you want to give us the story what's the story there how did you meet him at like the start how did you agree to document this journey Etc I had been admitted


to document this journey Etc I had been admitted to the ayurvedic College in Pune so I was studying ayurveda and I did not want to be obliged to take money from my parents so I decided that I would arrange to get a grant from it was from the U.S government the uh and the that Grant was to study how ayurveda was being practiced in Pune and in order in for that purpose I was in uh interviewing all kinds of ayurvedic doctors in and around Pune and I uh so one day I heard of someone who had come from Bombay and was said to know quite a lot about ayurveda and other things and about tundra also and at that time I was under the impression that Tantra was a very dangerous thing and I wanted to and I was told to avoid it but I thought well but at least I need to talk to him uh and and I will be very careful because Tantra is very dangerous and so I went and met him and


very dangerous and so I went and met him and conveniently for me he was living a 20-minute walk away from the ayurveda hostel where I was in Pune and um I met him and he seemed like a perfectly harmless person he didn't seem like some sort of uh black magician or anything and so um I I met him and I said I I would like to give you this questionnaire that I prepared and he said well it's not bother with the questionnaire let's just talk about this and that and I was very interested and over the next couple of days I met him several times and at the end of that period I found out that he had answered all my questions without bothering to look at the questionnaire so that was impressive he also asked me whether there was a particular um a particular mole on one part of my body which in fact there was so it was clear that there was something to this so we started to spend even more time and he lived in


to spend even more time and he lived in Mumbai but he was he had come to Puna for the races at that time in his life he was he owned thoroughbred race uh horses and the rwitc the Royal West India Turf Club um during the monsoon races in Pune because the Stables here in uh Bombay are underwater so um he came back several times during that period for the races I met him several times and then we went to alandi together arlandi is just outside Pune where nanesh or maharaja's samadhi is and then then I was very interested and then I started to move in that direction do you want to give the do you want to give the audience some context on what he did in the real world he was just a normal human being going about his normal life but also was a practicing aghori behind the scenes yes he he had spent time at sasadu mostly in girinar as a Naga a naked sadhu but then he was told


a naked sadhu but then he was told by his Guru to that he had to come back to the world he had to get married he had to have a family and he had to that there were things there were there were things he needed to do in the world and so he came back and and even before that he had been introduced to Agora he had not wanted to be introduced to Agora but it was there was someone who had deliberately taking him out of Bombay to mithila and introduced him to Agora but once he was introduced he started he started performing Agora sadanas and he would do that even while he was living in Bombay wearing ordinary clothes when he was wandering around and going to the race course he would wear ordinary clothes when he went to the smashon he would wear what was appropriate in the smashon mashon is a graveyard this machine is a cremation ground okay and he um at different times he owned a uh he owned a dairy in


times he owned a uh he owned a dairy in borivali here in North Bombay he owned a rock quarry on Shiva which is an island in the harbor here in Bombay and um so he had done a number of different things in his lifetime when I knew him he was he owned racehorses and he was racing the horses and um and and betting on them periodically and making money off of them and supporting himself that way but how had he taken up being a naga sadhu in the first place what was his childhood like like how did it lead up to like the Naga well his his childhood was it his his parent his father was um a member of a a family who had originally come from Gujarat and had become very rich over a period of time he himself was the 15th generation living here in in Bombay and they lived on Malabar Hill um and they had a very large Bungalow that I never saw because it had been uh sold and broken down but


because it had been uh sold and broken down but interestingly enough there's a building on Malabar Hill called el Sid and our racehorse trainer was living in El Cid at that time and El Cid was built where his garden The Garden of that Bungalow was so um as sadly as sometimes the case there was a disagreement when the Hindu undivided family was broken up there was a disagreement there was litigation which means the lawyers made a lot of money and everything and but so he the slowly the the the affluence uh diminished but he was still very young when there was a a Jane sadhu a Suri who had even while he was still very much uh a very young man probably in his late teens um took him to darbanga to mithila and got him and he he was uh his parents were devotees of a Bengali saint named uh um um but they were uh they were devotees of Haruna takur but his family belonged to the pushti sampradaya


his family belonged to the pushti sampradaya which is the sect that was developed by wallabacharya about 400 years ago the fifth of the fight five great teachers of adoita vedanta so his and that his his family was a very very uh satwik very mild vegetarian kind of family um and as was he he was never interested in doing this kind of very intense sadhana but but this this Jane uh Suri the sadhu this uh holy man had looked at his horoscope and saw that he could succeed at a particular kind of sadhana at a particular kind of process for gaining the attention of and creating a connection between himself and a particular Devi a particular goddess there are many many Davies and devatas here in India some of them are samya some of them are gentle like Vishnu is gentle and Lakshmi Saraswati they're gentle some of them are ugra and ugura means terrible horrible intense uh like Kali and Tara and Chin namasta


uh like Kali and Tara and Chin namasta blood drinking goddesses and like baidova and bitavi bite of it literally means he who terrifies so that that Jane sadhu understood that vimal Ananda could do this process perform this sadhana for which he had to sit on a corpse and that he could succeed at it because just doing side then is one thing being able to succeed at it is also very important so without telling him what he was going to do he said let's go to darbhanga let's go to mitila there's something very interesting you will see there and once they got there late at night it was a new moon night which is a good time for doing this kind of thing he then said okay now that you're here you're gonna have to sit on this corpse and you're gonna have to repeat this Mantra and vimal Ananda said I'm not going to do that and the Suri said well if you don't do that what's going to happen is you see those


that what's going to happen is you see those men over there they will kill you and then I will sit on your corpse so what would you prefer and then vimilananda thought huh maybe it is better for me to at least said I mean who knows I made I may die anyway but at least I would prefer to die trying it out instead of definitely dying because those thugs over there are going to kill me but this was a Jan monk yes but on Jan's the most satwik and on the at the other end of the spectrum and and the vast majority of Janes are at the end other end of the spectrum but of course sometimes what's on the surface is different from what's underneath and this this Jane sadhu had been worshiping a particular yantra but he had not been he had not wanted to do this Shava sadhana this particular kind of process of sitting on the corpse he had not wanted to do that himself because that itself would be a Karma so


himself because that itself would be a Karma so he had been looking for somebody that would do it for him so even the Jain sadhus actually follow aspects of Tantra nagora some of them do a very small number of them do most of them followed the tenets of the jeena Dharma but a very small number of them and he was and I never met this uh his name was jeena chandrasuri he passed on many many years ago um I so I never met him but I I have no idea how many other people would do that and generally speaking especially for this kind of thing you don't tell people what sort of that you're going to go out and sit on a corpse that's because they may not like it and then okay uh so how how many Gina Jane I I imagine that very very few Jane sadhus do this but this particular one was interested in doing this and this is sometime in the 60s or 70s this no this would have been probably probably in the


this no this would have been probably probably in the 30s oh really yes so vimilananda was really old when you had met him uh he he passed on when he was at uh 67 in 1983 so it he had been born in 1916. so this would have been he was probably right around age 20. so this would have been in the mid 1930s so so there he was so now and and there is the corpse and now and now he realizes he has to sit on the corpse and now the Jane gives him a bottle of he used to call it Verda anyway Country Liquor uh and and he he is at this point has never tasted alcohol before um but he thanks uh I uh and what am I going to do here and the Jane says you have to drink that whether you like it or not so he drinks it gets very drunk naturally and thinks that okay and this is the first time he's been drunk also so now he's drunk there's these men who are going


now he's drunk there's these men who are going to kill him if he doesn't do what he he's supposed to do there's this dead body here he sits on the dead body the way he's supposed to he starts to repeat the mantra and he has a Mala a a rosary and he doesn't he repeats just a very few mantras and and a jackal jackal is a small animal it's the dog family and um a jackal comes to him and bites him and draws a drop of blood and suddenly there is a goddess standing in front of him the Jackal has has come just to collect the blood and now the goddess is there like the Jackal turned into the goddess yes and then she says what would you like please ask a boon he said I I I I didn't ever want to do this and I'm I would like to go back to Bombay please and she said you ask for something more more meaningful place and he said no I need to go back to


and he said no I need to go back to Bombay so she said okay and she took him back to Bombay was the goddess Tara uh yes smashantara so there are many different varieties of Tata the the the Buddhists have rep they uh the Tibetan Buddhists have 21 different varieties of Tara whereas in the normally in from uh if we look from the mahavidya point of view there's a group of ten goddesses here in India called the mahavidyas and that Tara is very is an intense version of Tara Tara means an horrible terrible intense meaning the Tata of The Cremation ground and sometimes she's called Nila Saraswati so Saraswati is the goddess of um of learning and she's normally shown as being wearing white clothes and having a vena a loot and a book and being very soumya very gentle but the Blue version of her is this very intense blood drinking goddess so um there he is back in Bombay so um and


um there he is back in Bombay so um and then he starts repeating the Mantra again and the goddess appears to him again he's immediately transported back immediately transported back that's what he told me and of course he is now wondering whether maybe he dreamed the whole thing but he notices he still has the Mala in his hand there's no corpse there was no there was no cremation ground he's sitting in his house in Bombay but he has the Mala and he thought well I didn't have this Mala before so then he starts repeating the Mala and the goddess appears before him again and then she says he uh you need to go to the smashon to the cremation grounds and continue repeating this and then we will talk about what to do next and so then he went to The Cremation ground and then he started establishing a relationship with this goddess where was the ground um I am pretty sure he went to bang ganga which is The Cremation ground