Beyond Knowing: The Art of Experiencing Life
We often know a great deal about life without necessarily knowing how to live it. We know that we should be peaceful, but a small disturbance can rob us of our peace. We know we should let go, yet we carry yesterday’s hurts into today. We understand the importance of happiness, gratitude and love intellectually, but when life challenges us, these beautiful concepts can suddenly disappear.
Why does this happen?
Perhaps because much of our life is lived at the level of conception rather than experience. There is a difference between understanding something as an idea and allowing that understanding to become part of our being.
You may know everything about swimming from a book, but the book cannot make you a swimmer. You have to enter the water. In the same way, transformation cannot remain conceptual. It has to become existential.
Moving from knowing to being:
Spirituality , when understood deeply, need not be religious. It is an exploration of our inner world and of how intelligently we participate in life.
For this inner transformation, I often speak of three principles: Yantra, Mantra and Tantra.
Yantra can be understood as creating the right inner and outer space. The quality of a seed alone does not determine whether a flower will blossom, the soil and environment matter too. Similarly, transformation requires a space where there is understanding, awareness and celebration.
Mantra is commonly associated with Sanskrit chants, but its essence can be understood more broadly. A mantra can be a meaningful sound, word or affirmation that helps us create a new inner reference point. Through conscious repetition and an autogenic approach, we begin to work with the mind rather than remaining victims of its old patterns.
Observe the sentences you repeatedly tell yourself: “I cannot handle this,” “Nobody understands me,” “Life is unfair.” Such unconscious inner statements can themselves become powerful mantras.
Why not consciously create healthier ones?
“I am always a student of life.”
“I choose to remain cheerful.”
“I learn to give.”
“When I serve life, life supports me in unexpected ways.”
When such understandings move beyond words and become inner anchors, they begin to influence the quality of our response to life.
Techniques Must Become Alive:
Tantra, in this context, refers to methods and techniques for transformation. Meditation, conscious breathing and practices involving the body and awareness can help us discover dimensions of ourselves that ordinary thinking may not reach.
But there is an important point: a technique by itself does not transform you. You have to learn how to make the technique work.
Two people may practise the same meditation and experience it very differently. Transformation happens when technique is combined with understanding, involvement and awareness.
Breath, for example, accompanies us every moment, yet we rarely experience it consciously. Through what I call Prasanna Prana, one learns to bring a quality of cheerfulness and awareness to breathing itself. When the breath changes, our relationship with our inner state can also begin to change.
Similarly, practices such as Anganyasa and Karanyasa use parts of the body as conscious anchors. A gesture, touch or movement can become associated with a deeper intention. Repeated with awareness, such anchors can remind us of the state from which we want to live.
Over time, these inner anchors can become like a kavacha—not an armour that prevents difficulties from arising, but an inner protection that helps us meet life's inevitable turmoil with greater balance.
Healing the wounded bird within:
Many of us carry an unseen wounded child within ourselves. Old disappointments, rejection, fear and emotional pain can continue to influence our adult relationships and decisions. We may appear successful outside while a wounded bird continues to flutter within.
True transformation, therefore, involves not fighting that wounded part but learning to understand and heal it.
This movement—from concept to experience, from mechanical living to conscious living—is at the heart of the Existential Laboratory (E-Lab), a three-day residential retreat that I will be conducting in Bengaluru.
Why does this happen?
Perhaps because much of our life is lived at the level of conception rather than experience. There is a difference between understanding something as an idea and allowing that understanding to become part of our being.
You may know everything about swimming from a book, but the book cannot make you a swimmer. You have to enter the water. In the same way, transformation cannot remain conceptual. It has to become existential.
Moving from knowing to being:
Spirituality , when understood deeply, need not be religious. It is an exploration of our inner world and of how intelligently we participate in life.
For this inner transformation, I often speak of three principles: Yantra, Mantra and Tantra.
Yantra can be understood as creating the right inner and outer space. The quality of a seed alone does not determine whether a flower will blossom, the soil and environment matter too. Similarly, transformation requires a space where there is understanding, awareness and celebration.
Mantra is commonly associated with Sanskrit chants, but its essence can be understood more broadly. A mantra can be a meaningful sound, word or affirmation that helps us create a new inner reference point. Through conscious repetition and an autogenic approach, we begin to work with the mind rather than remaining victims of its old patterns.
Observe the sentences you repeatedly tell yourself: “I cannot handle this,” “Nobody understands me,” “Life is unfair.” Such unconscious inner statements can themselves become powerful mantras.
“I am always a student of life.”
“I choose to remain cheerful.”
“I learn to give.”
“When I serve life, life supports me in unexpected ways.”
When such understandings move beyond words and become inner anchors, they begin to influence the quality of our response to life.
Techniques Must Become Alive:
Tantra, in this context, refers to methods and techniques for transformation. Meditation, conscious breathing and practices involving the body and awareness can help us discover dimensions of ourselves that ordinary thinking may not reach.
But there is an important point: a technique by itself does not transform you. You have to learn how to make the technique work.
Two people may practise the same meditation and experience it very differently. Transformation happens when technique is combined with understanding, involvement and awareness.
Breath, for example, accompanies us every moment, yet we rarely experience it consciously. Through what I call Prasanna Prana, one learns to bring a quality of cheerfulness and awareness to breathing itself. When the breath changes, our relationship with our inner state can also begin to change.
Similarly, practices such as Anganyasa and Karanyasa use parts of the body as conscious anchors. A gesture, touch or movement can become associated with a deeper intention. Repeated with awareness, such anchors can remind us of the state from which we want to live.
Over time, these inner anchors can become like a kavacha—not an armour that prevents difficulties from arising, but an inner protection that helps us meet life's inevitable turmoil with greater balance.
Healing the wounded bird within:
Many of us carry an unseen wounded child within ourselves. Old disappointments, rejection, fear and emotional pain can continue to influence our adult relationships and decisions. We may appear successful outside while a wounded bird continues to flutter within.
True transformation, therefore, involves not fighting that wounded part but learning to understand and heal it.
This movement—from concept to experience, from mechanical living to conscious living—is at the heart of the Existential Laboratory (E-Lab), a three-day residential retreat that I will be conducting in Bengaluru.
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