Ravi Kathuria on Louie B. Free Radio Show
Discussion on Inner-Peace
Mr. Louie Free invited me a second time on the Louie B. Free Radio Show hosted on NBC Affiliate 21 WFMJ of Youngstown-Warren, Ohio.
This interview is evidence of the connection that exists between human beings. I have never met Louie in person, yet, in just two interactions the connection is so strong. I can feel Louie and he can feel me. I greatly appreciate him. He has truly become my “spiritual friend.”
In this interview, we delve into the aspect of inner-peace that can make our life golden. The beauty is we can all experience that inner-peace right in our homes, living our daily lives.
Thank you, Louie, for hosting me!
— Ravi Kathuria, Author, Spirituality Book, “Happy Soul. Hungry Mind.”
Full Interview — Louie Free & Ravi Kathuria
Video Introduction
Ravi: I was talking to someone about inner-peace. This is what he said to me. Well, look, Ravi, you're saying there is an ocean of peace, I have looked within, I see no sign of it.
Ravi: I got up this morning, looked in the mirror. I see no ocean of peace within. You're just making this up. You're selling me snake oil.
Ravi: He continued, there is no ocean of peace, excuse me. And let me tell you, my spouse has no ocean of peace.
Ravi: So, I could be salvaged, but I promise you, my spouse...
Ravi: Even a Ravi cannot argue against that. Laughs.
Video Discussion
Louie: I really enjoy you. I have to tell you, I have a blast with you. I loved our conversation. I told my wife when I got home. I said I feel like Ravi's my new best friend. I said I have a blast with him. I really, really like him.
Louie: And you really got skills, by the way, of putting things together for YouTube. You've got to teach me someday.
Ravi: Yes. That video, I really love the way it has come out. So, thank you.
Louie: Thank you. This is thanks to you. You're just amazing.
Ravi: Thank you, Louie. Thank you for your feedback and for your positivity. It is so wonderful.
Louie: This is about you Ravi, again, right back at you. I'm going to say this is all about you and your work.
Louie: I'm honored to have you back on the Louie B. Free radio show Ravi Kathuria. Again, folks, I had him on a few weeks back and we talked about his incredible book, "Happy Soul. Hungry Mind." — A Modern-Day Parable About Spirituality. And I love - at the top it says, "Wake up to realize the Universe's most amazing gift."
Louie: And you're a nice guy, you're a fun guy. You've got a great sense of humor. I hope you don't mind, Ravi, but our discussion that we had when we were chatting off air on the phone the other day. You're vibrant. I have a blast with you. I really, really, really enjoy you as a human.
Ravi: Louie, the same here. You have such positive energy about yourself. Your questions are so valuable. Thank you for going through the book. I love the passages and the paragraphs in the book that you highlight and talk about.
Louie: All marked up in your book.
Ravi: It is amazing the things that you're picking up and you're choosing to highlight. I am so thankful to you for hosting me the first time and then inviting me back again today. Thank you.
Making Our Lives Richer
Louie: You know, I hope you don't get to the point where you get tired of me asking you to come back because I'm already thinking about the third. If I can be a conduit for the information that you bring, if I can be a conduit between you and my audience, and their lives become enriched, they feel better, they're doing better.
Their outlook is better. They're in touch, you know, spiritually. They're in touch with their soul better. Then that's a wonderful thing for me. If I can be the conduit between you and my audience, I'm doing a good job. I'm doing the right thing. I'll say I'm doing the right thing.
Let Us Support Each Other in Increasing Positivity
Ravi: You're doing the right thing. And we all, we are here, every one of us is here to support each other. I'm here to help your audience. Your audience and you are here to help me because when we all, all of us who thrive on positive energy and we hang around with other people who have positive energy, we become stronger. Our lives become more fulfilled.
Ravi: So, Louie, I am at your beck and call. You call me, I will show up. I have no choice. I talk about the Universe in the book. You are my Universe. So, if you demand, I have to show up, I have no choice.
Louie: I will politely ask. I'll never demand. I will politely ask.
Overcomplication has Deprived People of their Spiritual Destiny
Spirituality is Yours without Preconditions and Prerequisites
Spirituality is as Natural as Physical Fitness
Ravi: It's like if you go to the gym and you start working out, you will start developing muscles. Now, on the way to the gym, there may be 10 people who stand and criticize you and tell you, you are never going to develop muscles, you're never going to become fit. They can keep talking, but it doesn't matter, it can never change the fact that if you exercise, and it doesn't have to be at the gym, you can exercise at home, if you begin exercising, you will become fit.
Now, you have to be a little careful. You don't overexercise and hurt yourself, but if you do it in a normal way, your body will respond. That is nature. That is what the Universe, that is what nature has given you. That ability to build and make a fit body is there in you. It exists.
It doesn't matter what anybody says or how anybody judges you. It makes no difference. It is the same with spirituality. It is there in you. It is there in all of us. And we can all make simple progress towards spirituality.
Spirituality is the Greatest Uniter
Ravi: I feel so good when I think about that because it truly unites all of us together. It brings everyone together and says we are all part of the spiritual umbrella. It doesn't matter which religion we follow. Doesn't matter if we follow a religion. You could be an atheist. I could be religious. And we are still under the same spiritual umbrella.
Ravi: How amazing is this, the whole world! Seven billion of us have the spiritual ability. Can you imagine that? Just think about what transformation we can bring about in this world if all of us begin to understand that spirituality is simple, and is available to us 24/7.
Louie: Beautiful. You're a beautiful human. "Happy Soul. Hungry Mind." I want to talk a little bit more about your journey, if you will, a little bit more. We touched on it last time. And again, there's information up on your website about it. A little bit more about your journey, Ravi, if you don't mind.
Spirituality is Practical. It Helps us in our Daily Life.
Ravi: Yes. I am an ordinary man. I'm an ordinary guy living here.
Louie: You're not an ordinary guy, I'm going to stop you. You are an extraordinary guy. But go ahead. Go ahead.
Ravi: I appreciate you saying that Louie. But really, I'm an ordinary guy. I wake up in the morning, I have my own problems, I have my own stress and anxiety that I have to deal with.
Ravi: I have two businesses to run. I have to work on them. I am living a routine life. I have a family. I have a mortgage to pay. I have to take the car to get its oil change done. My point is I am not living in the Himalayas. I am not living in a monastery and telling others how life should be. I am living this life like the majority of the population on earth is living.
Ravi: We have always heard that if you want spirituality, then you have to be in the Himalayas or you have to be in a monastery. You have to be celibate. You have to do this. You have to do that. We've heard of all of those things.
Attain Spirituality in Our Own Homes
Our Life Can Become a Lot Richer with Spirituality
Ravi: I look at my life, I have had a lot of ups and downs in life. When you have your own business, you go through that. I worked for corporate America and corporate America is not an easy place to survive either.
I would have gone through those ups and downs, but as I look back at it, I say, "Look, Ravi, you knew about spirituality when you were 14 and 15, you were already inclined towards that. If you Ravi," now I'm talking to myself. It may sound a little weird, but I like to talk to myself in the third person because it's this out-of-body, objective assessment of yourself.
I say, "Look, Ravi, if you had spent your 30 years, once you became a teenager and you understood stuff, if you had practiced more spirituality, if you had paid more attention to being peaceful, this very life of yours could have been so much more golden. You would have still gone through the vagaries of life, you would have still gone through the roller coaster and the tensions and pressures, but if you had focused more time and more conscious efforts towards the inner peace that is in you, your life would have been so much better."
Our Life is Our Most Valuable Asset and Yet We Spend It on Triviality
Ravi: That is the awakening, that realization is very important for me.
Ravi: That's really why I had to take a pause in my life five years ago because I was back in this rat race. I could have focused more on my business. And I like to make money, I will admit that.
Louie: And you're successful with your business.
Ravi: Yes. I could have spent more time on growing my business and start a project, but I realized, I could go out and over the next 20, 30 years... I read articles, which say, I hope I'm right on this, Warren Buffett started when he was 50, and then by 80, he has a net worth of 80 billion dollars or whatever that amount is.
I could begin to do that, I could say, in my own assessment and objective view, I have a billion-dollar idea. I can develop this project and it will generate a billion dollars. But I have to trade that with, I have to give the next 20 years of my life. I'm not going to be able to generate a billion dollars in two months or even two years. I probably have to give my next 20 years to generate a billion dollars. Now, think about that, I would be 74 and I would have a billion dollars in the bank.
Ravi: My life expectancy I would assign myself at that point would be between 10 to 20 years. I would have all that money, but I would have gone through this life of tension, and stress and anxiety, and pushing. What have I given up, what is the price I have paid for it?
Ravi: The price, the commodity that I'm paying to earn that billion dollars is my life. There is nothing more precious than my life. We all understand that.
Ravi: It's amazing, I can pick anybody off the street, and I say, "Do you realize your life is the most precious thing you have?"
Ravi: They will go, "Of course, dah, tell me something I don't know. Why did you stop me?"
Ravi: Life is so precious, and I say, "What are you about to do? Where are you going?"
Ravi: He or she says, "I'm in this rat race because I'm constantly trying to do something, either because my mind is forcing me to do it or my family or friends. I'm living this rat race and I'm really overlooking the most precious aspect of life."
Ravi: It's not as if we need to stop making money. There is no problem in earning a billion dollars. If you have the capability to earn a billion dollars, then absolutely, by all means, you should earn a billion dollars.
Real Wealth is Peace of Mind. Real Fortune is Reveling in that Peace.
Ravi: But what you should not do, is pay the price of not having your peace of mind.
The real valuable asset that we all need to have is our peace of mind and revel in that peace every day.
Ravi: You say to yourself, yes, I have to go out and work on generating a billion dollars or that ten thousand dollars or that hundred thousand dollars depends on what profession you are in and what skill you have. The amount doesn't matter, and the type of work doesn't matter, what we have to remember is that every day we must connect with the peace within.
Ravi: If we do that, then this life will beautiful. Without it, life is lacking. If I gave you a cheesecake and the cheesecake had less sugar in it, you're going to say, excuse me, there is something missing in here. If I give you a milkshake, it doesn't have sugar in it either, or I give you food that's not salted properly. Or I give you a beautiful picture, but the colors are not vibrant.
Ravi: When we begin to experience the peace within, the colors of life become richer. The tastes of life become richer, the relationships you are in, become richer.
Our Obsession with Money, Career, Business Sometimes Robs Us of Our Lives
Ravi: I created two companies. I have a consulting and executive coaching firm, but I didn't have to travel. I chose not to travel, I like the concept of being available for my family. My travel was limited, I didn't really pick clients that were out of Houston that much. Occasionally I did. As far as I can remember, in the 30 years, I have had a majority of my dinners with my family at our dining table.
Ravi: I was there physically. The problem is I might as well have been in Philadelphia or New York or San Francisco. Because I was not there mentally. I was sitting and having dinner, thinking about my business challenges, my business issues, and that is what most of us do. We're having dinner, but our thoughts are somewhere else. We are not experiencing that food, we are not experiencing those relationships.
Ravi: So many of us are blessed to have a nice family and we have good relationships. Yet we are not truly relishing it because we are going through life in this little frenzy. We are not stopping and saying, I need to look at my family and relish them.
We Must Relish Life
In spite of Modern-Day Comforts We Have Stress & Anxiety
Ravi: Living in the United States, we are living in the most powerful, most rich country in the world. If you go and tell somebody who is living in a poor country, who doesn't have much money and say, well, I am suffering from so much stress and anxiety.
Louie: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Ravi: They'll think we're so ungrateful. I cannot blame them if they were to judge us. They would ask, "Excuse me, why do you have stress and anxiety? Do you have to walk 10 miles to fetch water?"
Ravi: I go, "No."
Ravi: "Do you have to sleep on the ground, which has stones on it? Do you have to be afraid of wild animals hunting you down in the night?"
Ravi: I go, "No."
Ravi: They say, "Well, what is your stress? Maybe you don't get enough food."
Ravi: I say, "No, no, no, I can go to a grocery store and I have all the food."
Ravi: They say, "Why are you having stress and anxiety?"
Ravi: It'd be very difficult for us to communicate that to someone who has very little means. We have all the comforts, and yet stress and anxiety rob us of our own life.
We Must Live a Better, Lower-Stress Life
Connecting with Our Peace
Ravi: Sometimes life can be excruciating. I get beaten down and then I return back to my place of peace and I connect with my peace. And then I wake up and I go, you know, that's a bad situation, but it's not nearly as bad as I thought it was.
Ravi: That is what we need to do. We need to connect with our peace, and that really is my journey.
My Journey is to Share: Spirituality is Simple & Practical
Ravi: I have written this book to share, to take out all these layers that people have put on spirituality and made it complicated and complex. They have confused it with religion. They have made it so difficult. I wanted to make it very simple and tell everyone on Earth this is yours. This is yours since the day you were born. Connect with it and live a far more beautiful life. Why not take advantage?
It's like every one of us is walking around carrying a billion dollars in our pocket. Yet we are going around scrounging up some money, never tapping into that billion dollars that is there with us already, and that is ours. Why not exercise what you already have?
That's the most beautiful thing, and it's a reminder that I need to give to myself every day. I'm on the same journey as everyone else, I need to remind myself to be peaceful. I need to remind myself and say life will throw curveballs at us and it's okay. That is the purpose of life to throw curveballs.
Ravi: If I connect with my peace, if I feel my peace, then I will deal with life better and I will enjoy and relish life better. My mind will slow down where I will be able to look out the window and say, oh, it's such a beautiful day outside. And relish that and register that. That is the journey I'm on. That is all I want to share with everyone, and I sincerely believe that it can help everyone.
Ravi: It doesn't matter what your situation, this message can help everyone on Earth. We all have it. How beautiful is that?
Louie: How beautiful is that? Folks, you see why I love this guy. That's a beautiful message, Ravi. A wake up call for us. One of the things you said about the choices that you made to be with your family, you want dinner with your family, choices that you make to have that and then to recognize it and then to get that in, as you say about videotaping, it's the imprint on our minds, the positives, correct?
We Mistreat Our Most Precious Asset — Our Life
We Must Make Inner-Peace Our Top Priority
Ravi: If all of us reminded ourselves of that and say my number one priority is my inner peace. Then the rest of our life falls into place.
Ravi: There are so many articles written about work-life balance. Really, it's about prioritization. Do you prioritize your own peace? If you prioritize your own peace, then the rest of your life will fit together. It will all come together, the pieces of the puzzle will fit in.
Sometimes I coach CEOs, I coach executives and business owners. They're so confused about their priorities. I tell them, why are you in business and they look at me and they go. You're not very smart, are you? I say, why do you say that? They say it's obvious I'm in business to make money. I go, okay. I ask them, there is a million ways to make money, why are you in this business? And I see the color of their face leave. They have not thought about that. Why am I in this business now?
Ravi: That is a very difficult conversation to have. It seems like a very simple question. I was talking to a group of CEOs and franchise owners and a man after I had spoken, came to me. This was just a 30-minute talk. He came to me and said, "You know what, Ravi? I hate the business I am in. It's making good money, but I just hate it, I don't like it, and I had not quite realized that until I heard you speak."
Ravi: I felt bad because this man had just realized how much he needed to change his life and I could see how overwhelmed he felt. It's not easy to walk away from a business and a franchise that was making money. But it was not something that he had his heart in it. It's not something he was enjoying. He was making money, but he was spending his life.
We all have to understand that we have a deep yearning within us. Everything that we do in life, we have to calm down and think about what do I want? Because the mind says, do this, do that.
You will listen to your parents. You will listen to friends. You read something up and say, oh, maybe I should do this, maybe I should do that. But there is a deep yearning within you. Connect with that, calm down so you can hear that deep voice within and say, this is what my life needs to be about.
Then work on it. Everything that you do in life, this is a litmus test that I ask people to think about, whatever you are doing in life, does it make you more peaceful or does it make you less peaceful? Because if it makes you less peaceful, that is a big price to pay.
Choose the activities that make you more peaceful. Which are the activities which would make you more peaceful? Those that are in congruence, that are in the same frequency of your deeper yearnings, your deeper desires.
Then life will start becoming golden because you will see life through a different perspective, you will not see life in this fabricated plastic manner in which you are driving yourself crazy. Ask yourself, I'm doing all of this, but do I feel content?
We need to wake up. We need to wake up. There is nothing more precious that you have than your own life. Please do not live a misdirected life because you have some notions. Just calm down. The answers will come. Just calm down and connect with your peace, and then you will begin to see what you need to do, what makes you more peaceful.
Louie: It's beautiful. Ravi, it's absolutely beautiful. The website, HappySoulHungryMind.com. We urge you to visit it, we've got links up.
Louie: Ravi Kathuria is my guest on Brain food from the Heartland on the Louie B. Free Radio show.
Louie: When you say that, it makes me think of when people, in that race, where are they going, because everybody's got challenges. When people say, well that's ideal, well he's successful, well, he's got that. You never know what's going on with anyone else. You look at people, you don't see the pain that they may have, someone may have just had a bad medical diagnosis, or their dog died, or their cat’s ill, or job or economic issues. None of those preclude you from finding that peace, and then you're saying, answers, things open up for you.
Without Peace of Mind Life can become a Burden
Ravi: Yes, absolutely. I forget her name, the lady who was a billionairess who had, I think, a business of making women's handbags and other accessories. I think she was worth one point seven billion dollars, had a husband and kids. I don't remember the details exactly. But this happened maybe a year and a half, two years ago. She killed herself. The rest of us are wanting one point seven billion dollars, here is somebody who has it. I don't know if she had medical issues or there was dissatisfaction with life, but there are so many cases we hear about celebrities. We heard about Anthony Bourdain, so successful. I don't know what mental issues he had.
Ravi: The fact is if we do not have that peace of mind then we can be in the best of situations and we still want to leave that situation.
Louie: That was a good example, Anthony Bourdain. Where most people would say, I wish I had his life, I wish I had his life, he gets to travel the world.
Do Now Wish For Someone Else’s Life
Ravi: Yes. I actually made a video on YouTube. It is titled, do not wish for someone else's life.
Louie: That's beautiful.
Ravi: To your point, Louie, do not wish for someone else's life because you do not know what they are going through.
Ravi: I remember one day, I came home. My wife drove me home and my car was standing outside my house. Usually, I come home in my own car. I like my car. It's standing outside my house. I see my house. And I say, "Oh, my God. The man living in this house, driving that car must be so happy, he must be so lucky."
Ravi: Anybody driving by would think that about me, but they have no clue as to my struggles and my stresses and my anxieties. What we see on the surface is not the entire picture. You look at movie stars. We are living in this YouTube age where movie stars are happy to showcase their homes. Lifestyles of the rich and famous. But we shouldn't be watching lifestyles of rich and famous because all it does is makes us less peaceful.
Louie: Yeah.
Ravi: Think about that. You watch somebody else's beautiful home on Palm Beach, and you say this is such an incredible house. Guess what it does, it gives you joy for a certain moment, but then it makes you feel a little deficient. Ask yourself, why am I watching that? Why am I paying with my peace? It's a big price you're paying. They show this movie star, and they say the movie star has three homes like this, not just one home.
Louie: They have three homes with 12, 10 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms.
Ravi: Yes, and they lived in that house for two weeks in the year. But we have no idea what that movie star is going through. Movie stars, I write about this in my book, just a little paragraph about how much chronic stress they suffer when their movies start failing.
Ask the biggest movie star when they have three movies fail in a row. Talk to them and see the self-doubt they begin to develop. They could be worth a hundred million dollars, but suddenly they begin to lose their confidence and they get irritated with life.
I've read accounts of movie stars who have depression because they're afraid they're going to stop getting the adulation. People will stop following them.
The movie business is like any other business. If you're successful, you're successful. The day your movies start bombing, producers stop calling, and you are all alone, lonely because nobody is looking up to you. In the movie business, people come and go so fast. We look at the big stars, but we have no idea the next tier down how many people come and go.
Everyone in life has challenges, everyone, it doesn't matter how much money they have, it doesn't matter how much success they have, we can only see the outside.
Our Life Should be Centered on Our Self-Peace
Ravi: When we wish for somebody else's life we pay a very expensive price in terms of our own peace.
Ravi: We need to accomplish things in life, we need to pursue success in life, we need to pursue a good living, but it has to be centered in our own self peace. Then life is golden. Then it doesn't matter whether you have 100 million dollars, or you have a thousand dollars because you're coming from your own peace. That life, it's the most beautiful life. You are then living. You are then living!
Louie: So beautifully said, Ravi. Again, you're just incredible. HappySoulHungryMind.com. There are so many things I want to address. When you mentioned about the housewives, their shows, and all of that, I get concerned about some of the culture today with social media and the Kardashians, for example. I obviously don't know them personally. They may be very nice, generous, wonderful, spiritual people. I will tell you something, and I've told this story a number of times on air. I had an aunt that died a few years back and at 99 years old, by the way, and she was in a nursing home. She was losing, she was having some early dementia or Alzheimer's issues. She always watched the news and always wanted to talk with me about politics and the news. I did have a good relationship with her growing up.
Louie: I walked into her room. I go see her every day after the show. She said, "Louis," she said, "I'm upset." I said, "I can see that." I said, "What's going on?" She said, "I'm watching the news." And she said, "I hear the name the Kardashians. I don't know why they're on the news." She always wanted to know the news. Try explaining to someone that's got a little bit of dementia, or just some brain processing issues, explain to someone, if somebody came here from another planet, tell them why the Kardashians are so popular. Why were they newsworthy? Yet when we hear the terms like that or someone wants to be an influencer or become wealthy, I'm not sure why you want that life, or you strive for those riches without looking at the riches within. Am I making any sense?
Ravi: Absolutely, Louie. You bring up a great point and it connects with what we talked about. You talked about the Housewives show. I haven't really watched it a whole lot. But the few minutes that I have watched, obviously, these are very affluent women, affluent families, because they're talking about their husband buying a yacht and stuff like that or buying a jet. And then they're discussing how unhappy they are, and I'm making this example up, on the type of jet that the husband or the wife bought or the jewelry that she bought.
Ravi: The show is about women who are complaining and fighting about and feeling unhappy about their relationships. We're watching that. I hope the producers of housewives don't call me, but if they did, this is what I would suggest. It's a popular show, why don't you start making the show a little bit more positive, so people find something good that makes them more peaceful through the messaging of the show, as opposed to you watching people who are complaining constantly.
Ravi: Even when you have all the riches in the world, our attitude, our perspective on life, really determines the quality of our life. When we connect with the peace within, our quality-of-life changes, even though the circumstances of our life have not changed.
Ravi: With my very special guest, Ravi Kathuria. Again, I cannot urge you enough to get the book, read the book, go to the website, HappySoulHungryMind.com.
Connection with Our Inner-Peace
Louie: That connection, we all can make it. Talk a little bit about that connection you were talking about. We all need to do it. We all need to connect. Easier than others would want to let you believe. They want to make things more complex as opposed to more direct.
Ravi: Yes. There is within us, within all of us, an ocean of peace. I shared that concept in a video, if you are listening to that, you say, well, look, Ravi, you are saying there is an ocean of peace, I have looked within, I see no sign of it. I got up this morning, I looked in the mirror, I don't see no ocean of peace within.
Louie: Yeah.
Ravi: You're just making this up. You're selling me snake oil. There is no ocean of peace. Excuse me. And let me tell you, my spouse has no ocean of peace. So, I could be salvaged, but I promise you my spouse has no ocean of peace within. You go, even a Ravi cannot argue against that.
Ravi: So, this is the example I give. If you watch the ocean, at the surface, the ocean has large waves, very violent waves, there could be a storm and you say, well, the ocean is not peaceful, but if you travel down to the depth of the ocean, if you reach the floor of the ocean, it's completely serene and peaceful.
Ravi: It doesn't matter to the floor of the ocean what is happening on the surface. We live lives where we are held hostage by our mind, our mind is constantly running. It creates these violent waves. The problem is we have lived our life, we have associated our living with the mind and its constant vibrations and its constant waves. We have associated and we have come to assume that is who we are, but that's not who we are. We are the peace at the floor of the ocean.
Ravi: What we have to understand is that these waves will keep happening. When you live in the world you're going to face challenges, you're going to face incidents, and that will create the waves, I can never take those waves away. I can never go to the ocean and say there will never be a storm, so your waves on the surface will be completely calm. That's not going to happen. I can never make that happen. That is against nature. It will keep happening. It has to happen.
Ravi: But if we go beyond the mind, then at the bottom we are going to find peace exists. It is existing in every one of us.
Ravi: Think about the purpose of religion. The purpose, as I see for religion, is to help you calm the mind. You could be someone who doesn't believe in religion and you can still calm the mind. Religion is one way to help you calm the mind.
If you do community service, you go down to the food kitchen and you cook and you serve the homeless and you do it without expectation, you do not expect them to even thank you. You do not expect them to smile because if you say, oh, I served this guy, and he didn't even smile back. That's going to cause consternation. But you say it doesn't matter whether they smile back at me or not, whether they say thank you, ma'am, or thank you, sir, it doesn't matter. I am going to do my bit and I will do it selflessly. And I don't do it because of social media. I don't stand outside and take a picture and tell my friends I was at the soup kitchen.
Louie: Yeah. Look at me. Look how good of a person.
Ravi: Yeah. And then this homeless man is standing. He's hungry. And you say, you can wait a few more minutes, let me get the right camera angle as I'm serving you.
Ravi: If you do it without expectations, if you do community service and tell nobody, you don't call your mother and say, look, mom, I went and did this, you don't try and impress your kids and say, look, kids, take my example. You do community service just for the sake of doing it with no expectations. Guess what happens to your mind? Your problems that exist, when you come home, those problems are still there, but you have a little spring in your step.
Louie: Beautiful.
Ravi: You look at that and you go, yes, problems. Hello, hi problems, how are you? You're still here. I thought you'd be gone.
Louie: Was hoping you'd be gone but you're still here.
Ravi: Yeah, but it's all right. You're an unwelcome guest. It's okay. I just had a break from you, and I can deal with you a little better now because you were getting to me earlier, but now I can deal with you.
Ravi: Religion and devotion, I should use the word devotion. Devotion can help you calm the mind down. Community service, which is selfless, can calm the mind down. You can do philosophical thinking and analysis, you can take a scripture, it doesn't have to be scripture, you can take a philosophical book and you can analyze life. That can help you calm down. These three help the mind to calm down. But the most superior of all of them is the method of meditation. I talked about this with Louie the first time, and there is a video on my YouTube channel and my website.
Louie: HappySoulHungryMind.com.
Ravi: Yes, thank you. HappySoulHungryMind.com.
Ravi: We all need to meditate. Meditation is simple, it's easy. We can all do it. I know a lot of people who get scared by it. There is nothing to get scared. You will form the habit and over time you will learn to go beyond the mind and then as we go beyond the mind, as we go down from the violent waves, and deeper into the ocean, we begin to experience the stillness that exists in all of us.
Ravi: You have stillness in you right now. You're probably driving somewhere or at work or at home, and you have all these challenges. Your boss is not happy, your kids are not happy, your spouse is not happy. It doesn't matter. All those problems are going on, but deep within, you still have stillness, and that stillness is the most beautiful thing that you possess. There is no greater wealth than your own stillness. Expose yourself, enjoy the wealth that you have been given. Wake up. Enjoy the wealth that you have been given.
Ravi: When I wrote the introduction for my book, I shared this example. I said imagine someone dear to you, say, your mother gave you a gift. It's a box and it is covered with very fancy wrapping paper. Very nice, decorative wrapping paper.
Ravi: You are so mesmerized by the wrapping paper, you spend all the time playing with the wrapping paper and never open the box to see the gift inside. And she has given you a very valuable gift.
Ravi: Now you go, excuse me, Ravi, could you not have developed a better example because only a child, only a toddler is going to play with the wrapping paper and forget what is inside the box?
Ravi: But my friends. Louie's listeners, that is what we all are doing with our life. This material world is just the wrapping paper. We are so consumed by it. The real gift that the Universe, God, nature, life, has given us is this peace within, the stillness, because when we experience it, when we connect with that peace, then we understand the splendor of life. That is the gift. And guess what, we are not opening the box, so my friends — open the box.
Louie: Open the box, open the box. You are just such a beautiful human, and I do want to, I would like to maybe next time, soon, if you've got the time to talk more about meditation.
Louie: I would urge people go to your website. You've got so much information. You've got a lot of videos up on your YouTube channel. Go there. Experience it, get the book and read the book and share it.
Louie: Makes me think of how they always talk about, if you're on an airplane and the masks come down, you've got to put your mask on first, even if you want to help others, because if you're not breathing, obviously, you're not going to be able to help others. If you're trying to get a child's mask on or someone else's mask on, you're losing oxygen, you've got to first, if you want to be good in the world, you need to take care of yourself first.
Ravi: Yes. You must take care of yourself because if you say, my family members are sick, and I have to take care of them. You can take care of them if you are going to be healthy. If you fall sick, you cannot take care of them. You will become a burden on the family.
Louie: If you don't eat nutritious food, you're not going to be able to help feed your family. Caring for yourself.
Ravi: So, you have to do this. You have to become the beacon. It's like the batten. I wrote this book and I talked about this last time, Spiritual Truths showed up. They revealed themselves as I was writing the book. Now, I need to go out and let others know about it.
Ravi: And you have to do the same thing. You are hearing these discussions that Louie and I are having, and you need to share that. You need to share that with yourself, very importantly, because your mind needs to listen to that, and then help others.
Louie: You can help others if you energize yourself.
Ravi: That is all we have to do. We must start helping each other. You might think I'm an author, and Louie was kind, he called me extraordinary.
Louie: You are extraordinary. I'm not going to argue with you. You are extraordinary because you want to share it.
Ravi: I want to share it. And the thing is, you might think I want to share it because I want to do others a favor. That's absolutely wrong. I say this in the book, I say this in the videos. When I share, when I talk about these things, you know, who's listening first? It's not even Louie. It's not even you, our listeners. Who is listening first? Me. The words are reaching my ears before they reach anyone else's ears. And so, the more I listen to the messages of peace and spirituality, guess what, they are leaving impressions on me. So, you, Mr. Louie and your listeners are doing me a favor by letting me come on and share these things so I can listen. And when you go out and you share, guess what, who is listening, you don't have to be worried about, well, somebody is listening to you or not. You don't have to worry about whether they're paying attention or whether they value it or not, because guess what, you are listening.
Ravi: We all have the peace within.
Louie: You are extraordinary. Ravi, you are extraordinary.
Ravi: At your core. You are peace.
Ravi: Be who you are.
Ravi: Be peace. Be peace.
Louie: I just love you. You're incredible. I'm going to be getting in touch with you this afternoon about doing this again soon.
Louie: Again, go to the website, folks, HappySoulHungryMind.com. It's so important. And I should say, never has there been a time like we need it now, but it seems very clear in the world, we need it. We've always needed it and you can access it. It's there, and it's our gift that we all have.
Ravi: Yes.
Louie: Ravi, thank you. I get emotional. Thank you.
Ravi: No, thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Louie: Let's do this again very, very soon.
Ravi: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Louie: You are extraordinary, and the message is so beautiful and so important for people. And next time I want to talk about some of the responses that I get. Talk more about it.
Ravi: Yes. I would love to hear the responses, what people are saying. If this is resonating with them.
Louie: It is resonating.
Ravi: If it's simple enough, if people can understand and we can start taking the steps, I would love to hear what they say. This is way too important. There is nothing more important than this.
Louie: I agree. Ravi, thank you. You are extraordinary.
Ravi: Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Louie: Thank you. What an extraordinary human being he is. What a beautiful man. I just love talking with him.
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